Hello my name is Matthew Cheeseman I lecture in Creative Writing.
Three years ago when Kay and I were developing this session we wanted to
introduce creative writing to researchers working in other disciplines
we wanted to teach techniques and discuss writing in general so the title
of this session 'Writing Without Discipline' means you can come at writing
from any discipline, and it's also a pun of course, because writing requires a lot
of discipline no matter where you where you work from. So to begin with I'd like
to look at a paper which looks at writing in the university it's entitled
'What an academic writers learn from creative writers' and it describes some
of the ways researchers tend to view themselves as rational, intellectual,
logical, controlled, clean, technical, the academic is someone who doesn't make mistakes
the academic is someone who produces and writes like a machine.
The authors go on to discuss writing in opposition to this: writing as an
emotional act, as something which is physical, bodily, unruly, vulnerable,
creative, basically all the things that researchers don't tend to frame
themselves as and this might explain why researchers often find writing difficult.
Of course creativity is the property of all writing, we can have creative
nonfiction, creative report writing, creative research papers. When we speak
of 'creative writing' we often mean 'imaginative writing' e.g. novels
and poems often imagine situations that don't exist.
So in this session you're going to practice creative techniques that you
can use in imaginative and non imaginative contexts. Pause me so that
you can meet each other, and when you've finished introductions, you'll need
something to write with pen and paper or a laptop.
You should all have an image in front of you, so on a piece of paper or on your laptop, I'd like you to write down
four things about the picture that can be confirmed simply by looking for facts. Here's my image
it's a drawing of a person reading a book in the Sun
the person appears to be naked
they are sitting on a chair.
And once you've got those four facts write down one thing that you totally invent.
For my invention I think that the person is reading a letter from a long-lost lover.
Have a go yourself, four facts one invention and then the facilitator will
take over the rest of the exercise.
You should now have ten observations and ten imaginations, so by two acts
of close attention with your eyes and the workings of your own
imagination you've got all you need now to write a story
notice how creative writing is grounded in a combination of observation and invention.
In this way it tells us something of the world and what the world could be.
This is why writers carry notebooks around with them. Not only are
they writing down imaginative ideas that come to them, but they're also seeing
things in the world which they think they can use in their work, and writing
down observations. Some researchers have used creative writing to talk about
research questions. Paul Graham Raven for example is both a science fiction
author and an engineer, and he's used science fiction to comment about energy futures.
So now that we've played around with the potential of creative writing,
let's focus more about what writing is. So to do this I'm going to lean on a
book about the writing process by Mike Sharples called
'How we write'. Sharples says that children learn to tell stories as an extension of
speaking. The model all children learn first is 'and then this happened,
then this happened, now this thing happened, and then this happened and
then this happened.' At the end this is something that we can all still do
ourselves now and here's an example that I wrote pretty much without thinking,
about the image:
Up until the age of 10 this is the only storytelling strategy children follow
da da da da then this up and then this then this.
You just make it up and you see where you go without worrying about the end. So this
strategy which Sharples calls 'knowledge telling' is still the way we form text in
our minds, and we can use it to help us write. 'Freewriting' is the name of a
technique used by creative writers that harnesses this knowledge telling
strategy: 'and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened' and
you can freewrite about anything. It's a really useful way of generating texts
which you can edit later. So we're going to try some free writing now and you're
all gonna write without stopping for a couple of minutes and it's fine to make
mistakes during this, so so I'd like you to get ready to write. It doesn't matter
you can type or you can you can write it out with a pen or pencil, but there are
rules to free writing which I'd like you to follow: firstly when the timer starts
you must write until it stops even if you can't think of anything to write,
just write 'I can't think of anything to write' - just keep going. So secondly write
whatever comes into your head. Thirdly you don't need to make sense or write in
complete sentences, the important thing is you don't pause. You write for the
whole two minutes and remember no one is going to check your work.
So I'm going to give you something to write about a prompt I'm going to ask you to write
about your image. So you can write about the observations you made, you can write
about the inventions you made, you can write about a combination of both of them
it really doesn't matter. Just make sure you use your image as a starting point,
and then see where you go. So if you need some words to start with you
can use: "this image reminds me of..." but if you want to start somewhere else,
prompted by your image, do so. Okay I'm going to hand over to the facilitator to
to time your exercise
whatever your experiences with free writing in this instance it's a really
useful way of generating text and can really help you produce work to edit later.
But hopefully you can see how it draws out what's already there in the
head; taps into what's running around in our conscious mind, and perhaps our
unconsciousness. That doesn't necessarily make freewriting 'creative'
indeed there is no special method of being creative which is applicable to
writing alone. There are rather general theories of creativity that are
applicable in in other contexts and many of these theories of creativity they
emphasize the importance of: daydreaming, forming analogies and metaphors,
mapping concepts and finding key ideas ideas that orientate our own writing.
See Sharples' book for more discussion of this. So depending on your focus you can
use free writing to do different things. For example freewriting at an intense
pace gives a cerebral controlled result, very descriptive, I find it useful to
locate key ideas in whatever it is I'm writing about. While writing a slower
more rhythmic way allows you to be more creative or imaginative. It's easier to
form analogies, create metaphors, jump around, so for example freewriting at an
intense pace, I'll give it a go:
okay now I'm gonna do the same thing but I'm gonna be less kind of focused, and for me I have to I have to relax
little and and write at less of a pace, and it allows me to, to kind of
escape from the text but find metaphors within it.
So just by moving my mind into a different place I kind of went different
areas, and, why don't you pause me now and try the second method, the slower method,
where you go more places with your images for a couple of minutes.
Once you get the rhythm right just go with where your words take you you don't
need to say it out loud like I did.
so we've become more proficient at writing as we grow up. One of the reasons
is that we learn how to manage this knowledge telling strategy, this flow of
words, that we can all turn on. We learn how to manage it using a range of
technologies and techniques some of which we learn at school. Writing is the most
important technology of all of course, it allows us to record our
words, to freeze them in time. Other technologies and techniques help us
manage complicated writing projects, and help us shape our knowledge telling abilities.
All of these affect our writing in different ways, so paper and
pen allows us to make notes quickly, post-it notes allow us to rearrange
ideas. Typewriters are really good for writing something and getting to the end
of it without too many changes. Word processors do the opposite, and just as
laptops let you write in libraries and coffee shops, desktops are good for
having your own quiet space, your own office. Programs here like 'Write or Die'
'Scrivener' or Ulysses, they help you organize big projects and texts, and
websites such as '750 words' encourage us to write something every day. There are
two things that definitely help writers. The first is a community of support, and
this could be a writers group where you read and discuss each other's work. As
researchers I recommend you do this regularly, it doesn't matter if you're
not specialists in each other's fields, get together, give honest and
constructive feedback and critique and it doesn't matter whether you're writing
a novel or a thesis, share your writing, and take on board other people's comments.
Use the group as something to motivate you in delivering drafts.
The second thing is related to that last point, develop a writing habit
write every working day no matter what. Write for 30 minutes or an hour in the
early morning or at night, whenever you have the time.
Edit what you wrote yesterday, before you start again. And if you're one of those
people who thinks 'well I need more than an hour to get into it' then you'll,
you'll need to learn how to write for an hour a day instead, and it might take you
a few weeks before you're used to this, but believe me you can learn how to do it.
It's a it's it's something we learn, it's a skill we learn to do, so if you're
one of those people perhaps consider learning how to write in short periods
of time. If you don't believe you can do it,
try it for a week. Developing a writing habit allows you to
write without worry, it forgives the bad days when nothing happens and gives you
the good days, and because you're going to write every day, it doesn't matter what
happens it's something you do. I need help
motivating myself to do this, so I use a web I use a website '750 words' and every
day I write 750 words. I'm sure other websites are available. So do pause me
now to discuss the technology, the techniques, and the habits that you use.
What could you change or develop? Could you start a writing group?
so we've discussed writing and knowledge telling, and we've done some exercises on
freewriting. We've discussed technology and techniques, and now we're going to
discuss a third thing which is reflection - a crucial part of the writing process.
It's when you stop producing text, and you think about the text that
you've already produced. When children learn to write they begin to
reflect between the ages of 10 and 14, before that they just 'and then this
happened and then this happened and then this happened' but then they begin to see
writing as a thing that can be planned changed and edited, not just the
knowledge telling action of writing itself. So reflection allows us to
alternate between writing and thinking. We can do a number of things when we
reflect. We can read through our work, we can think about ideas associations or
memories that our work brings up, we can form and transform ideas, we can specify
what new material to create - where you're going to take the piece - and we can work
on the organization of what you've written. So for the next exercise I want
you to read through what you've written and reflect on it. Try to follow
some of the processes outlined on the slide. You might circle things out, circle
things that interest you, or cross things out, there's no right or wrong way of
reflecting, just give it a go.
So although everyone produces text in the same way - the knowledge telling strategy -
not everyone reflects in the same way
Sharples believes that how you write is determined by when you start reflection
in the writing process. And the essential difference is between those who begin with
the period of reflection - a planner - and those who begin with a session of
knowledge telling or a session of engaged writing - sort of writing to think.
So we've got planners, and those who write to think, and perhaps we could have
a show of hands in the room right now of those who are planners - put your hands up
if you plan something before you write, and then those who just start - they write
to think. Aside from this very basic division there are many different sorts of writers.
The important thing to remember is that none of these patterns are
natural and unchangeable, all of them are learnt behaviours. I used to be one of
those writers who had to revise as I went, sentence by sentence, polishing
gradually from the beginning to the end. A couple of years ago I changed how
I write and reflect, and now I start by planning the text, writing it, and then
revising it. It's improved my writing and it's definitely improved my work rate as
I'm not wasting time polishing text I'll never keep.
So in groups of three or four could you discuss which of these patterns matches
your approach to writing? Would you think about changing it?
so think about the first structures you encountered: stories, thank you
letters, essays texts... The more we practice these, the more we think about
them, the more we read them, the better we get at writing them. So as we grow older
we read more and more different things, and by reading we learn about them,
we begin to recognise aspects of them, we understand the style of the writing, the
content of the writing, the language and the syntax, the organization and purpose
of texts, and we understand how each of them organizes the expectations of readers.
I like this quote from Sharples which describes the importance of this well:
So the more you expose yourself to a text or style, the
better you become at it. Be that fan fiction, poetry, tweets, blogs, lesson
planning, writing research papers, or novels. So following that logic if you're
writing a thesis, how many thesis' have you read?
If you haven't read any, can you ask your supervisor or someone to recommend some thesis'
so that you can absorb the style and structure of their presentation?
To recap following Mike Sharples, writing is four things. Firstly it's our ability
to generate a flow of words from improvisation and association - from what
we already know somewhere. This is what I've been referring to as 'knowledge telling'.
Secondly it's the ability to record and develop our
thoughts using a variety of technologies and techniques. Thirdly it's the process
of reflection and revision which allows us to transform our writing. Fourthly
it's a growing awareness of language style and structures, that we can, with
lots and lots of practice, learn or even master. The important point is that none
of this is beyond our skills, it just takes a little bit of time, preparation,
and a willingness to experiment. Remember these four principles whether you're
writing a poem, novel, thesis, or research paper: 1. be disciplined and consistent with writing,
write every working day for 30 minutes or an hour. 2. experiment with
technologies and techniques most importantly join a writing group.
3. reflect, revise and edit so that you transform your writing. 4. keep reading
and practicing so that you develop your awareness of language style and structure.
As a final note if you're writing everyday, if you're producing
words, remember that it's fine to also get rid of what you you produce. It's
fine to delete things, it's fine to decide that what you've been trying
hasn't worked out. Don't feel that you have to always make something of what
you produce. On that note I'd like to to thank you for listening, and I hope
that you've got something from today.
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