Now that I’m officially on sabbatical for the fall, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual. Rather than devote an entire post to reflections on each of these items, I thought I’d share some thoughts on them in smaller, bite-sized pieces.
Category: Research in fiction writing
Research in Fiction Writing: Thoughts on (Woman) Writer and The Faith of a Writer
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research in the creative process, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today I’m talking about two books by Joyce Carol Oates: (Woman) Writer and The Faith of a Writer.
Creative information-seeking: What I learned from my literature review
Image by Steve Johnson from Pixabay
I spent some time recently reviewing some of the literature on creative information-seeking from the library and information science field as part of my project on the role of research in fiction writing. I wanted to understand what our field already knew about how creative populations find and use information as part of the creative process so that I could use that knowledge to inform my own work.
At the end of the day, I learned a lot of interesting things but I also felt a lot of frustration with what I was finding. Sandra Cowan has a great article that captures her own frustrations with research on this topic, many of which echoed my own feelings.(1) If you’re able to access that article, I highly recommend taking the time to read it if you have any interest in research on creative information-seeking. In the meantime, here’s a summary of my own thoughts, which is maybe a little more rant-like than I intended. Oops.
Research in fiction writing: Thoughts on Burning Down the House
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research in that process, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today I’m taking a look at Burning Down the House by Charles Baxter.
What I’m reading: September 2020
Now that I’m officially on sabbatical for the fall, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual. Rather than devote an entire post to reflections on each of these items, I thought I’d share some thoughts on them in smaller, bite-sized pieces.
Research in Fiction Writing: Thoughts on The Secret Miracle
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today, I’m taking a look at The Secret Miracle: The Novelist’s Handbook, edited by Daniel Alarcon.
Research in fiction writing: Thoughts on The Art of Time in Fiction
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research in the creative process, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today, I’m taking a look at The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silber.
The true as the enemy of the good: Creative license and the ethical use of information
Image by Angeles Balaguer from Pixabay
I’ve been thinking a little bit lately about creative license and its implications for the ethical use of information.
Now, when information literacy instructors talk to students about the ethical use of information, we’re usually focusing on citation and plagiarism and academic honesty and issues like that because that’s what’s most relevant to the type of research that students do. Sometimes, in keeping with the “Information Has Value” frame from the ACRL Framework, we might dip into stuff about copyright or open access or Creative Commons. But for the most part we’re talking about giving proper credit to the sources you use for academic research.
Though it doesn’t come up a lot (at least in my teaching), I would think the ethical use of information also means representing the content of a source you’re citing accurately. There may be room for your own interpretation, of course, but in general it’s understood that you shouldn’t cherry pick bits and pieces of information from a source to suit your purposes or misrepresent the original author’s stance by taking a quote out of context or something like that. Because if you do those things, you risk doing real harm to the credibility of your work and your reputation as a scholar.
If cherry picking information would be frowned upon in scholarly, academic, and scientific research, creative license would be basically forbidden. Because creative license takes cherry picking a step further by allowing someone to twist or ignore information in order to suit their creative purposes.
Research in fiction writing: Thoughts on The Way of the Writer (…and a rant)
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list of recommended creative writing books that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
Today, I’m taking a look at Charles Johnson’s The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling.
Research in fiction writing: Thoughts on From Where You Dream
After reading 10 popular books on creative writing in search of information on the role of research in the creative process, I’ve now shifted my focus to a set of more “academic” books that are specifically about fiction writing. I say “academic” because, of all of the books on a very long list that I found, these are the ones that are a) about fiction writing specifically and b) owned by the libraries at 20 institutions with highly respected creative writing programs at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
This time, the research process is a little more complicated because my access to my library’s print collection is limited and my access to print books through interlibrary loan is currently at zero, which means my best option is to purchase the books I’ve identified for my new study. Most of the books are reasonably affordable but, yeah. How fast this gets done may in large part depend on how often I can spend the money.
That said, I was able to get a hold of a copy of From Where You Dream pretty easily. Robert Olen Butler is credited as the author of the book but really the book is made up of transcriptions of some lectures that he gave as part of a fiction writing workshop that he taught. These transcriptions were captured and edited by Janet Burroway, the original author of Writing Fiction.
