Myths about research

September 26, 2019September 25, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Early on in the information literacy course I teach each semester, I introduce students to a couple of common myths about research, things students commonly believe because of their experience with academic research. This includes things like “research is about finding the right answer” and “citation sucks” (which I tell them isn’t really a myth because, well, citation does suck).

Now that I’m spending some time thinking about the role of research in creative writing, I’m finding that there’s a whole other set of myths/beliefs that keep cropping up, ones that I hadn’t thought about or that don’t apply to the type of research I usually teach.

10 Books Project: Back to Creative Writing School

September 24, 2019September 23, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Back to Creative Writing School by Bridget Whelan reminds me a little bit of a book I used to own (and might still have, buried somewhere in my childhood closet in my parents’ house) called Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg. Room to Write is a book of writing exercises that was given to me as a gift when I was a teenager. At one point, I was determined to complete every exercise in the book.

It turns out I am terrible at writing exercises. Despite that, I still bought another book a few years ago called 642 Things to Write About. It is currently collecting dust on a shelf in my office. I think I did three of the exercises. Same with Start Where You Are.

So you might think that my past record with writing exercises might color my thoughts on Back to Creative Writing School. I thought it might, too, but luckily my purpose in reading it wasn’t to complete any of the exercises. It was to learn whether the author might have anything to say about the role of research in the writing process.

Back to Creative Writing School was number 9 on the list of the top 10 most popular writing books on Goodreads (as of June 2018). Below are my thoughts, some related to my research, some not.

10 Books Project: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

September 10, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

So I’ve mentioned before that in my quest to read and analyze 10 popular books on creative writing to see how/whether they talk about the role of research in the creative process, not every book is a good candidate, but I’m being a completist about it anyway because you never know.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King is the ninth book on the list. Below are some thoughts.

What #OwnVoices tells us about the importance of research to the creative process

September 5, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Image by tookapic from Pixabay

I first learned about the #OwnVoices movement in young adult literature earlier this year when Amelie Wen Zhao made headlines by pulling her work from publication due to criticism of “problematic content.” The movement made headlines again a few months later when Kosoko Jackson, a vocal member of the movement, was forced to pull his own book for similar reasons. Since then, there have been several thinkpieces about the movement and the motivations of the people behind it, including questions of whether what they’re doing constitutes censorship when it leads to books being pulled from publication.

As I understand it, what the #OwnVoices movement is demanding is that stories about marginalized groups should only be told about members of those marginalized groups. This seems to be a reaction to the fact that, historically speaking, books about marginalized groups tend to be written by privileged white people. At least, the ones that get published and get awards. The stance of the #OwnVoices people is that these stories should only be told in the voices of those who have actually experienced marginalization.

I am not particularly comfortable with what the #OwnVoices movement does or how it does it or cancel culture in general. But it seems to me that the movement was born of a legitimate grievance and one that points to just how problematic the myth of the artist as an inspired genius can be.(1)

10 Books Project: Thoughts on Zen in the Art of Writing

August 27, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Image by Gerhard Bögner from Pixabay

So if I’m being honest, I had never heard of Zen in the Art of Writing or any of the essays in it before encountering it on the list I’m using for my project. It wasn’t the only book on the list I wasn’t familiar with but it was the only one by Ray freakin’ Bradbury.

I tend to think of Ray Bradbury’s work as Required Reading, like the kind of thing that’s liable to show up on a high school summer reading list or maybe a college course syllabus. Which is ironic, considering how in at least one of the essays here Bradbury goes on and on about how teachers and librarians don’t appreciate the value of genre fiction like the stuff he writes.

So. Hmm.

Anyway, in reading this book, I had a couple of takeaways, some of which are related to my research project and some aren’t.

Thoughts on The Elements of Style (but not really)

August 13, 2019August 8, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

So when I saw The Elements of Style on the list of most popular writing books, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to have anything in it about research since it’s more of a reference book about punctuation and grammar but I decided to be a completist and include it in my study anyway. I was right that there wasn’t really anything about research, but I’m glad I read it mostly because almost every other book on this list either makes mention of it or actively recommends it.

When it comes to books about grammar and punctuation, I’m more of an Eats, Shoots and Leaves person than a Strunk & White person (as The Elements of Style seems to be more commonly known), so some of my thoughts on The Elements of Style are mixed up with more general thoughts about this topic and ES&L specifically.

A whole lot of “no duh”: The role of curiosity in creativity

August 8, 2019July 26, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

So lately I’ve been reading about the role of curiosity in creativity. While most of what I’m finding relates to things like creative problem solving, there does seem to be some general consensus that curiosity is positively associated with creativity. Meaning if you’re a creative person, chances are you’re also a curious person.

Which to a lot of people probably sounds like a whole lot of “no duh” but I think this is a really important clue when it comes to thinking about the role of research in creative writing. A clue we have to rely on because there are so few systematic investigations into the creative process, which leaves us with only writers’ self-reports for knowledge about what they do and how they do it. As we’ve seen, there tends to be very little information in those self-reports about the research that goes into a creative work.

In other words, it’s easy to guess that research plays a role in the creative process but there’s not a lot of proof. Connecting the dots between curiosity, creativity, and information-seeking doesn’t get us that proof but it does help make a case.

Even Jane the Virgin does research

July 25, 2019 ahosier1 Comment

Image source: Wikipedia

With Jane the Virgin coming to an end soon, I wanted to spend a little time writing about an aspect of the show that caught my attention but which probably never gets talked about: its portrayal of research as part of the creative writing process.

10 Books Project: Thoughts on Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway

July 23, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Image by Gerhard Bögner from Pixabay

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway (with Elizabeth Stuckey-French and Ned Stuckey-French) was number six on the list of Goodreads’ popular creative writing books.

Because Writing Fiction is more of a textbook by nature (see below), it has more editions than other books on this list. For this project, I was able to get a hold of the eighth edition, which is not the most recent one. I make note of it only because there might be some content differences between the various editions that I’m unaware of since I only read the one. If you’re familiar with the book and you do spot some differences, I’d be interested to hear about them.

Below are some more detailed thoughts.

Creative research: Resisting the urge to be prescriptive

July 18, 2019July 18, 2019 ahosierLeave a comment

Image by HeungSoon from Pixabay

There isn’t a lot of research out there that investigates the information-seeking habits of writers and other artists but there’s something peculiar about the literature I am finding, especially the stuff that comes from the library and information science field. In a lot of cases, it seems like researchers who are interested in understanding how creative people do research are less interested in the role that research plays in the creative process than they are about the role the library plays in the creative process. Basically, there’s an assumption that the library is a necessary or appropriate component of this type of research. Or if it’s not, that it should be.

Respectfully, I disagree. I say this as a librarian.

Studying Research

Research is not a basic skill

Category: Research in fiction writing