Tag: Research in fiction writing

Even Shakespeare did research (probably)

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So there was an article in The Atlantic this month by Elizabeth Winkler about whether the works attributed to William Shakespeare might have actually been written by a woman named Emilia Bassano. It is fascinating. Highly recommended.

Like, I kind of knew that there were some disagreements out there about who might have actually authored Shakespeare’s plays. But I had no idea how many gaps and inconsistencies there were in the historical record that scholars have trouble explaining when they’re defending Shakespeare as the author. The information in this article makes the case in his favor seem surprisingly weak.

But why am I writing about this here? Well, a core piece of the argument against Shakespeare and in Bassano’s favor is related to the amount of research that would have gone into creating these plays and other works.

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10 Books Project: Thoughts on Bird by Bird

ahosier3 Comments

Image by Gerhard Bögner from Pixabay

In the interest of full disclosure, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott has always held a special place on my bookshelf. The copy I own is one I bought for a creative writing class way back when I was an undergrad in a creative writing program. And while there are a couple of books on the list I had read before starting this project, this was the only one I’d read more than once.

Usually when I read this book, it’s because my writing isn’t going as well as I want it to and I need something to make me feel better. This time, I was reading it for much different reasons and I was surprised by what I learned.

Here are some thoughts I had on Bird by Bird.

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Librarians are failed writers

ahosier2 Comments

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I’m not sure at what point in your college career you’re supposed to start seriously thinking about what you want to do for a living after you graduate. I suspect if I asked my students now, they would tell me that this is something they were expected to figure out in high school. That they’ve entered college with an eye toward earning whatever degree is most marketable in whatever field is currently experiencing a lot of growth.

For me, there was never any question about what I wanted to study. I’d known I wanted to be an English major since approximately the sixth grade. But it took until my junior year of college for me to realize that I needed to figure out what, exactly, I wanted to do with that degree once I graduated. So I left it kinda late.

Knowing this, I went to a writing professor of mine for advice. I told him I had looked at a number of possible career paths, including librarianship.

“Don’t become a librarian,” he said. “Librarians are losers. They’re all just failed writers.”

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10 Books Project: Thoughts on On Writing

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So in case you missed it, I’m working on a project to read through ten popular books on creative writing to learn whether and how they talk about the role of research in the creative writing process.

The books I chose came from a list on Goodreads. On Writing by Stephen King is pretty consistently at the top of that list which is no surprise, considering King’s massive popularity. What aspiring writer wouldn’t want to know what one of the most successful authors of all time (if not THE most successful author) has to say about his craft?

Personally, I would describe myself as a casual Stephen King fan. I’ve read a few of his books here and there and sometimes return to my old favorites (The Stand, The Drawing of the Three). This was my first time returning to On Writing since first reading it as a teenager. I had no memory of whether King addresses the role of research at all. I did, however, remember the thing about adverbs.

Below are some thoughts.

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The Role of Research in Fiction Writing: A Suspicion

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I’m using this blog in part to talk about a project I’m working on which involves reading through popular writing advice books to find out how and whether they discuss the role of research in creative writing . Before I get to some of what I’ve found so far, I wanted to spend some time establishing where the idea that research plays a role in creative writing comes from in the first place.

Because let me tell you, it was not, as far as I can recall, in any of the creative writing workshops I took as an undergraduate. If we ever discussed research as part of the creative process in that program, I have no memory of it.

Yet I can’t help but suspect that research does play a role in creative writing.*

Let me explain where that suspicion comes from.

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Welcome to Studying Research!

ahosier1 Comment

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Welcome to Studying Research! My name is Allison Hosier and I’m an Information Literacy Librarian at the University at Albany, SUNY. As a researcher, I am interested in the contextual nature of research and the metaconcept that research is both an activity and a subject of study, an idea I adapted from work by Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle and first wrote about in an article that was published in College & Research Libraries. 

These days, my work is leading me down two separate but related research paths. The first is understanding the study of research through the lens of the research-as-subject metaconcept. The second is learning about the role of research in fiction writing.

My initial goals for the blog are as follows:

  • To share further thoughts and practical ideas related to my article
  • To reflect on a project to learn about research in fiction writing via popular writing advice books

Eventually I would like for this blog to become a space for conversation on these two topics.

  • Are you a researcher who studies the products or processes of research in order to understand something about research itself?
  • Are you a fiction writer (published or unpublished) with something to say about the role of research in your work?

If so, I would love to start a conversation with you!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy what you find here.