Mostly this book is broken down by genre. Everything from radio to hypertext. There are a few pertinent essays in the back.
Rob Pope gives a succinct intro to his "Textual Intervention" deal in his essay called "Critical-Creative Rewriting":
Of course, all mature courses in Creative Writing require some evidence of 'process', too. But unless this is supported by a work-log and a full record of research and reading as well as reflection (as in a comprehensive portfolio), the critical element is often perfunctory: a dutiful bolt-on attached after the event. (130)It strikes me, though, that most if not all criticism happens "after the event." For writers and readers both. Northrop Frye distinguished between pre-critical and critical experience of a work by stating that the first was the only type of experience that could take place while reading (or viewing, as with a play) since the whole was not yet in view and could therefore not be judged.
Writing can be a pre-critical experience, as when a work is developing by "inspiration" or "intuition" or whathaveyou. It can also be a critical experience--that is *the writing itself* can be a critical experience--as when one looks at what one has written and must make decisions about what to change or leave alone and why. So all writing, at least all rewriting is critical at some level. I suppose some folks rewrite more by "feel" and would call their revisions "inspirations" or "inspirational." Even so, they must, even if unconsciously, filter their work according to some standards of what makes a good piece of writing, or how a given piece will best suit its purpose.
Pope seems to feel this way too, since he says that "writing is not just 'creative' but...there is always a 'critical' dimension to it too (we weight the words we choose)" (131).
Maybe his "bolt-on" comment was meant simply as a take-down of workshop approaches that don't feature the critical as a part of the creative process and not as a take-down of the creative process itself. That makes more sense.
His description of the process he proposes:
We always start with a text that already exists, preferably in more than one version, and then we rewrite it: adapt it, critique it, intervene in it. (131)*Textual intervention* is the more or less deliberate challenging and changing of a text so as to put it off balance: to point it in a fresh direction or develop it in an alternate dimension—to de- and re-centere, de- and re-construct it. This might involve anything from tinkering with a few words to full-scale textual transformation. (132)
He gives *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead* and *Wide Sargasso Sea* as examples of the latter and "To buy or not to buy" as an example of the former.
The rest of his essay gets more specific about how to create textual intervention-based exercises. It's not a bad approach. Certainly a nice twist on the "imitation" exercise. It takes one aspect of the creative writing process and puts it in a new context. "Textual intervention" is what we all do to our own texts every time we write, calling it "revision." Pope's exercise allows students to make the revision process explicit and creative and playful by turning it loose on someone else's stuff. At some point, I think it would be important to make it explicit that this playful revisioning is what it is: an exercise that allows writers to bring a sense of play and creativity to the revision of their own work.
Harper's own essay "Research in Creative Writing" is a bit trying but gets at some good material.
His answer to the question "What is valid academic work for CW?" is, more or less, that writing is research. I'm oversimplifying things, but not so much. It would be better to say that, for Harper, research or critical work of some kind is always a part of the writing process:
The creative writer engages in, and constructs alongside their creative practice, an active critical understanding of a specific kind. This critical understanding is in part based on a development of a craft, a set of skills that are practical, applied, pragmatic; the creative writer learns what works, and aims to employ this learning...The creative writer's critical understanding is also based on a sense of genre, form and convention. (161)This leads into his "responsive critical understanding" idea, which I've read about in other work by Harper elsewhere:
The creative writer researches their sense of critical understanding, 'in process', whether prior, during or after the production of a single work, and most directly in relation to immediate or future work, planned or as yet unplanned...This can be called *responsive critical understanding*, and it is both the purpose and the product of creative writing research. (162)CW research exists for the purpose of enhancing whatever part of the writing process is necessarily critical.
He recommends research into what he calls the "art" and the "cultures" of creative writing. By art, he means "that all writers have a concern with words, their meaning, their arrangment, and their impact on their audience...the writer seeks additional knowledge of the nature of words, and of their use" (163). By "cultures" Harper refers to the "interaction between...the individual writer and her or his environment." His explanation of how this research takes place is helpful:
'What if?' is the question that drives the process of creative writing...'What if this was my life?' 'What if my daily routine took this turn?' 'What if this disaster had befallen me?'...The creative writer inserts themselves [sic] into the inter- // pretative position; empathetically, providing a way for the reader to follow through a speculation, effectively alongside the writer themselves [sic]. (164)All his what ifs involve his own person, rather than a character separate from himself. And his list may be more specific to fiction writers than poets perhaps. But the idea that a writer is exploring material through a creative response is interesting. It means the creative project *is* a critical project, and defends the intellectual process of creative writing as equal (at least in merit) to other academic work.
Another reason this last quote is helpful is that it complicates the distinction between what I've been thinking about as the "creative" side and the "critical" side of the writing process. The "creative" side has a critical element to it, or it can. It can represent a critical imaginative engagement with the world.
LEADS:
I read in another article that Wendy Bishop has a more recent book on the writing process.
On Writing: A Process Reader.
There's a 2008 edition out. Could have some good leads on current stuff on the writing process.
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