Creative Writing Discovery

Creative Writing Discovery

Sr. Humanities

Open Ended

If you are asked to write something, how do you start? Where do you get your ideas?

"I don't have any good ideas"

How many times have you said this? When asked to write a poem, a letter, or a short story, you stare at a blank page having no idea where to start.

Uncertainty

"Indeed, one of the most difficult lessons a writer must learn is that uncertainty - sometimes quite painful uncertainty - is an integral part of the writing process. It does not go away with age, experience, or praise..."

So How Do We Overcome It?

We will review how you can harness the inherent doubt and uncertainty of the creative process in order to begin discovering your own voice and material.

Open Ended

What does it mean when someone says "write what you know"?

Does this old advice hold true?

Yes. It simultaneously grounds you in the concrete sensory world that is all around you and discourages you from cliched ruminations on abstract topics.

There is an infinite value, beauty, and meaning in the ordinary.

Does that mean no space ships?

Writing what you know doesn't mean you have to write a world that is exactly like the one you see around you, rather it is about imagining a world that is a reflection of your unique perspective and observation skills.

Austen saw a world that was full of rules for engagement that far outweighed common sense; Chbonsky saw a world where friends meant everything and truth was something we could bury, and Shakespeare saw a world where ugly women were where it was at. :)

Raymond Carver's advice

"Talent is commonplace - he doesn't know too many writers without it. What does distinguish certain writers as being above the crowd is a 'unique and exact way of looking at things.'"

On Rendering, Not Solving, the Mysteries That Surround Us

"It is the business of fiction to embody mystery through manners, and mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind,." - Flannery O'Connor

What does that mean?

Mysteries of Earth

In every hour in every day, we are confronted by mysteries: things we don't know, things we don't understand.

Yes, we're in the middle of our own life, our own worlds: the banal and utterly predictable world of Sylvania. Yet, even so, there are mysteries, O'Connor is telling us.

Not just questions of philosophy, but why was your mom so irritable this morning? Or what motivated your girlfriend to suddenly stop texting you? (did you check your breath?)

Mysteries

There are mysteries everywhere, and as we said before, it is our job to notice them.

So write about what you don't know about what we know....aka write about the mysteries in the world that we know deeply.

Helpful Hint on Mysteries

Do not try to solve them.

As writers, we're not looking to provide a lesson or a moral; we're not therapists looking to cure our characters of pain or neurosis. Our job, as writers, is simply to render what is using precise, concrete details.

Don't tell us why something is, show us how it is.

Excercise

Review the exercise in schoology