Creative Writing and Stylistics

An overview of an approach to creative writing and its practice, by focusing on stylistic and narratological approaches to the discipline.

This lecture will present an overview of an alternative approach to creative writing and its practice, complementing more ‘traditional’ approaches, by focusing on stylistic and narratological approaches to the discipline. The method proceeds from the premise that the ambition to write creatively presupposes an interest in the ‘expressive mechanics’ of language. A more in-depth understanding of these processes will benefit the writer in many ways, for example by providing them with a precise taxonomy with which to describe various fictional, poetic and dramatic techniques. This will aid detailed analysis of their own and others’ creative work.

Stylistics in general is often taught through presenting theory in conjunction with textual examples. Using it as a tool to aid creative practice reverses the usual paradigm, by encouraging writers to produce creative work in the form of short exercises that exemplify and creatively explore the theory. A ‘two-pronged’ approach is adopted, then, whereby writers are at first introduced to various stylistic and narratological concepts and models (e.g. plot versus narrative, linguistic deviation, deixis, register, focalization, ways of representing thought/speech, and metaphor), then asked to respond to them creatively; for example, an exercise might encourage the use of linguistic deviation to foreground themes and images; another might lead to the deployment of varying types of focalization to tell the same story from different perspectives

This lecture will discuss the rationale behind the approach, as well as details of its implementation. A brief selection of exercises will also be presented.

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