Writings in Creative Writing
It is tricky, to define academic and non-academic writings in
Creative Writing field. In normal situations, journals and papers are the
typical genres to be considered as academic writing. However, based on the
interviewee—Jianan Qian, a Chinese writer who graduated from Iowa Writer’s
Workshop, she thinks that comment letters they exchange in workshop definitely
belong to academic writing in Creative Writing major. This blurry line between
academic and non-academic writings is unique in Creative Writing. For such
special instance, this paper will talk about two different types of academic
writing and one non-academic writing, discussing the techniques, purposes and
audiences in three of them.
Academic Writings in Normal: Journals
Writing techniques include many
aspects, such as structure, organization, language etc. Journals and papers are
considered as academic writing because these passages must be written in a
professional way: authors have to use objective languages, rightful citations
and strong arguments. Though this kind of articles are very hard to find in
Creative Writing field, there are still three relative journals found as samples
to analyze. Unlike papers are mostly written for instructors or professors who
have more authorities in the area that writers are studying, journals are
usually published on magazines to report or to show recent discoveries to
public readers who don’t really have expert knowledges. Also, because people
who wrote these journals are writers, their writing styles are a little bit
different from other areas’ journals.
The first rule of being objective is not writing in “first
person”. In the journal “That’s My Boy”, Surkan and McGill (2018) had a line
like this, “to illustrate these problems with the myth, we focus on recent books that reiterate it” (p.4). “We” and “I”
are very rare in journal writings because sentences start in first person
represent author’s personal ideas, sound more subjective than sentences without
them. However, three sample journals are using a lot of first person through
the whole articles. Journal “In the Group Home”, written by Bensel (2018), the
author not only used the first person, but also had a whole paragraph narrating
her own experience as example to explain how workshop works in Creative Writing
class (p.2-3). In normal cases, academic writing is not allowed to using
personal experience as sources or evidence, authors have to cite other scholarly
passages to support their opinions. But according to three sample journals in
Creative Writing, authors were continuing using first person, and provided
personal experience as examples, their tones were also more casual and less
academic, just like they were telling a story by using few formal phrases (the
result of, in particular, for instance, etc). The reason why they were writing
in this way is very clear: on one hand, they are writers who working on
fictions all the time, not papers; on the other hand, their purpose is
different from authors who write science journals.
Science journals contain many
knowledges that people don’t know before they read these articles, the purpose
of these journals is to explain something complex and unknow in a simple way
for their readers. Using strict and formal languages can help them looks more
authoritative and convincing, so readers will believe the arguments they made in
journals. Though, journals in Creative Writing have different purpose. When Meyntjens(2018)
started to establish his point, he wrote “as I will demonstrate, Bon’s
reception of Goldsmith’s work (his détournement) must be regarded in light of
his turn to American literature and writing handbooks” (p.3). It is a very
gentle point, because the purpose of this journal is to display author’s ideas.
Situations are same in other two samples, authors wrote these passages to show
how creative writing classes working in daily life, how they analyze literature
pieces as a writer. The opinions in these journals are neutral, even readers
won’t accept the ideas that authors are holding, it won’t cause any problems.
Authors don’t need to establish arguments and to argue something, they only
need to express their thoughts, to introduce something new to readers while it
related with creative writing field, just like what they are doing all the
time—writing stories for their audiences.
Journals in Creative Writing are
written for people who never study in this major before. All the people who are
not in this major may have similar questions: What people are studying in
Creative Writing? And how? Bensel (2018) defined Creative Writing class that “these
programs empower participants through active involvement in workshops, outlets
for self-expression, and acknowledgement within and beyond the workshop setting
in service of larger social justice goals” (p.2). Other two samples also have
definitions about Creative Writing program. Students who have studied this
major don’t need such explanations, as a result, journals introducing how
workshop works and what is the role of a mentor in creative writing class are
written for people who don’t familiar with this field.
Academic Writing for Creative Writers:
Comment Letters
During the interview, Jianan
strongly suggests that “academic writing for creative writers is the comment
letters they receive from peers and directors”. The comments and letters they
write are very often scholarly and contain special techniques. In the comment
letters, writers need to address specific writing and literary problems, and so
they need to adopt the right terms to make sure they are talking about the same
issues. In Jianan’s comment letter (2018), “something similar with the top of
page 11, Hunter’s warm-up activity. The second full paragraph, you have ‘the
problem is hiking bores him. Unless at the beach, he doesn’t care for nature’”
(p.1). There are citation and page number refer to original piece. Similar
format appears in other two letters when writers provide their advice to their
peers. When Ayana (2018) provided this suggestion to Jianan, “since you have
written this piece in the third person and are not, therefore, locked into Su’s
POV, I wonder if you couldn’t give us a bit more of her” (p.1), she brought a
term in Creative Writing “POV”—the point of view. Comment letters are not just
letters in normal concept, writers show their expert perspectives and offer
professional advice in a normative format.
The reason they take comment letters
very seriously is because they exchange their ideas by this formal method.
Writers discuss a piece during workshop time, and the comment letter is their
academic report about the piece they read. Comment letters are very same with
papers in science fields, writers show their opinions to people who are also
experts in this area, expressing their thoughts and study outcomes. As for the
letters written by mentors, Mary Ann Cain (2009) asserts that Creative Writing
teachers often point to men’s writing when suggesting what literature their
students should read (237). It means that mentors are giving a formal
paper-like feedback to their students through their comment letters.
Comment letters are having special
writing rules and clear purpose because the audiences (receivers) are students
who write pieces in Writer’s Workshop. Every writer who have finished a work
wants feedback so eagerly. To help people who will read the letter to progress,
comment letters only contain one or two strengths of one’s piece, weaknesses
for the rest of contents. Comparing the journals, comment letters may have more
terms and writing skills because of the audiences.
Non-academic Writing in General.
Non-academic writing is more casual
than academic writing, the definition is same with other areas. Emails and
announcements might be the most common types of non-academic writing in any
fields, even the notes for class and reading materials can be non-academic
writing. No special techniques for them, writers write whatever they want when
they write any of above writings. However, one typical non-academic writing
type appears only in Creative Writing field: proses and poems. The techniques
of writing prose and poems are exactly what people are learning and want to
learn during their daily life. No patterns in writing creative pieces. Everyone
has different habits in their own writings. Based on Jianan’s answer, she
didn’t have routines or patterns when she wrote. Every time she started a new
work, she wanted to try some new techniques, because except for reading comment
letters, that’s another useful way to find progress.
Purpose of doing non-academic
writing can be very different. Asking questions to directors, left a notecard
to remind others doing something, even the reading events holding in Prairie
Light need to write announcements as advertisements. Yet, to write prose and
poems are having very different feeling from writing a comment letters. As a
writer, writing creative pieces when inspiration comes is a native impulse. No
one can answer why, but they just want to write at some moments. Not for
mandatory quests, like comment letter, any writers will agree that they prefer
non-academic free writing. Doing their favorite action—writing without any
purpose is the best thing writers can ever imagine.
Audiences for non-academic writing
in this field is not really worth to discuss. The answer just simply to be
everyone. Writers write their works for every possible reader, including
strangers and people in Writer’s Workshop.
Conclusion
Journals,
comment letters and non-academic writings are very different in their writing
techniques. This is because different type of writings has different purposes
and audiences. Journals in Creative Writing has a part of techniques in common
with other kinds of journals but show personalities as journals in this special
field. The consensus that writers have about true academic writing
is comment letters they write every week. This unique
writing occurs only in Creative Writing major due to its special teaching and
learning methods. As for non-academic writing, hundreds of people have hundreds
different kinds of habits. Because prose and poems are categorized in
non-academic writing, perhaps Creative Writing is the only major that
non-academic writing is more valuable than academic writing.
References:
Surkan, Neil and
McGill, Robert (2018) “That’s My Boy: Challenging the Myth of Literary
Mentorship as In Loco Patris,” Journal of Creative Writing Studies: Vol. 3 :
Iss. 1 , Article 2.
Meyntjens,
Gert-Jan (2018) “Transatlantic Détournement? An Institutional Perspective on
François Bon’s Reception of Kenneth Goldsmith’s Uncreative Writing”, Journal of
Creative Writing Studies: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1 , Article 1.
Bensel, Alyse
(2018) “In the Group Home: Disenfranchised Youth and the Creative Writing
Workshop as Intervention”, Journal of Creative Writing Studies: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1
, Article 3.
Jianan, Qian.
(2018) “Critique on Instagram Boyfriend”, 1-2.
Ayana. (2018) “Critique
on Matchmaker”, 1-2.
