The Cambridge introduction to creative writing
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Harry G. Broadman - Africa\'s Silk Road China and India\'s New Economic Frontier (2007, World Bank Publications) - libgen.li
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- Writing about people and the world
| Writing Game W R IT ING ABOUT REAL PE OP LECH ARA CT ER SKETCHES As with flash fiction (see Chapter Six ), a character sketch is a tightly written and highly focused form of around 500 words, and an extremely effective exercise for new writers of creative nonfiction. It allows for no excess verbiage, and can be written within the time of a workshop. The quickest approach is to write about somebody known by everybody in your group – for example, a member of the workshop, the tutor, or an interesting member of your wider community. It is probably best to concentrate on one characteristic of the person, and use vivid but concrete detail and snippets of speech. A I M This short form forces wit to its surface and one of the challenges of character sketches is to sublimate a desire for self-display in order to capture the essence of the subject and one aspect of their character – for example, their generosity, vanity, heroism or modesty. Several character sketches can be woven together to create longer works, or adapted and threaded into nonfictional work. They are also useful exercises for creating believable characters in fiction. Writing about people and the world What obsesses you What do you want to explore What might you investigate? Make a list. William Zinsser declares that new writers ought to begin their writing lives with creative nonfiction because They will write far more willingly about subjects that touch their own lives or that they have an aptitude for ( 2005 : 99). For creative writing students from academic backgrounds such Creative nonfiction 189 as the sciences, creative nonfiction comes into its own, and writing what you know might prove to be writing about your own studies or research (see ‘Creative writing in the creative academy in Chapter Ten ). Those new creative writers who worry that writing about external matters is less authentic a project than writing about themselves ought to be relieved by the certainty that the style of any piece of writing is going to reveal as much about the writer as it is about the subject. However, the way you write will also reveal inauthenticity, especially if you get facts and details wrong through lack of familiarity. Finding a topic If you find it difficult to locate a topic, then write atrial piece in which you take a subject that you know a great deal about. Again, test out its promise and literary integrity by writing it as a scene, or a series of scenes. Many new writers begin with what is on their doorstep family history. They then choose some discrete aspect of family history, one that they know very little about, and which requires a small amount of research. They shift from the panoptic to the microscopic focus. Tight scenes have much greater light and energy than any vague, large vision. Mirror this shift of focus in your creative nonfiction. Choose an aspect of the world or people that you know reasonably well, and then choose some aspect that is new to you and needs fieldwork. Your task is to connect them without them seeming slung together haphazardly. For example, you might wish to write a personal essay about one of your grandparents, but then use the impact of age on memory as a hook on which to hang the essay. A similar strategy is to take two aspects of life, and lean them against each other so that they become more than the sum of their parts. For example, you could write apiece that combined your love of a sport with foreign travel. Or combine public and private narratives, such as an issue of public injustice with some crisis in your family life. Ask yourself what touches your life now, or who touches your life, and excites you into expression. Is there a current issue you know intimately and wish to share Or is there an issue, place or person that you are desperate to find out more about Choose your topic with some care make it contemporary and keep it current. If it does not possess and excite you, then this will show in the writing. It is a good idea to run at several ideas for articles simultaneously, until one of them takes on its own life. Once you have chosen the topic, write down everything you know about it in note form, and then think about at least five questions to probe the subject. The answers to these questions will need 190 Creative writing research but, taken with the notes, they will form the first draft of the article using the basic essay structure. Download 2.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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