Creative Writing and Literary Theory: Allies or Rivals?
The worldwide rise of Creative Writing offers a number of inspirations that might enrich certain areas of Literary Theory (such as concepts of authorship, problems of literary value or the nature of the writing process). On the other hand, Literary Theory might contribute to formulating a solid conceptual basis for Creative Writing, a discipline which all too often relies on unchallenged intuitive assumptions.
15 September
A) Pedagogy and Theory
10:00 Mónica Crespo (Idazle Eskola, Basque Country): Some Theories behind Creative Writing Workshops
11:00 Ainara Maya (Idazle Eskola, Basque Country): What is the (Basque) Writers’ School?
12:00–14:00 lunch break
B) Between Theory, Technique and Inspiration
14:00 Mattia Garofalo (Scuola Holden, Italy): The Devil’s in the Details: The Rise and Fall of Theory
15:00 Eva Gonzales (Escuela de Escritores, Spain): Writing between Intuition and Theory
16:00 Gessica Franco Carlevero (Scuola Holden, Italy): Practice Makes Mastery
16 September
C) Writing and Genres
10:00 Brad Vice (University of West Bohemia and Literary Academy, Czech Republic): Genre and Subversion
11:00 Harri István Mäki (Orivesi College of Arts, Finland): Taming the Beast Within: How to Write Horror Stories
12:00–14:00 lunch break
D) Writing Today?
14:00 Simona Garbarini (Scuola Holden, Italy): Storytelling in 1936 and Now
15:00 Richard Olehla (Literary Academy, Czech Republic): Beyond the Imaginative: Reality and Its Depiction in 9/11 Novel
Lecture annotations
Gessica Franco Carlevero: Practice Makes Mastery
The Italian novelist Alberto Moravia claimed that “you are born a writer”. As if it was a genetic gift, as if the writing DNA molecule actually existed. Nevertheless, since 400 BC authors have studied texts about the use of language: rhetoric texts. In the Divine Comedy, Brunetto Latini states: “Rhetoric is the noble science that teaches us to find and to choose good and beautiful words that nature demands”. Literature is a mix of mystic and technique. Literature is the art of invoking demons, and we need magic spells and rules for the exorcism. A work of fine consciousness is required to give freedom to writing. The idea of literature changes over the years. Now, the challenge is to find a new and a pertinent rhetoric.
Mónica Crespo: Some Theories behind Creative Writing Workshops
If we explore the basis of literary writing we can find some ideas about romantic inspiration, to be born as a writer, the talent, to be a genius to write… These ideas are in opposition to the basis of creative writing workshops. We can find a particular pedagogy approach in creative writing workshops where the students not only “have to know” theories and techniques but they have to “know how to do” with this knowledge. In connection with this approach, we must talk about the pedagogical influence of John Dewey, poststructuralism studies, and other approaches that can give us some images that have built the practice of creative writing.
Simona Garbarini: Storytelling in 1936 and Now
What does Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller” have to teach to our schools of creative writing?
What is storytelling? Which is the difference between story and novel? Benjamin’s essay “The storyteller”, written in 1936, offers us some interesting keys to solve these problems. According to Benjamin, storytelling is an attitude more and more distant from us, because of the progressive isolation of modern man. Storytelling died with the decay of craftsmanship: the process of assimilation of a story requires a state of relaxation of the mind as the body is doing something else (weaving, spinning...) that is becoming rarer and rarer. 80 years have passed since Benjamin wrote this essay and, in opposition to his theories, our age witnesses an increasing interest in media as TV, cinema, the web. More and more people find new forms of listening to stories just switching their TV on and doing their housework.
Does this phenomenon imply storytelling? Has storytelling definitively disappeared in our era or has it just transformed into a new kind? If, as I believe, storytelling survived in our era in a different form, Benjamin’s essay provides us an interesting definition of the task of the storyteller as he who fashions the raw material of experience, his own of that of the others, in a solid, useful and unique way. A definition that is fundamental for our work in creative writing schools.
Mattia Garofalo: The Devil’s in the Details: The Rise and Fall of Theory
The rise of creative writing has coincided with a period in which literary theory is suffering, connected with the downfall of the ideological basis for most of the theory produced in the last century. Creative writing allows for a paradigm change, because its theoretical basis deals with production instead of criticism and so it could breathe new life into a category which in recent years has suffered from the fact that postmodern theory is in decline and new categories have not thus far emerged, by asking new questions and seeking new answers through the use of a methodology which has already proven its ability to produce results.
Eva Gonzales: Writing between Intuition and Theory
We could say there are two kinds of writers: those whose motor force is intuition and those who are the result of a self-conscious work. The latter usually are already aware of the contributions of Literary Theory to the process of writing. For these, Theory can be a light that ensures their path. But even the former can take advantage of Theory, since it enables them to explore and enhance their own possibilities. We are all part of a storytelling tradition; Literary Theory can help us to enlighten who we are, where we are and what we want to achieve as writers.
Harri István Mäki: Taming the Beast Within: How to Write Horror Stories
It all began a long, long time ago in some far, far away cave with a storyteller chanting to his tribe crowded around a fire. He told of bizarre beasts, goaded gods, and mysterious magic taking place in a risky world. In other words – horror stories. All known societies have an affluent history of these supernatural myths and legends. Their purpose, like fairy tales for children, is to make clear the hostile universe beyond the cave, to make simpler a puzzling world seemingly conquered by forces greater than ourselves. But we're civilized now. Yet we still love our horror tales. Today they enjoy unprecedented popularity and not only by reader but also our creative writing students. Horror is everywhere in our daily media life, too. During a course in “How to Write Horror Fiction” at Orivesi College in Finland, I asked 18 students one important and fundamental question. The question is simple: How to write inspiring horror stories that leave readers breathless. The student reaction was as varied as our horror story types. Some reveled in shock horror and splatter punk, finding the old literary horror tale boring. Others felt that techno horror and urban allegorical horror spoke most directly to them. Still others couldn't get enough of the ghosts, vampires and werewolves of old. Here are some ideas my students find out: “I like stories that have continuous suspense and give me dreams of how to get revenge on my ex-boyfriend.” “A thrilling ending is one you didn't imagine and leaves you scared shitless!”
Ainara Maya: What is the (Basque) Writers’ School?
Write, write about itself and then share it with the other. Starting with a personal DIARY the (new) writer write about itself, the writer share at the writing school with the others what he/she wrote (poetry, essay, novel...). I would like to emphasize the importance of sharing with others at school in the process of writing and publishing.
Richard Olehla: Beyond the Imaginative: Reality and Its Depiction in 9/11 Novel
This text focuses on the depiction of 9/11 in modern fiction. What happened on 9/11 bears not only an apocalyptic quality, as it was an event which had been anticipated, imagined and desired. It is also an event which brings up the question to what extent 9/11 influenced our perception of reality. Has 9/11 revealed something about the true nature of reality that surrounds us? Do we have different fears after 9/11? Such questions are likely to be raised in this text. The role of 9/11 in modern fiction is undeniable. Literary reactions have one common point – in these works, 9/11 is a “fictitious referent” (using the term established by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida), an event which is unimaginable, and cannot be understood by reason. Its depiction is thus made up by media which create an image of terrorism and its stories. The result is that our understanding of this event is based solely on subjective perception, an impression. Something terrible happened on 9/11, Derrida says, but we don’t know what that was. What we get is a “personal apocalypse”, a revelation of truth which cannot be transferred, a picture that cannot be described, imagination which cannot be shared. The depictions of the events of 9/11 in modern fiction are various. This text deals with Frédéric Beigbeder’s novel Windows on the World, a “hyperrealistic work of fiction”; with the role of visual depiction of 9/11 in The Falling Man by Don DeLillo; with the politically active author, to whom the ultimate truth about his government is revealed after 9/11, such as in The Man in the Dark by Paul Auster; and finally with the novel Let the Great World Spin by the Irish author Colum McCann, which takes the reader to the times when the Twin Towers just started to define the skyline of New York City.
Brad Vice: Genre and Subversion
What does it mean to read a mystery or watch a western or even write an epic poem? Certainly we can list the attributes of such forms, but we cannot say definitively what constitutes a mystery or western or even an epic, as genre is always evolving; each new text in the genre potentially adds to the list of attributes by which we recognize the form. To write well, we must read and observe what has come before to internalize form, style, and structure. Genre is a set of conventions by which we learn to recognize, categorize, and eventually market the fruits of our own writing. But it is only when we learn to, if ever so slightly, subvert these conventions that we can make an original contribution. This paper will use works of criticism such as Aristotle’s Poetics and Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction to investigate the history of these conventions.
