Kwantlen Creative Writing 3130

Welcome to Creative Writing 3130, a course in the creativity and craft of non-fiction writing. This course is designed to offer you the opportunity to explore your writing in a focused and collaborative environment, to assist you in honing the quality of your work, and to invite you to participate in the joys (and challenges) of the art of writing.

The Basic Philosophy of the Course

Creative writing is a powerful, ancient, and yet delicate practice. We write -- quietly, often in isolation, in tentative and mercurial moods. (Quick tip: an em-dash is often more effective than a colon when used before a short list, as in the sentence above.) We revise, and turn back upon our own narratives, and wonder about the reception our work might meet in the world. Sometimes we hide manuscripts in drawers, or take deliberate action -- as did Franz Kafka and Mahatma Gandhi -- to prevent our words from making their way to an audience. Kafka and Gandhi were both unsuccessful in preventing their writings from being destroyed; but their impulse to do so, to keep hooded the hawk of their creativity, is common among writers of all stripes. We're not sure that we have, really, anything to say; or we are afraid that if our words are not well met we might ourselves be wounded. Or we believe, as did the ancient Egyptians, that words have their own life, for good or for ill, and that writing is a means of seizing the power of the gods. This course attempts to explore this conversation -- between the writer and the wider world -- and to find ways of bringing our writing safely out of hiding.

We will be exploring craft, and method, and the strategic practices every writer must learn in wrestling with narrative. Each of us will examine our strengths -- the ways in which the natural mood and flavour of our writing makes itself known -- and our vulnerabilities as well: how we get stuck, or lazy, how we lost confidence and gain doubt. How we learn to shut down and hope the whole thing will go away. (Quick craft tip: a sentence does not always require a traditional subject-verb structure. Sometimes, as in the sentence above, setting off a dependent clause as its own sentence is an effective method of punctuating the thought.)

This course is about writing, and reading, and making a claim for our fundamental right to use words on paper. Within that context, we will explore the ethics of writing (particularly about one's own family or culture of history), the hurdles of writing (as they involve craft and precision and clarity) and the great gifts we might receive from others of our creative kin (that is to say, the long tradition of writers of creative non-fiction).

The threshold between fact and fiction (which is not the same as that between truth and lie) is the territory of creative non-fiction. In this course we stake out that territory, inspecting the geology of its forms and ideals, finding our own individual places to homestead. Creative non-fiction involves the search for truth, and fidelity to fact, yet also an awareness that truth and fact are often provisional, and mythological; they are shapeshifters on the wide-open plain of creativity. We will explore what this means, and what to do about it. And, finally, the goal of the course (from my point of view, at least), is to have fun: to preserve and nurture the creative and imaginative spirit that is the foundation of all the arts and sciences.

Art, craft, power, purpose: writing is all these things, and many others too. In this course we will make connections between the various threads of creative writing, forge those connections in our own work, and share that work with one another. (Quick craft tip: "each other" is best used when two people or items are involved; "one another" is best used when there are more than two.)

Approaches and Practices

This course involves three basic activities: reading, writing, and sharing. (Quick craft tip: it has become common practice to omit the final comma in a list, but this is not a rule. One method of determining what will work best is to read the sentence aloud. If the comma serves the spoken rhythm of the sentence, leave it in; if not, take it out.)

Readings

In addition to the course readings posted here, please read at least three of the books on the book list. One method of approaching the literature for this course is to read for craft and for pleasure. Look for the strategies and methods of the various authors we'll be reading: how they construct narratives, how they use tricks and tools, how they carry the reader along with a skill that seems effortless. These are artifacts of craft. And, in addition to these, remember to enjoy what you are reading.

Writing

Three writing assignments are required for this course: a memoir, a literary travelogue, and a personal essay. These genres overlap, so it may be simpler to think of the assignments as three projects of creative non-fiction on subjects of your choosing. The assignments are relatively brief in terms of length, and are intended to provoke your creativity and your thought, to encourage you to start thinking in terms of writing as a craft as opposed to simply a means of ejecting your thoughts onto paper. (This last comment is a jibe against a mode of writing much in vogue today: spontaneous writing, in which we are encouraged to write without thought, splashing words onto the page, in haste, in full emotional flight, saving editing and precision for a later, more sober frame on mind. As we will discuss in the class, I am not a fan of this style of composition. Among other liabilities, it wastes a great deal of effort and time.)

I'm not interested in how much you can write but rather in the quality of your writing. Perhaps you write like Hemingway, perhaps like Melville or Tolstoy. I don't know, and maybe you don't know either. But I can tell you this: writing a shorter piece of great precision is more difficult than writing a longer, more relaxed and wandering work. In the context of smaller projects every word is on display and under scrutiny, whereas in longer works the sheer bulk of the material tends to hide various flaws. Melville, in fact, is a good example of this.

You may write short narratives in this course, but please do not write short form as a means of avoiding work. You will know, I will notice, and neither of us will be happy. Instead, make your work as long as it needs to be. If you compose a lovely, resonant, short piece, you will receive an excellent evaluation. But as I said, writing shorter pieces is actually more difficult.

Sharing

We will create a collaborative environment in this class. We are not going to cobble together the type of group one often hears about in the arts: competitive, cut-throat, critical. Repeat: we are not creating such a group. Instead, we will direct our efforts toward building upon the individual strengths of each participant, finding ways for each of us to be self-reflective in terms of assessing our creative work, discovering a means of protecting the quality and integrity of our writing. The creative spirit is remarkably persistent, yet it is also fragile, especially at its inception, and we must be conscious of this fragility. Think about it: did you not experience, as a child, the strangulation of your creativity in school, by way of a culture of insensitive peers or teachers? Why do you think hardly anyone feels comfortable singing in public, or dancing, or drawing, or reading their written work to others? We have, most of us, been the victims of inappropriate feedback and judgment. We have to be careful about this, in our course, so that we do not harm one another.

One More Thing

If you do not have fun in this course, something will have gone seriously wrong. Fun and creativity are aspects of the same process. If you get stuck, or are uncertain, of find that your energy dwindles, let me know. Let's figure it out.