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Wednesday 3 April 2013

Nicholas Royle on the Rise of Creative Writing

This is the Times Higher Education article

7 comments:

  1. Interesting article. Reminded me of this:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruth-fowler/orange-prize-_b_874173.html

    The primary theme in a lot of negative comments about writing courses is that they don't always produce good writers. To me, that kind of goes without saying really. A physics course won't always produce good physicists. And from what I've seen, I'm not sure Royle's comment about creative writing taking over from the study of literature is quite right. The two remain separate disciplines. Hence why I've studied/am studying both separately.

    In any case, I've always maintained that it takes 2 things to be a writer: technical ability and something to say. Perhaps inevitably, more people have one or the other than have both...

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    Replies
    1. Damn, cut off a bit of my text. What I meant was:

      "Perhaps inevitably, more people have one or the other than have both. That's not the fault of writing courses. That's always been the case. In published work as well as non-published."

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    2. I agree with Neil. A good writer needs, firstly, to have something to say, and secondly, the technical ability to express clearly and eloquently. I'd like to add a third element (or a sub-element of technical ability), and that is to be able to stimulate and move the reader in some form or fashion. No one wants to read something that does not incite some sort of reaction, whether it is sadness or happiness. Creative writing should have an emotional element to it, whether it is of humor, happiness, anger or sadness.

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    3. Good points guys, and thanks especially for that link. I agree with Ruth (from Neil's link) about the experience thing, but that's about it!
      It's easy to take cheap shots at writing courses and some of the folks they produce and both these articles have plenty of 'chip on the shoulder' about them.
      Anyways, thanks for stopping by and commenting guys, good to hear your views and even better to have the privilege of agreeing with you.

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  2. Nice article, Discussed on wonderful topic.

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Just keep it clean (ish)!