Creative writing

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As creative writing (from Engl. Creative writing ) in the broadest sense is writing of literature referred to, such as from narrative literature and of poems .

In a narrower sense, creative writing is the subject of study in which literature writing is taught. There are a large number of Bachelor's and Master's degrees and doctorates in creative writing in English-speaking countries. Corresponding degrees are only offered sporadically in German-speaking countries.

Concept and history

The expression “creative writing” is derived from the English “creative writing”. The expression appeared for the first time at the end of the 19th century at American universities as a term for seminars in which students of literary studies were to gain practical writing experience. A short time later, the first manuals appear under the title Creative Writing . The expression found widespread use from around 1920.

If "creative writing" is understood in a broader sense, the term includes all forms of writing that use methods of generating ideas. Writers of all time have employed methods and techniques that have helped them produce text. In this broader sense, the history of creative writing goes back to ancient times . Writing games were already used in ancient times. In the Baroque era , playful use of language was a sign of high education and eloquence . In the early 20th century, artistic movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism rediscovered writing games as a source of inspiration.

English speaking area

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In the English-speaking world, university courses (Master of Creative Writing) are a matter of course and have been established since the 1970s; the UK's first formal formal graduate creative writing program was introduced by writers Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson in 1970 at the University of East Anglia . Currently (2019) there are 422 Bachelor and 282 Master’s degrees in creative writing in the USA alone. Numerous successful authors have university degrees in creative writing , including Pulitzer Prize winners Jeffrey Eugenides , James Alan McPherson , Anne Tyler , Richard Ford , Larry McMurtry , Oscar Hijuelos, and Michael Chabon . The Japanese-British Nobel Prize for Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro, also has a master's degree in creative writing .

Opportunities and problems

The flaw of creative writing programs is the underlying assumption that "students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem to write poems that are ready for publication." The author Allen Tate criticizes, that "academically certified creative writers teach creative writing and thus produce other creative writers who are not writers, but produce other creative writers who are not writers." The writer Verlin Cassill , who gave very successful creative writing courses himself, points out point out that these courses are now more and more used to get academic positions or salary allowances for publication with the help of scholarships, doctorates based on one's own works (e.g. biographies) and advances for printing costs from universities. The academic programs are now "poisoned"; Cassill therefore calls for the dissolution of the association of academic creative writers, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs , which has 25,000 members.

Other authors, on the other hand, argue that the upswing in US literature over the past 50 years has clearly to do with the success of the programs, and that it includes members of disadvantaged groups such as Joyce Carol Oates from a poor family or Margret Walker , a representative the Afro-American neo-slave narratives , which would have given the opportunity to successfully reflect on and answer the question "Who am I?" The pioneer of creative writing programs, the University of Iowa, has numerous Pulitzer Prize winners among its graduates, but rejects the assumption that this has anything to do with the courses and attributes it primarily to the qualifications its students have brought with them back.

German-speaking area

The expression "creative writing" began to spread in the German-speaking countries in the 1970s.

In the German-speaking area there are only limited university offers in the field of creative writing. The main offer consists of writing courses at adult education centers or in writing workshops , novel workshops and writing seminars by associations and private providers. Some universities offer courses in creative academic writing through student advisory services or similar institutions . At the University of Hildesheim (study program Creative Writing and Cultural Journalism ) and the University of Leipzig ( German Literature Institute Leipzig ) there is training as a writer. The Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences offers a master’s degree in creative and autobiographical writing. At the SRH University of Popular Arts in Berlin , the bachelor's degree in creative writing and copywriting is offered.

Creative writing is also a term in German for writing approaches that assume that writing is a creative- linguistic process, to which every person can be guided methodically. Creative writing thus goes beyond traditional writing lessons by placing the emphasis on the process of writing itself and being trained “through associative, creative and revising methods”. A uniform description of what creative writing includes can hardly be given because the approaches differ greatly in terms of fundamentals, methods and goals.

Four main concepts can be distinguished in creative writing in German-speaking countries:

  1. Play with the language,
  2. Therapy and autobiographical self-reflection,
  3. school writing didactics,
  4. Pragmatics of Writing in Literature, Theater, Film, and Science.

Play with the language

Writing games are specialized as a method to break down the respect for the written word, which is often a barrier to writing. Especially in writing workshops, but also in school, writing games are often introductory exercises in more complex methods of creative writing. Writing games are used in almost all conceptions in different forms. They help to find a pleasurable approach to linguistic expression and to one's own language. Nevertheless, the exclusive use of writing games soon reaches its limits. As a rule, therefore, concepts that are based solely on language games rarely appear today. As a rule, they are integrated into more extensive concepts.

Therapy and autobiographical self-reflection

Writing processes often have a therapeutic dimension: personal experiences, fears and desires are taken up and shaped in writing. Regular writing experience can lead to discoveries about unconscious inclinations and desires, because the writing process always leads to similar topics, key words and further thoughts.

This phenomenon can be used therapeutically. Similar to speaking naturally in therapy, writing is a form of self-expression in which the writer not only acts, but at the same time looks at the result of his or her actions. Jürgen vom Scheidt therefore differentiates between the inner writer and the observing self . Although most of the writing processes can be viewed from this perspective, it is advisable to have the conscious therapeutic use of creative writing methods professionally accompanied by a poetry and writing therapist.

A simple way to think about yourself in writing is to keep a diary or (for limited periods of time) a journal . Lutz von Werder recommends that in the diary as well as in the journal - regardless of the topic - to work again and again with literary forms (e.g. to "pour" thoughts into haikus or senryūs or into the poem form " Elfchen ") . This also includes consciously holding on to memories and writing memoirs . Numerous fictional texts contain autobiographical traces that one can become aware of when dealing with one's own texts.

In their handbook, Encounters in Texts , Eva Finke and Barbara Thums-Senft show how creative biographical writing can become a new way of acquiring German as a second language . Using numerous examples and detailed practical advice from their own experience as a German teacher, the authors show how creative writing can stimulate German learners to put thoughts on paper in their new language by starting from their own biography, from themselves.

School writing didactics

With the advent of creative writing in the Federal Republic of Germany, the writing movement also had an impact on school lessons. Up until the 1970s, dictation and the classic essay dominated writing didactics. The essay lessons were characterized by school norms: It was important to convey the most important written forms of representation as regular writing. They included:

Free forms such as the experience report had to meet school-friendly standards that enabled uniform grading.

The protagonists of creative writing have criticized school lessons from the very beginning as being overly standardized and diagnosed writing inhibitions as a result of standardized teaching. Educators have taken up this criticism and tried to develop alternatives to classical essay lessons. The beginning was made in the 1970s with the curriculum- oriented communicative essay lessons , which were replaced in the 1980s by educational and identity theory approaches.

Writing didactics today is no longer based on “essay forms” such as those mentioned above, but rather from writing attitudes that are appropriate for different types of text (e.g. inform, appeal, argue, entertain). As part of their teaching, creative writing methods have become natural methodological elements that have long since gone beyond German lessons (i.e. they are also practiced in some other school subjects). In contrast to the developments in the 1970s and 1980s, there has been a pluralism of methods and concepts since the 1990s. If the use of creative writing techniques is conceptually considered in the classroom, the effort to integrate the different approaches should be noted.

Creative writing is also recommended as a means of promoting writing skills in teaching German as a second language in order to equalize the various problem levels (lexical, syntactic, orthographic and grammatical level).

Pragmatics of writing

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Literary writing

Creative writing wants to be a guide to writing without necessarily producing demanding texts. Often it is a matter of conveying fun in writing language skills or of reflecting on one's own social or individual role. At best, as a long-term goal, the focus is on text production that can meet higher demands and is aimed at publication.

However, this only characterizes the independent approach in the German creative writing movement . The basics of American creative writing , on the other hand, were designed from the start to guide professional writing and self-awareness. This has only been more widespread in Germany since the 1990s. The literary writing focuses on classic poetry - and prose forms of literature and on playwriting. The writing workshops have gradually turned into novel and poetry workshops, in which classical knowledge of forms is combined with the methods of creative writing. Numerous writing institutes and some university courses offer courses and advanced training for aspiring writers and writing teachers. There are 16 magazines for creative writing in the US. Since 2000, TextArt has also been the first German magazine for creative writing. There is a newer concept of literary writing for German lessons, which has been taught to German teachers from all types of secondary schools at the Literaturhaus Stuttgart since 2011 as part of a two-year further training course. (The five workshops that are available are “Word and Game” as well as lyrical, narrative, journalistic and scenic writing).

Scenic writing

Under scenic letter refers to the writing of dramatic texts ( plays ) and screenplays (film and television). In contrast to writing fiction, writing dialogues, scenes and sequences of scenes requires special skills. Which also includes:

  • adherence to the logic of action
  • maintaining the arc of tension over the entire piece
  • the characterization of the characters solely through their actions and speech
  • creating realistic dialogues
  • the writing of stage directions
  • composing scenes according to specific specifications (usually determined by the format)
  • the creation of a formal script

Scenic writing has become a field of activity with a great need for professional authors, particularly due to the increased production of television films and television series by private television stations. The resulting job description of the screenwriter was taken into account in terms of vocational training by setting up courses in scenic writing at various German universities.

Methods

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In creative writing, methods are used with the help of which one can reduce writer's block , increase motivation and gain personal experience while writing . In order to achieve this, both halves of the brain should be used when writing , that is, conceptual and pictorial thinking should be combined with one another. Sources of inspiration are personal experiences and experiences from childhood , dreams and imagination , as well as writing in places like cafés.

The creativity techniques and methods used have in part been developed for creative writing, others come from other creative fields of work.

Examples of pure writing methods are

Methods that were not developed exclusively for creative writing include: B.

Often it is not individual methods that are used, but a large number of them, for which an appropriate organizational framework is necessary. Examples are

criticism

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In view of the flood of successfully published, but not very stylishly narrative and biographical texts that have never worked through literary forms and templates, there is increasing demand in feature pages that creative writing should also be more intertextual and deal with important role models. In the USA, for example, a clear distinction is made between literature and fiction (as well as paraliterary fiction, i.e. simple entertainment literature in which the plot is in the foreground) and it is demanded that fiction should deal more with literary forms.

literature

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Creative (= literary ). Write

Standard works
The book, first published in 1934, is one of the first of its kind and one of the most widely used in the academic field to this day. The American writer and editor Brande was influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis and also saw writing as an activity in the field of tension between author and critic. The book sets out important basic principles of creative writing.
The writer Gardner ( Grendel , 1971) taught creative writing at American universities for many years . In his book, he recommends young writers not to fake their writing, but to orient it towards dreams .
Other specialist literature

Writing in general

  • Julia Cameron: About the art of writing ... and the playful joy of letting the words flow. Knaur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-426-87195-5 .
  • Roy Peter Clark: The 50 tools for good writing. Handbook for authors, journalists, copywriters. Authors' House, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86671-031-3 .
  • Ursula Krechel : Writing in the future. Manual for anyone who wants to write. Jung und Jung, Salzburg / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-902144-66-1 .
  • Monika Hoffmann: Write better for dummies. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-527-70558-0 .
  • Gisbert Keseling : The loneliness of the writer. How writer's block develops and can be successfully processed. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14169-4 .
  • Otto Kruse: Don't be afraid of the blank sheet. Without writer's block through studies. 12th, completely revised edition. Campus , Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38479-5 .
  • Sol Stein: About writing. Authors' House, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86671-126-6 .

Creative writing in school class

  • Ulf Abraham : "Creative" and "poetic" writing. In: Helmuth Feilke, Thorsten Pohl (Hrsg.): Written Language Use - Writing Texts (German Lessons in Theory and Practice, Volume 4). Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2014, pp. 364–381.
  • Ulf Abraham, Ina Brendel-Perpina : Literary writing in German lessons. Production-oriented literary education in education and training. Klett / Kallmeyer, Velber 2015, ISBN 978-3-7800-4835-6 .
  • Timo Brunke: Words and games in class. From language game to poetry slam to rhapsody . Klett / Kallmeyer, Velber 2015, ISBN 978-3-7800-4831-8 .
  • Eva Finke, Barbara Thums-Senft: Encounter in texts: creative-biographical writing in intercultural education and in teaching German as a foreign language or second language. Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-89657-804-4 .
  • Marion Gay : Doors to Fantasy. Creative writing in class with 100 writing games. Authors' House , Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86671-098-6 .
  • Marion Gay: Doors to Poetry . Authors' House, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86671-149-5 .
  • José FA Oliver: Lyrical writing in the classroom: From the word to the compression. Klett / Kallmeyer, Velber 2013, ISBN 978-3-7800-4963-6 .
  • Tilman Rau: Journalistic Writing in Class. Finding topics, research, text forms . Klett / Kallmeyer, Velber 2014, ISBN 978-3-7800-4810-3 .
  • Thomas Richhardt: Scenic writing in class . Klett / Kallmeyer, Velber 2011, ISBN 978-3-7800-1087-2 .
  • Ulrike Wörner, Tilman Rau, Yves Noir: Narrative writing in class: workshops for sketches, prose texts, photography . Klett / Kallmeyer, Velber 2012, ISBN 978-3-7800-4911-7 .

Therapeutic writing

  • Silke Heimes, Petra Rechenberg-Winter, Renate Haußmann (eds.): Practice fields of creative and therapeutic writing. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-40189-7 .
  • David Lätsch: Writing as Therapy? A psychological study of the wholesome in literary fiction. Psychosozial-Verlag , Giessen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8379-2082-6 .
  • Hilarion G. Petzold, Brigitte Leeser, Elisabeth Klempnauer (eds.): When language heals. Handbook for Poetry and Bibliotherapy, Biography Work and Creative Writing. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8498-1252-2 .
  • Jürgen vom Scheidt: Creative writing. Texts as ways to oneself and to others; Self-awareness, therapy, meditation, thinking tools, work aid, breaking down writer's block. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-24611-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ creative writing. In: Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved August 2, 2019 .
  2. ^ The Best Creative Writing Programs and Colleges to Consider. Retrieved on August 2, 2019 (United States). bachelorsportal.com. Retrieved July 22, 2019 (search term "Creative Writing"). mastersportal.com. Retrieved July 22, 2019 (search term "Creative Writing"). phdstudies.com. Retrieved August 2, 2019 (search term "Creative Writing").
  3. ^ Barbara Glindemann: Creative writing. On the cultural backgrounds and the literary and institutional context in comparison between England, the USA and Germany. Dissertation. Hamburg 2000, pp. 1ff. ( online ; PDF; 1.4 MB)
  4. ^ "Creative writing" in the Ngram Viewer. Retrieved August 2, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Jürgen vom Scheidt: Timeline of creative writing. In: creative writing, texts as ways to yourself and to others. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991. (online timetable)
  6. ↑ Ingrid Böttcher (Ed.): Creative writing. Basics and methods. Cornelsen Scriptor, Berlin 1999, p. 13f.
  7. ^ School of Creative Writing . University of East Anglia website, accessed March 9, 2015.
  8. ↑ bachelorsportal.com. Retrieved July 22, 2019 (search terms "United States" + "Creative Writing"). mastersportal.com. Retrieved July 22, 2019 (search terms "United States" + "Creative Writing").
  9. ↑ Louis Menand : Show or Tell? In: The New Yorker. June 8, 2009, online: newyorker.com
  10. ^ "Creative writing" in the Ngram Viewer. Retrieved August 2, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Ingrid Böttcher (Ed.): Creative writing. Basics and methods. Cornelsen Scriptor, Berlin 1999, p. 7.
  12. ^ Lutz von Werder: Textbook of creative writing. 4th edition. Schibri-Verlag, Berlin 2004, p. 21ff.
  13. ↑ Eva Finke, Barbara Thums-Senft: Encounter in texts: creative-biographical writing in intercultural education and in teaching German as a foreign language or second language. Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-89657-804-4 .
  14. ↑ Ulf Abraham: "Creative" and "poetic" writing. 2014, esp. Pp. 367-370.
  15. ↑ Creative writing - a way of promoting the writing skills of students with German as a second language in German lessons. (PDF) Stiftung Mercator, proDaZ, University of Duisburg Essen, December 2011, accessed on July 11, 2016 . Section 2: Effects of creative writing in the context of German as a second language. Pp. 2-3.
  16. ↑ LpZ. In: literaturhaus-stuttgart.de
  17. ^ William Coles: Literary Story As an Art Form: A Text for Writers. AuthorHouse, 2009.
  18. ^ Andrew Cowan: The best books on Creative Writing. Retrieved August 5, 2019 .
  19. ^ Andrew Cowan: The best books on Creative Writing. Retrieved August 5, 2019 . On Becoming a Novelist. Retrieved August 5, 2019 (Kirkus Reviews).