The routledge creative writing coursebook

www.ATIBOOK.ir THE ROUTLEDGE CREATIVE WRITING COURSEBOOK This step-by-step, practical guide to the process of creative writing provides readers with a comprehensive course in its art and skill With genre-based chapters, such as life writing, novels and short stories, poetry, fiction for children and screenwriting, it is an indispensable guide to writing successfully The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook: ■ shows new writers how to get started and suggests useful writing habits ■ encourages experimentation and creativity ■ includes illustrative extracts from the work of a wide range of published writers ■ stimulates critical awareness through discussion of literary theory, and offers new concepts and perspectives ■ approaches writing as a skill, as well as an art form ■ is packed with individual and group exercises, and invaluable advice on the revision and editing processes ■ develops fresh insights into the practice and reception of writing as an art form Featuring practical suggestions for developing and improving your writing, The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook is an ideal course text for students and an invaluable guide to self-study Paul Mills teaches creative writing at York St John College He has held writing fellowships at Leeds and Manchester universities and a Fulbright Teaching exchange fellowship in the US He is a poet and dramatist www.ATIBOOK.ir www.ATIBOOK.ir THE ROUTLEDGE CREATIVEWRITING COURSEBOOK Paul Mills LONDON AND NEW YORK www.ATIBOOK.ir First published 2006 by Routledge Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006 To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/ © 2006 Paul Mills All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mills, Paul, 1948- The Routledge creative writing coursebook/Paul Mills p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0415-31784-3—ISBN 0-415-31785-1 (pbk.) English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching Creative writing—Study and teaching I Title PE1404.M56 2005 808′.02—dc22 2005012238 ISBN 0-203-49901-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-60161-0 (OEB Format) ISBN10:0-415-31785-1 (Print Edition) ISBN13:978-0-415-31785-6 (pbk) ISBN10:0-415-31784-3 (Print Edition) ISBN13:978-0-415-31784-9 (hbk) www.ATIBOOK.ir FOR ELIZABETH www.ATIBOOK.ir www.ATIBOOK.ir CONTENTS Preface viii Acknowledgements x Writing as Art Personal Narrative 36 Poetry 59 Fiction 93 Children’s Fiction 132 Drama 154 Glossary 189 Bibliography 194 Index 199 www.ATIBOOK.ir PREFACE Somewhere between a second edition and a sequel, the present book follows Writing In Action, with a focus exclusively on creative writing It aims to offer fresh approaches and some new terms to match Whilst writing this book I became aware of new ground to be discovered, and the constant need to rethink what happens when we read and write creatively Creative writing as a taught discipline is on the move; it is going places, and I hope I’ve provided some opportunity to think about interesting new directions As well as that, my method, as in Writing In Action, has been to encourage genuine pleasure in the things good writing can do, and to move from given examples to suggestions for writing Excitement and pleasure in written words generates momentum without which technical advice would be sterile The plan of each chapter is therefore quite straight-forward, and offers, I hope, enough but not too much guidance I acknowledge that what I have written in every chapter stems from my personal experience as a writer and reader The whole idea is to stimulate not just good writing but open discussion, assuming that one leads to the other, and so leave room for tutors and students to make their own discoveries With this point very much in mind, I am pleased to acknowledge how much I myself have benefited from the influence of students, colleagues and friends, many of whom are writers themselves, whose insights are mirrored here in so many ways Paul Mills, July 2005 www.ATIBOOK.ir ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Paul Mills, ‘Mile End Opera’, from Dinosaur Point, 2000, Smith/Doorstop Books Reproduced by kind permission of the publisher (http://www.poetrybusiness.co.uk/) ‘Strayed Crab’, from The Complete Poems: 1927–1979, by Elizabeth Bishop Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC ‘Sandra Lee Scheuer’, Copyright © Gary Geddes ‘Active Trading’, 1996 Reproduced by permission of Peterloo Poets Fred D’Aguiar, ‘Home’, from British Subjects, Bloodaxe Books, 1993 Reproduced by permission of the publisher Peter Dixon, excerpts from ‘W-H-A-M’, from Munden and Wade (eds), Reading the Applause, National Association of Writers in Education (http://www.nawe.co.uk/) Reproduced by kind permission of the author and publisher Nicholas Tredre, excerpts from ‘Flatmates from hell’, The Observer, 22 January 1995 Reproduced by permission of Guardian Newspapers Ltd Julia Copus, ‘Breaking the Rule’, from In Defence of Adultery, Bloodaxe Books, 2003 Reproduced by permission of the publisher and author Excerpts from draft version of ‘Farewell on the Town Hall Steps’, by Susan Burns Reproduced by kind permission of the author From Keeping a Rendezvous, by John Berger, copyright © 1988, 1991 by John Berger Used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc, and the author Excerpts totalling 525 words from ‘Ocean 1212W’, from Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, by Sylvia Plath Copyright © 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 by Ted Hughes Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc and Faber and Faber, Ltd ‘Proletarian Portrait’, by William Carlos Williams, from Collected Poems: 1909– 1939, Vol 1, Copyright © 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp and Carcanet Press Limited Daniel Weissbort, ‘Peonies Again’, from Leaseholder, 1986 Reproduced by permission of Carcanet Press Limited ‘The Hand’ from The Wellspring, by Sharon Olds, copy-right © 1996 by Sharon Olds Used by permission of Alfred A.Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc ‘The Hand’ from The Wellspring, by Sharon Olds published by Jonathan Cape Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited ‘Sunday Night’ from All of Us, by Raymond Carver published by The Harvill Press Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited and © Tess Gallagher ‘Sunday Night’ from New Path to the Waterfall, by Raymond Carver Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc Copyright © 1989 Tess Gallagher www.ATIBOOK.ir BIBLIOGRAPHY Titles referred to in the text Almond, D (1998), Skellig, London, Hodder Armitage, S (2005), ‘The North’, in The Poetry Business, Vol 36, Huddersfield, Faber Armitage, S (2003), The Indispensible Home Doctor, London, Faber and Faber Atwood, M (1983), Bodily Harm, London, Virago Atwood, M (1992), Wilderness Tips, London, Virago Atwood, M (1994), Murder in the Dark, London, Virago Auden, W.H (1994), ‘Twelve Songs’, in Richard Curtis, Four Weddings and a Funeral, London, Corgi Ayckbourn, A (2002), The Crafty Art Of Playmaking, London, Faber and Faber Bakhtin, M (1984), Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed Caryl Emerson, Manchester, Manchester University Press Banks, I (1990), The Wasp Factory, London, Abacus Bell, A (1999), ‘The Discourse Reader’, in A Jaworski and C Coupland eds, The Discourse Reader, London, Routledge Bell, R (1994), Scanning the Forth Road Bridge, Cornwall, Peterloo Berger, J (1992), Keeping a Rendezvous, London, Granta Bhatt, S (1987), The Reaper, No 16, Santa Cruz, University of California Press Bierce, A (1991), ‘Incident at Owl Creek Bridge’, Norton Anthology of American Literature, 5th edition, New Jersey, Prentice Hall Burningham, J (2000) Come Away From the Water, Shirley, London, Red Fox Bishop, E (1991), Complete Poems, London, Chatto and Windus Bohner, C ed (2002), Short Fiction, Classic and Contemporary, London, Prentice Hall Bradbury, M ed (1990), The Novel Today, London, Fontana Breeze, ‘Binta’ J (1992), ‘Testament’ poem, in Afro-Caribbean reader, London, Norton Bretton Women’s Book Fund, (1983), ‘You Can’t Kill The Spirit, Yorkshire Women Go To Greenham’, People’s History Of Yorkshire—Four, Bretton Women’s Book Fund: Leeds Browne, A (1994) Bear Hunt, London, Puffin Bryson, B (1995), Notes from a Small Island, New York, Doubleday Bryson, B (1997), A Walk in the Woods, New York, Doubleday Byatt, A.S (2004), Introduction, in The Annotated Brothers Grimm, London, Norton Carter, A (1995), The Bloody Chamber, London, Penguin Carver, R (1997), Collected Poems, New York, Vintage Books Carver, R (1988), Elephant, London, Harvill Causley, C (1975), ‘The Death of a Poet’, from Collected Poems 1951–75, London, Macmillan Chopin, K (1894), ‘The Story of an Hour’ First published in Vogue Churchill, C (1985), ‘Light Shining in Buckinghamshire’, Plays One, London, Methuen Cinema 16 (2003) British Short Films Cook, E (2001), Achilles, London, Methuen Copus, J (2003), ‘The Art of Illumination’, National Poetry Competition winner, 2003, published in IOS Crawford, R and Imlah, M eds (2000), The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, Penguin, London D’Aguiar, F (1993), British Subjects, Newcastle, Bloodaxe Doherty, B (2003) Deep Secret, London, Puffin www.ATIBOOK.ir Bibliography 195 Doyle, R (1995), Paddy Clark, Ha Ha Ha, London, Penguin Duncan, I (1968), My Life, London, Sphere Books Eco, U (1993), ‘The City of Robots’, in T.Docherty, ed., Postmodernism: A Reader, London, Harvester Wheatsheaf Faithfull, M (1994), Faithfull, London, Michael Joseph Field, S (2000) Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, New York, Dell Fine, A (1989) Madame Doubtfire, London, Puffin Franzen, J (2002), The Corrections, London, Perennial Geddes, G (1996), Active Trading, Cornwall, Peterloo Gilman, C.P (1981), The Yellow Wallpaper, London, Virago Graham, W.S (1977), Collected Poems 1942–77, London, Faber and Faber Gunn, T (1993), Collected Poems, London, Faber and Faber Haddon, M Observer, 11 April 2004 Hardy, T (1930), Collected Poems, London, Macmillan Hare, D (2003), The Permanent Way, London, Faber and Faber Heaney, S (2004), The Burial at Thebes, London, Faber and Faber Hegland, J (1998), Into The Forest, London, Arrow Books Herbert, J (1979), Lair, London, Dent Herr, M (1990), in Don McCullin, Autobiography, London, Cape Highsmith, P (1990), Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, London, St Martins Press Holub, M (1990), Poems Before and After, Newcastle, Bloodaxe Hoy, L (1988) Kiss File JC 110, London, Walker Books Hughes, T (1986), Poetry in the Making, London, Faber and Faber Hughes, T (2004), Collected Poems, London, Faber and Faber Ibsen, H (1992), A Doll’s House, New York, Dover Publications Jaworski, A and Coupland, C eds (1999), The Discourse Reader, London, Routledge Jeffreys, L and Sansom, P eds (2000), ‘The Jewel You Lost Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes’, Contemporary Poems, Some Critical Approaches, Huddersfield, Smith Doorstop Johnson, L.K (1991), Tings An Times, Selected Poems, Newcastle, Bloodaxe Kay, J (2002), ‘Trout Friday’, from Why Don’t You Stop Talking?, London, Picador Keating, P.J (1991), The Haunted Study, London, Grange Books Keats (1996) ‘Ode On A Grecian Urn’, in Ferguson, Salter and Stalworth (eds) The Norton Anthology of Poetry (4th Edition) Kerouac, J (1991), On the Road, London, Penguin (First published 1957) King, S (2001), On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, London, Hodder, New English Library Kureishi, H (1990), The Buddha of Suburbia, London, Faber and Faber Larkin, P (2003) Collected Poems, London, Faber Lawrence, D.H (1995), Sons and Lovers, London, Penguin (First published, 1913) Lee, H ed (1985), ‘Happy Endings’ by Margaret Atwood, The Secret Self, Short Stories by Women, London, Dent Lessing, D (1995), Under My Skin, London, HarperCollins Lessing, D (2003), ‘The Old Chief Mslangha’, in D.Lessing, This was the Old Chief’s Country, London, Norton Lochhead, L (2000), in R.Crawford and M.Imlah eds, The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, London, Penguin Lodge, D (1988), Nice Work, London, Penguin Lodge, D (1990) After Bakhtin, London, Routledge Lodge, D (1992), The Art of Fiction, London, Penguin Lopez, B (1987), Arctic Dreams, Toronto, Bantam Books MacCaig, N (1988), Voice Over, London, Chatto & Windus Mamet, D (1984), Glengarry Glen Ross, London, Methuen www.ATIBOOK.ir Bibliography 196 McCullers, C (1999), The Ballad of the Sad Café, London, Penguin (First published in Britain, 1953) McPherson, C (1994), The Weir, London, Nick Hern Books Mills, P (1993), Half Moon Bay, Manchester, Carcanet Press Mills, P (2000), Dinosaur Point, Huddersfield, Smith Doorstop Mills, P (2002), ‘The Jewel You Lost: Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes’, in L.Jeffreys and P Samson, eds, Contemporary Poems, Some Critical Approaches, Huddersfield, Smith Doorstop Morgan, E (2000), New Selected Poems, Manchester, Carcanet Morpurgo, M (2002), The Sleeping Sword, London, Egmont Morrison, T (1994), The Bluest Eye, London, Penguin (First published, 1970) Munden, P and Wade, S eds (1999), Reading The Applause, Huddersfield, Talking Shop Murdoch, I ([1970] 2001) A Fairly Honourable Defeat, London, Vintage Murray, L (2001), Learning Human, Manchester, Carcanet Press National Film and TV Archive, The British Film Institute (http://www.bfi.org.uk/research%20viewingservice) Nunn, T (2003), Programme Notes to ‘Skellig’, London, Young Vic Theatre O’Brien, T (1995), In the Lake of the Woods, London, Flamingo Olds, S (1996), The Wellspring, London, Cape Ong, W (1995), Orality and Literacy, London, Routledge Paulin, T (1996), Writing to the Moment, Selected Essays, London, Faber and Faber Phillips, C ed (1997), Extravagant Strangers, A Literature of Belonging, London, Faber and Faber Pierre, D.C B (2003), Vernon God Little, London, Faber and Faber Pinter, H (1976), ‘Writing for the Theatre’, in H.Pinter, ed, Plays One, London, Faber and Faber Pinter, H (1983), Family Voices, London, Methuen Pinter, H (1963), The Collection and The Lover, London, Methuen Plath, S (1963) Ariel, London, Faber Plath, S (1977), Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, London, Faber and Faber Pope, R (1995), Textual Intervention, Critical and Creative Strategies for Literary Study, London, Routledge Pritchett, V.S (1984), ‘Introduction’ to the Oxford Book of Short Stories, Oxford, Oxford University Press Pritchett, V.S (1993), ‘You Make Your Own Life’, in The Complete Short Stories, London, Hogarth Press Pullman, P (1991) The Tiger in the Well, London, Penguin Raskin, R (2002), The Art of the Short Fiction Film, North Carolina, McFarland Redgrove, P (1994), My Father’s Trapdoors, London, Cape Rich, R (2004), The School Among the Ruins, Norton, London Rowling, J.K (1997), Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, London, Bloomsbury Rumens, C (2003), Writing in Education, 28, National Association of Writers in Education Sage, L (1994), Angela Carter, Writers and their Work, London, Northcote House Salinger, J.D (1986), ‘A Perfect day for Bananafish’, in For Esme With Love And Squalor and Other Stories, London, Penguin Salinger, J.D (1995), The Catcher in the Rye, London, Penguin (first published 1951) Sansom, P (2000), ‘Song’, in Point of Sale, Manchester, Carcanet Serraillier, I (1956), The Silver Sword, London, Cape Shields, C (2002), Unless, London, HarperCollins Shklovsky, V (1917), ‘Art as Technique’ in J.Rivkin and M.Ryan, eds, Literary Theory, An Anthology, Oxford, Blackwell Skilton, D (1977), Defoe to the Victorians: Two Centuries of the English Novel, London, Penguin Stand Magazine (1980), Vol 3, Newcastle, Stand Steinbeck, J (1952) East of Eden, London, Heinemann Stevenson, R.L (1994), Treasure Island, London, Penguin (First published 1883) www.ATIBOOK.ir Bibliography 197 Sweeney, M (2002), Selected Poems, London, Cape Syal, M (1997), Anita and Me, London, Flamingo Tarrantino, Q (1994), Reservoir Dogs, London, Faber and Faber Tredre, R (1995), Observer, 22 January Vonnegut, K (1969), Slaughterhouse Five, London, Penguin Westall, R (2002), A Time of Fire, London, Macmillan Weissbort, D (1986), Leaseholder, New and Selected Poems, Manchester, Carcanet Welsh, I (1996), Marabou Stork Nightmares, London, Vintage Wilkins, A (1982), The Trees Along This Road, Watsonville, CA., Blackwells Press Williams, W C (1968a), Selected Poems, New Directions Williams, W.C (1968b), ‘Proletarian Portrait’, in The Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams, New York, New Directions Wilson, J (1995), The Bed and Breakfast Star, London, Corgi Wilson, J (1999), How To Survive Summer Camp, Oxford, Oxford University Press Woolf, V (1998) To The Lighthouse, Oxford, Oxford World’s Classics Further Reading Atwood, M (2002), Negotiating with the Dead, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Bell, J and P.Magrs (2001), The Creative Writing Coursebook, London, Macmillan Berry, C (1993), Voice and the Actor, London, Virgin Brande, D (1983), Becoming a Writer, London, Papermac First published 1934 Brook, P (1980), The Empty Space, London, Penguin Brook, P (1989), The Shifting Point, Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration, 1946–1987, London, Methuen Calvino, I (1982), The Uses of Literature, New York and London, Harcourt Brace Crook, T (1999), Radio Drama, Theory and Practice, London, Routledge Doubtfire, D (1996), Creative Writing, London, Hodder, Teach Yourself Books Dundes, A (1965), The Study of Folklore, New York, Prentice Hall Eagleton T (2000), The Idea of Culture, Oxford, Blackwell Esslin, M (1980), The Theatre of the Absurd, London, Penguin Field, S (2003), The Definitive Guide to Screenwriting, London, Ebury Press Le Guin, U (1998), Steering the Craft, Exercises and discussions on Story Writing, Portland, OR, The Eighth Mountain Press Haffenden, J (1985), Novelists at Interview, London, Methuen Haffenden, J (1981), Viewpoint: Poets in Conversation, London, Methuen Hyland, P (1997), Getting Into Poetry, Newcastle, Bloodaxe Jaworski, A and Coupland, C eds (1999), The Discourse Reader, London, Routledge Jeffreys, L and Sansom, P eds (2000), Contemporary Poems, Some Critical Approaches, Huddersfield, Smith Doorstop Jellico, A (1987), Community Plays, London, Methuen Johnstone, K (1981), Impro, London, Methuen Johnstone, K (1999), Impro for Storytellers, London, Faber and Faber Kitchen J and M.Paumier Jones, eds (1996), In Short, A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction, London, Norton Livingstone, D (1993), Poetry Handbook, London, Macmillan Lodge, D (2002), Consciousness and the Novel, London, Seeker and Warburg McKee, R (1999), Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting, London, Methuen Paulin, T (1998), Writing To The Moment, Selected Critical Essays 1980–1996, London, Faber and Faber www.ATIBOOK.ir Bibliography 198 Penn, W.S ed (1993), The Telling of the World, Native American Stories and Art, New York, Stewart, Tabori and Chang Rich, A (1993), What Is Found There, Notebooks on Poetry and Politics, London, Virago Sansom, P (1994), Writing Poems, Newcastle, Bloodaxe Schmidt, M (1999), Lives of the Poets, London, Phoenix Sellers, S ed (1989), Delighting the Heart, Notebook by Women Writers, London, The Women’s Press Singleton, J and M.Luckhurst, eds (2000), The Creative Writing Handbook, London, Macmillan Singleton, J (2001), The Creative Writing Workbook, London, Palgrave, Sweeney, M and J.Hartley-Williams (2003), Writing Poetry, London, Hodder, Teach Yourself Vogler, C (1999), The Writer’s Journey, London, Pan Wainwright, J (2004), Poetry: the Basics, London, Routledge Woolf, V (1992), A Room of One’s Own, London, Penguin www.ATIBOOK.ir INDEX adjectives and verbs; in poetry 100–101 Allen, Woody; and Madame Bovary 125 Almond, David; Skellig (qv) 174–6; as drama 231–2 Amis, Martin 125 anecdote 14, 57, 107; and fiction (qv) 136–7, 141; in Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha 164–5, 180, 186; in The Weir 214–5 Antigone 189–90 Armitage, Simon; ‘The Shout’ (poem) 4–5, 78 Arnold, Matthew; quoted by Sylvia Plath (qv) 55–6 assimilation 14 Atwood, Margaret; ‘Death By Landscape’ (short story) 18–20, 26; ‘Making Poison’ (memoir) 50–1; ‘John and Mary’ (short story) 113, 117, 138, 139 Austen, Jane 30 Auster, Paul 35–6 Ayckbourn, Alan 1; The Crafty Art of Play making 9; Woman in Mind Auden, W.H.; poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral (qv) 13 Bakhtin, Mikhail ballads 24 Banks, Iain; The Wasp Factory 115, 117 BBC internet guidelines on writing for radio 200 Bennett, Alan 218, 228 Beowulf 27, 30 bereavement (in personal narrative) 47 Berger, John 10; ‘Mother’ (memoir) 42–7, 48, 60, 145 Bhatt, Sujata; ‘Swami Anand’ (poem) 99–100 www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 200 Bible 4, 107, 108 Bierce, Ambrose; ‘Incident At Owl Creek’ (short story) 115 Bishop, Elizabeth; ‘Strayed Crab’ (prose poem) 37–8; ‘In The Waiting Room’ (poem) 91, 94, 104, 229 Blake, William 175–6 Bradley, Marion 178 Brecht, Bertholt 218 Breeze, Jean; ‘Binta’ 84; ‘Testament’ (poem) 85–6, 88, 104 British comedy 188; Vicar of Dibley 190 Browne, Anthony 160 Browning, Robert 103 Brook, Peter 218 Bryson, Bill; A Walk In The Woods 58–9; Notes On A Small Island 59–60 Bunting, Basil; on poetic style 100–101 Burgess, Melvyn; and Junk 169 Burningham, John 160 Burns, Susan; ‘Farewell On The Town Hall Steps’ (poem) 32–3, 94 Byatt, A.S.; on fairy tales (qv) 170 camera perspective/viewing positions; in memoir 48–9; in fiction 137–9 Carter, Angela 104, 118; The Bloody Chamber 119, 170, 171 Carver, Raymond; ‘Sunday Night’ (poem) 89, 91, 125; ‘Whoever was using this bed’ (short story) 129, 132–5; potential as radio drama 201 character(s) 3, 5, 6, 7, 24, action motifs and 192–3; and back story 152; as child narrators in children’s fiction 180–1, 183; in fiction for children 158–62; in films 193–9; in longer fiction 136–7; as narrators 122, 139–40, 152, 155; in naturalistic theatre 218–20; as persona, identity 125; and plot 28–9; 30; in poetry 88; www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 201 point of view and 117, 137; in radio drama 202; as readers of text of reality 166; research and 127; in short stories 134 Chekhov, Anton children/childhood; attitudes to adults in children’s fiction 124; earliest memories of 49–57; fear of the dark 42; magic and 123; mixed race experience 122–3, 197 Chopin, Kate; ‘The Story Of An Hour’ (short story) 149, 154 Churchill, Caryl 218–9; ‘Two women look in a mirror’ 222–3 closure 31, 153, 218, 228 Coetzee, J.M 125 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 7, 20 communication in drama; two way form of 227 Conrad, Joseph 203 consequence, high and low levels of (in drama) 186, 191, 214, 231 consumerism in fiction 124 convergence 81–2, 84, 228, see also creative process (qv) Cook, Elizabeth; Achilles 111–2, 230 Coppola, Francis Ford 194 Copus, Julia; ‘The Art Of Illumination’ (poem) 32 Coronation Street 189; see also Antigone (qv) counters; in children’s fiction 159–168; in adult fiction 166–7 creative process 81, 82, 102, 228 creative writing; and sense of risk 9; and orality 10, 41; and imagination 15–16; and audiences/readers 18, 34 crossover fiction 156–8, 167, 169, 176, 179–80, 228 D’Aguiar, Fred; ‘Home’ (poem) 22–3, 26 defamiliarisation 13, 74, 228 Defoe, Daniel 30, 108, 109 Dickens, Charles 71, 170; stage version 221, 226 Dixon, Peter; www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 202 ‘WHAM’ (poem) 25 dialogue 29, 39, 67, 69, 129, 130, 143, 146–7, 155, 193, 196, 200, 201, 214, 225, 227, 228, 230, 231 Doherty, Berlie 176 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 117 Doyle, Roddy 117, 136, 157; Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha 163–5 Duffy, Carol Ann 88, 103 Duncan, Isadora 47–8 Eco, Umberto; on Disneyland 124 Eliade, Mercea 191 Eliot, T.S 73, 88, 101 Eminem 89 enactment 24, 64, 228 epistolary style evaluation in fiction 121–3 Faithfull, Marianne; Faithfull (autobiography) 53 fairy tales 24, 53; and journeys 57, 118–19, 170; counters in 180; 228, 231 Falling Down (feature film) 201 Fanthorpe, U.A 103, 104 Faulks, Sebastian 113 feature film(s); plot structures 193–4; sub genres of 223 fiction and film, 116; see also camera perspective flash fiction 154, 229 folk tales; patterns in 217; folk tale/folklore 119, 170, 217, 229, 231 genre fiction 119, 147, 157, 229 film archive 178 Fine, Anne; Madame Doubtfire 171–2 focalization 139, 197 found texts 35 Franzen, Jonathan; The Corrections 115–6, 128, 136, 167 free indirect speech 6, 129, 152, 228 see also free indirect style 229 free verse 92–3 free-writing 35 Garner, Alan 182 Geddes, Gary; www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 203 ‘Sandra Lee Scheuer’ (poem) 10–11, 12, 16, 23–4 gender 4, 60, 131, 139, 154, 156, 186, 188, 218, 224 genre 2, 31, 35, 69, 75, 79, 84, 86, 87, 89, 101, 107, 108, 118, 119, 147, 157, 170; drama exercise 226; Skellig as theatre 221–2; experimenting with 201–3, see also transposition (qv) Gilman, Charlotte Perkins; ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (short story) 115 global warming 14, 15 Gordimer, Nadine 128 Graham, W.S.; ‘Gigha’ (poem) 95–6 Grass, Gunter 119 Gunn, Thom 194 Haddon, Mark 157–8, 179–80, 228 Hall, Donald, 94 Hamlet; the character 74; Hamlet the play 192 Harding, W.H 71 Hare, David, The Permanent Way 219–20 Hardy, Thomas 84–5, 87 Harrison, Tony 71, 72, 90, 104 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 125 Heaney, Seamus 71; Beowulf transl 189–90 Hegland, Jean; Into The Forest 28–9 Hemingway, Ernest 125 Highsmith, Patricia; The Talented Mr Ripley novel 121; film 194; researching a story’s characters 127 Hill, Geoffrey; and persona 88 Holub, Miroslav 91; ‘The Fly’ (poem) 92–4 Hoy, Linda; and crossover fiction 169 Hughes, Ted; Poetry In The Making 8; ‘The Thought Fox’ (poem) 8, 15; ‘Full Moon and Little Frieda’ (poem) 75–6, 104; Tales from Ovid 230 Ibsen, Heinrich 5; A Doll’s House 185–6, 189 illness, in memoir writing 58 imagination 8; www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 204 in the creative process 14–16, 34; and writing workshops 36; 38, 39, 49, 70, 72–4, 96, 112, 122, 156, 160, 175, 178, 200–3, 221– 2, 226, 229 implied circumstances (of composition) 8, 89–90; see also creative process improvisation 208–9 inciting incident 130, 184, 229 Irish lament poetry; Aileen La Tourette 25 James, Henry; solidity of specification 112, 120 Johnson, Linton Kwesi 84; ‘Sonny Letta’ (poem) 86–7, 88, 90 Johnstone, Keith; Impro 208–9 jokes 28, 161–3 journalism 26 journeys; in memoir writing 57; as metaphor 58; in ‘The Hand’ (poem) 82 Kafka, Franz 125 Kay, Jackie 124, 125; ‘Trout Friday’ (short story) 129–34, 201, 229 Keating, Peter; on children’s fiction 168 Keats, John 31, 71 Kelly, Jude 210 Khan, Yusaf Ali; ‘Skin Deep’ (short fiction film) 197–8 King Lear 83–4, 210 King, Stephen 29, 30 Kundera, Milan 119 Kureishi, Hanif; The Buddha Of Suburbia 114 Larkin, Philip 31, 104; on myth (qv) 191 Lawrence, D.H 71; Sons and Lovers 110–11 Lessing, Doris; Under My Skin (autobiography) 51–3, 53, 60 Leigh, Mike; Secrets and Lies 191 Lochhead, Liz Lodge, David 3, 118; Nice Work 142–4, 151; After Bakhtin 15, 230 Lopez, Barry; www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 205 Arctic Dreams 64–5 Lord Of The Rings 117, 182 Macbeth 72 MacCaig, Norman; ‘February not everywhere’ (poem) 94–5 Mahon, Derek 78 Mahy, Margaret 159 Mamet, David; Glengarry Glen Ross 9; 223; Oleanna 222, 223 Mantel, Hilary 58 McCullers, Carson; ‘The Ballad Of The Sad Café’ (short story) 150–1 McCullin, John 26 McEwan, Ian 117, 122, 125 McPherson, Conor; The Weir 4, 214–18 memory 14, 42, 43, 49–57; in The Weir 217–18 metaphor 16, 20, 21, 98–100 Miller, Arthur 4, 218 Mills, Paul 10, 15; ‘Mile End Opera’ (poem) 40–41; ‘Alex Kidd In Miracle World’ (poem) 97–8; Never (verse drama) 210–13 Milton; Paradise Lost 73 Mitchell, Adrian 24 Mole, John 25 Morpurgo, Michael; The Sleeping Sword 172–3 Morrison, Toni; The Bluest Eye 2, 120 moving edge of time 30, 31, 145, 155, 231 Murdoch, Iris Murray, Les; ‘Driving Through Sawmill Towns’ (poem) 33–4 myth 30, 107, 108, 112, 178, 191, 213, 230 narration; external 139, 140, 142; first person 109, 121, 125, 132, 142, 151, 152, 167, 180, 229, 230; third person 6, 126, 129, 130, 131, 136, 139, 140, 151, 152, 180, 229, 230 narrative culture(s) 112, 123, 135, 165, 215, 218, 230 narrative image and progression; in poetry 86–7, 117, 133; in fiction 135–6, 153, 203, 223, 230 nouveau roman 118 novel 108–10, 114, 118, 122, 123, 127, 128, 136, 143, 151, 191, 239 Nunn, Trevor 231–2 www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 206 O’Brien, Tim; In The Lake Of The Woods Olds, Sharon; ‘The Hand’ (poem) 80–2, 91, 94, 229 Ong, Walter 10 Paulin, Tom 87 Percival, Brian 195–6 persona in poetry 16, 87–8, 103 photography 26, 39, 41 Pilgrim’s Progress 86–7 Pinter, Harold 1, 16–17; The Lover 17–18, 20; Family Voices on radio 204; as theatre 204–8, 209, 225, 228 Plath, Sylvia 8; ‘Ocean 1212W’ (memoir) 55–7; 67, 78, 104 polyphony 7, 230; also Bakhtin (qv) ‘poor’ theatre 220–22 Pope, Alexander 82, 90 present tense; in poetry 31–2 psychoanalysis 121 Pullman, Philip 156, 171, 175, 178, 228 Raskin, Richard 194–5 reading as a writer 34–5 realism 29, 30, 109; as a technique 111, 116–18, 118–9, 120, 124, 170, 231 reality effects 27, 30, 36, 39 realization 10, 12, 114, 132, 171, 178 research 22, 68, 103, 104; over-researched fiction 112–3; 127, 145, 152, 155, 156, 177, 178, 181, 226, 227 rhyme and metre 90–1 Rhys, Jean 125 Rich, Adrienne 16, 89 Richardson, Samuel 3, 108 Rissik, Andrew; King Priam And His Sons (radio drama) 203 Rowling J.K 27, 28, 156, 171; Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone 173–4 Rumens, Carol 184–5 Sage, Lorna; on Angela Carter (qv) 118 Salinger, J.D.; The Catcher in the Rye 5, 126; ‘A Perfect day For Bananafish’ (short story) 146–7 www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 207 Self, Will 125 sentence structure and punctuation 41, 155 sexuality 4, 68, 120, 154, 169, 190 Shakespear, William 72, 74, 83, 192, 210, 221, 222 Shaw, Fiona 58 Shields, Carol; Unless 126 Skilton, David 109 Spillard, Anne; ‘No Legal Existence’ (short story) 137–40 stage space 205–7; bare stage 212 stanzas 33, 94, 95–6, 105, 106, 229 status transactions 208–10, 224–5, 233 Steinbeck, John 230 Stevenson, R.L.; Treasure Island 160 story-like shape of time 27, 30–1, 35, 132, 133, 231 story-tellers; and oral tradition 24, 52, 156, 159, 165, 180; in theatre 217, 221–2 structure in poetry 91–4 surrealism 231 Sweeney, Matthew 87 Syal, Meera; Anita and Me 122–3 textual interventions 103, 231 (see Pope, R bibliography) time in the short story 129, 132 transposition/re-writing, as experiment 222; folk tale to play 226; in new version (see Mills, Never) 210; story to radio 201; in story theatre 221–2; see also textual intervention (qv) Tredre, Nicolas; ‘Flatmates from Hell’ (newspaper article) 26–7 turning points; in personal narrative 68; in poetry 76; in short stories 133–4, 231 Twain, Mark; Huckleberry Finn 168 Ulrichsen, Marianne Olsen; ‘Come’ (short fiction film) 197–8 verse drama; Edmund’s speech in King Lear 82–4; 210–13 voice qualities 233; naturalistic dialogue in drama 217; www.ATIBOOK.ir Index 208 and persona 88; in poetry 70–2; punctuating speech 8, in regional dialect 4; slang in Tony Harrison (qv) 90 Vonnegut, Kurt (jnr); Slaughterhouse 120–1 war; anti-war slogans 14; 15, 27, 28, 65, 107, 120, 121, 169–70, 176, 177, 179, 192, 199, 206, 218, 223, 231 Welsh, Irvine; Marabou Stork Nightmares 117–18 Westall, Robert; A Taste Of Fire, The Machine Gunners 176–7 White, T H 178 Williams, William Carlos 70; ‘Proletarian Portrait’ (poem) 74–5, 96, 226, 228 Wilson, Jacqueline 160; The Bed and Breakfast Star 161–2; How To Survive Summer Camp 157, 163, 165; 169, 176, 230 workbook 35–6 writing workshops 36 Yeats, W B 8, 88 Young Vic Theatre 222 Zephania, Benjamin www.ATIBOOK.ir [...]... journalism: www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing book 22 It starts with the little things: the unscrubbed bath, the unwashed dishes, the socks on the living room floor Then the little things become bigger; the unpaid share of the gas bill, the ‘borrowed’ clothes, the continuous late night thump of the stereo system Gradually you come to realise that you are living with the flatmate from hell (Tredre,... www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing book 16 She bought them because she wanted them She wanted something that was in them, although she could not have said at the time [of buying them] what it was It was not peace: she does not find them peaceful in the least Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease Despite the fact that there are no people in them or even animals, it’s as if there is something,... in Verona.’ And then for a long while they would talk about Verona, the things they would see and do, trying to make it real in their minds All around them the fog moved in low and fat off the lake, and their voices would seem to flow away for a time and then return to them from somewhere in the woods beyond the porch… They would go on talking about the fine old churches of Verona, the museums and... children in the face of disaster, together they decide to shape their future In the following passage, the narrator, a girl of eighteen, writes her diary Her younger sister Eva is heavily pregnant Their parents are dead They live on the edge of a forest in northern California, where only their resourcefulness allows them to survive www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing book 24 Every moment of experience... Again the moon grows full There has been a break in the rain, but the weather is so cold and Eva so enormously big that we stay close to home, close to the stove and pantry and our warm mattresses Eva dozes and drinks the tea I steep for her She knits odd little gowns from the silks our mother left, while I scan the encyclopedia for the dreams it contains, and write by the light of the round moon and the. .. developed the skill of writing as if in the presence of the scene, place, person they are describing, a style we might call responsive or expressionist Ted Hughes’ poem The Thought Fox’ describes not just a subject but a method, and one he recommends in his book on writing, Poetry In The Making Against this is the measured, careful phrasing found in the work of other poets the ‘midnight oil’ of the study... bounds, he yelled from the end of the road… Neither, however, could have foreseen the end of the test: He left town, went on to be twenty years dead www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing book 4 with a gunshot hole in the roof of his mouth, in Western Australia (Armitage 2003:2) ‘You can stop shouting now, I can still hear you’, Armitage writes in the final line of the poem The real question was... We know the story already, yet whenever the piece is delivered its world pushes aside the stream of unshaped time, replacing it with an inkling of the extraordinary Writing about Irish Lament poetry and the oral tradition, Aileen La Tourette sees these forms in terms of a physical act: I can imagine the poet, the keener; recalling the dead person with all the passion they could summon, and then, in... accent wonders about his father’s black Caribbean preacher-voice holding forth in a manner astonishing to him—one is obsessed with football, the other with the Bible In his poem The Shout’, Simon Armitage describes how he and another boy at school were testing the range of the human voice’ How far does a voice carry? was the question they asked themselves: He called from over the park—I lifted an arm... there must be some impact of strangeness—either the situation is strange or the characters are Story will insist this is so Into The Forest begins in one of these modes—it is circumstances—yet ends with the characters Gradually it is they who become extraordinary, and the special quality of the extraordinary in this case is that instead of remaining dependent children in the face of disaster, together ... www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing book 22 It starts with the little things: the unscrubbed bath, the unwashed dishes, the socks on the living room floor Then the little things become bigger; the. .. to us what the natural course of her life might have been, another the unnatural cause of her death By placing them together in slow motion the www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing book... dabbed from time to time the corner of her mouth when she felt there was www.ATIBOOK.ir The routledge creative writing coursebook 40 the slightest excess of spittle there The gesture was reminiscent