LITR 3731: Creative Writing
Student Journal / Portfolio Sample Submission 2003
Travis
Kelly
Journal
Introduction
The writing process promoted in this class differs significantly from the process I naturally employ, and I think the progress documented in this journal highlights that fact. As this was a creative writing class, I necessarily broke away from the essay format to which I have grown so accustomed. For instance dialogue, an integral component of both fiction and drama, is not a normal part of essay. So, it became necessary for me to develop my ability to write concise, convincing dialogue (I have no idea if I succeeded in this). Also, writing my fiction piece forced me to write descriptive passages, another less than essential component of essay. However, I don’t think my experience with the essay format was wasted with regard to this class. Had I not had the experience with essay that I had going into this class, I suspect I would have had a harder time developing the other aspects of my writing.
The poem, as the first work I wrote for this class, represented my first recent attempt at creative writing. Poetry was the least interesting section of the course to me, so I requested not to present my poem to the class and instead did an e-mail draft exchange. However, writing the poem went surprisingly smoothly for me, and I felt good about both the process of writing it and the resultant poem. I think the poem set me up to enjoy the rest of the course.
I was most interested in the fiction portion of the class because I have contemplated writing fiction professionally. Having had such a positive experience with the poem, I dove into the fiction piece head-first. Ironically, I may have had more trouble writing it than the poem and drama pieces combined. I knew what I wanted to write, but I wasn’t sure how to present in a concise and effective way. The fiction piece introduced me to the concept of balance in a work. My poem had been so short balance hadn’t manifested itself as a significant issue. Conversely, balance was a huge issue for me in the fiction piece. Was I including too much description? Too much exposition? Not enough dialogue? Was the dialogue well-dispersed? These issues gave rise to the bulk of the effort I exerted writing the fiction piece.
I may have enjoyed writing my drama piece the most. The concern for balance was vastly reduced in comparison to the fiction piece, since drama is almost entirely dialogue (with the exception of stage directions). Also, the drama genre seemed to lend itself to comedy, and I noticed an increase in the humor content of the entire class’ work during the drama presentations. After the encouragement of the poem and the trial-by-fire of the fiction piece, I felt the writing of my drama piece went exceedingly well. A concept came to my mind quickly, I executed it nearly as quickly, and I think I produced something of respectable quality.
In this journal I will outline the process that went into writing each of my three works for the course, in an attempt to make sense of the often irrational creative process. I feel there were several important discoveries made during this course, and I would like to highlight these as I am able to recall them. Most importantly, I think this journal will give me an opportunity to collect and reflect upon what I have learned about creative writing as a whole, as well as each of the three portions of the course.
Poem
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/3731/models/poetrysubs/poem03kelly.htm
My poem was interesting to me because the first two lines sprung to mind quickly and they remained the same throughout the entire writing and revising process. Also, my poem was the only work I did that was subject to an e-mail draft exchange. Once I began to think of an idea for the poem, the first two lines popped into my head and the rest of the poem seemed to materialize easily. The “seed” for this poem was my personal experience with the effects of perfectionist, obsessive-compulsive tendencies which can leave a person paralyzed and impotent. I wanted to comment on all people’s fixation with perfection, and while I think I accomplished this, the poem seemed to take on a separate, secondary meaning. The piece seemed to assume a nostalgic tone which lamented things lost to the past. This was not consciously intended by me, and this made me wonder if other poets have often seen their poems shift focus without their consent.
I felt that the e-mail draft exchange was very important to the development of my poem, because it gave me the opportunity to see how the poem affected another person. Was the message I was intending to convey actually being conveyed? In fact, the secondary meaning of my poem didn’t occur to me until my draft exchange partner pointed it out. Also, I received some word choice suggestions which I think improved my poem significantly. For instance, the last two lines of the poem were completely re-written during one of the e-mail exchanges. I knew beforehand that those lines were not particularly strong, but I wasn’t sure how to improve or re-write them. Fortunately, my draft exchange partner made the suggestion of making a Golden Fleece reference, and the revised lines began to take shape.
I think I preferred the e-mail draft exchange form of interaction over in-class critiquing because it allowed me to formulate and direct my questions more precisely. There were no time constraints, and I think my partner was able to spend more time considering their questions and my responses to them. I think that the comments and suggestion I received were of very high quality, and they had a large impact on the final product.
Fiction
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/3731/models/fictionsubs/fiction03kelly.htm
My fiction piece, “Nuts and Bolts”,
developed much differently than my poem. I
began mentally sketching a general plot for the piece far before I ever started
writing it. In fact, I spent far
more time getting a feel for what I was going to write than I did actually
writing it. I knew that I wanted to
write something with a science fiction twist to it, because science fiction is
perhaps the most interesting form of fiction to me.
Also, I had recently read quite a bit of science fiction for a previous
class, and the stories were fresh on my mind as I began to develop my own.
The plot went through many mental revisions as well as written revisions,
and I think I spent a lot more time editing my fiction piece than my poem of
drama pieces.
My main concerns while writing my fiction piece
were creating convincing dialogue and concise description/exposition.
I felt that while I was less constrained with the language in the
dialogue, it ultimately needed to give the reader a sense of the character’s
personality and advance the plot. Dialogue
could be “sloppy”, or conversational, but I didn’t want it to be sloppy
content-wise. On the other hand, I
wanted descriptive and expository passages to use correct grammar and intuitive
sentence structures. Most of all, I
wanted these sections to have a consistence level of quality such that the
reader would not be distracted while reading them.
In the end, I think description and exposition were easier for me to
write than dialogue, given that while writing I made conscious efforts to
“pepper” the story with dialogue and not inundate the reader with dense,
meaningless description.
My
fiction piece may be the only example of me losing perspective on my own work
this semester. There was nearly a
month of mental preparation, followed by three of four days of writing, followed
by a day or so of revision, followed by the in-class presentation.
I think by the time I had finished my presentation, my mind was
essentially closed to comments or further revision of the work.
When I initially envisioned the story, I felt I had a firm grip as to its
direction and focus. However, as
the writing and revision processes went on, I became uncertain as to what the
story should ultimately “do”. I
became dissatisfied with the work I had done, and I think this made finishing
the story impossible. Furthermore,
I realized as I was writing the story that it was probably going to be much
longer than I had originally intended. I
think many of the other students faced this problem as well, but I was unable to
resolve it for myself.
I think that, had I done an e-mail draft exchange rather than an in-class presentation of my fiction piece, I might have been more receptive to input. I could have bounced ideas off of other students as the writing process was taking place, and the story might have evolved much differently. However, the story was considered “finished” in my mind by the time I showed up to class to present it, and most of the suggestions the class offered didn’t stick. I don’t think this is indicative of the quality of the suggestions – I don’t think I would have been receptive to any suggestions at that time, regardless of their quality. Ultimately, I became disinterested in the work, and it shifted from being the most to the least interesting portion of the class for me.
Drama
Before I had written any of my work for this course, I was unsure how to feel about the drama portion. I thought that it would be fun to write a drama script, but I didn’t know if I would be able to put out a script of reasonable quality. Although the assigned portion of Minot’s Three genres text was brief, it may have been the most useful to me because I knew so little about writing drama beforehand. In particular, the example drama piece, “Hello Out There” gave me a feel for how a drama script should be organized and presented. Since I hadn’t read any drama scripts in a long time, I also relied upon what I saw the rest of the class produce for the assignment. Ultimately I decided upon a comic script, most likely because many of the other students chose to do so. Also, I think humorous scripts may be the easiest kind to write, as they allow for absurd, illogical situations and dialogue to take place.
Since I had so little to go by while writing my script, it seemed to come easier than my poem or fiction. Also, since drama is almost entirely dialogue, the balance between dialogue and exposition I struggled with in my fiction piece didn’t apply. I quickly thought of portraying a student as a tired and irritable procrastinator, and the script itself seemed to materialize as fast as I wrote it. I think there were two or three small changes I made after completing it, but I was largely satisfied with script in its original form. I think that the experience I gained writing my poem and fiction pieces helped to make the writing process itself very smooth, and I was able to spend more time visualizing where I wanted the plot to go. Also, since I used students in the class as templates for my characters, invention played a relatively small roll. Most of my effort was spent creating a social situation, not characters or an environment.
I was largely satisfied with my script when I presented it to the class. It felt complete and efficient, and I didn’t make too may changes to it. I revised Dr. White’s internal dialogue on page three a bit, Travis’ final line on page four, and Will’s line on page four. I think the characters’ personalities are more consistent after these changes, which was the only major concern I had with the piece. If the script has been significantly longer there may have been other considerations, but I don’t think these materialized in a three or four page script. Also, the entire drama portion of the course seemed a bit condensed and rushed, perhaps necessarily due to everybody presenting their work in-class.
Summary
I enrolled in this class for the fiction portion. However, perhaps the most important thing I learned during the semester was that, in writing, “it’s all good”. That is to say, the writing I did in one section of the course benefited the writing I did in the other sections. In fact, the fiction portion of the course gave me the most problems and I enjoyed it the least. However, I was not discouraged from my original intent to continue writing fiction. Rather, I now see fiction as a single component of the overarching field of “writing”, and I am no longer intimidated by poetry or drama.
The e-mail draft exchanges I participated in were particularly helpful, as I was given the opportunity to give and receive honest and constructive input on my own and another person’s work. I think a lot of my receptiveness towards the poetry section of the course was derived from the positive experience I had writing and revising my poem based upon another student’s suggestions. Since I had not written any poetry prior to taking this course, I was unsure how to proceed. I had an idea from reading Minot’s Three Genres how a poem should be constructed, and I knew how I wanted the poem to begin and what subject I wanted it to address. However, I wasn’t sure how I should be able to convey what I wanted to the reader in an effective way. Fortunately, my draft exchange partner offered several suggestions regarding my word choice and the general “flow” of the poem, so I was able to tell if my efforts were succeeding or not. It didn’t seem as important what I was writing as how I was writing it, and I think that the process of writing my poem was very beneficial. I took this attitude with me to the other sections of the course, and I think it helped me a lot.
Fiction still interests me more than the other
two genres of creative writing covered in this course, despite my somewhat
disappointing experience with it. My
general satisfaction with my work this semester has encouraged me to continue
writing. However, I am willing to entertain the possibility that I may
not write fiction exclusively, or even primarily.
I think I will always enjoy reading fiction more than any other form of
literature, but I also think that reading and writing are two completely
different beasts. A reader and a
writer bring two different sets of tools to what they do, and what a reader
experiences reading a work may be completely different from what the writer
experiences while writing it. Minot
mentioned that a fiction writer must give the reader the illusion that they are
discovering the characters in a story on their own, when in fact the writer has
carefully led the reader to them. Indeed,
I think writers must operate as illusionists in order to produce convincing
stories that people will want to read.
The effort exerted while writing should produce something which denies
that effort. As I continue to write
in the future, I hope to refine this process such that I am able to fool the
reader completely.
Appendix
All of my e-mail draft exchanges are included with my poem on the course website.