need help with thesis proposal, theme: creativity, idiolect, education

Be careful - I know at least one professional editor (here) who is an excellent story-teller.

One thing about this site is that the comments on the stories inspire all the authors to write more stories. If one breaks down that fact, then by encouraging what may start off as a timid first story on site by a new writer, becomes one of many stories because of the encouraging response from others on site. As authors on site we learn to be inspired by the positive feedback, even though at times that feedback may contain constructive points on how to improve.

I know the comments made on the stories have inspired me to enter the Challenges and add a few stories to my author page. I write F/M stories because that is what makes me happy rather then what makes the majority of readers on site. Despite that factor, there are still many viewers on site who comment or just plain read my stories to keep me hopping trying to figure out my next story.

I would suggest that is a point to consider. In all the office situations I have been in, and working for a government for many years means lots of meetings, the only stat that seemed to stick in my mind was how many people were opposed to anything new or different because that is what people talked about in the coffee rooms etc. Perhaps developing a method of giving even the most junior people in the office a statistical way to show support for a new idea without being identified would be encouraging to producing new ideas. Many people are scared to stick up for a new idea for fear of being deemed stupid by the nay sayer's in the environment.

The situation could be applied in a office/work environment. Here on this site those who think negative about the any story tend to not comment, in effect keeping quiet, which is hard to control in a work place environment I would think.

Is this "Learning to be Inspired?" I don't know that for a fact, except that with out the positive reinforcement here on this great site, I would not be anywhere near the writer or happy with being on site as I am now.

Yes, some editors can produce original work, which is why I didn't say "an editor never has the ability to write original work". When you look at the number of editors out there and the number of them with the ability to do original writing the word "rarely" is appropriate.

Putting it another way:
1) Knowing all of the semi agreed on rules of the English language does not make you a writer.
2) There have been some great writers whose editors had to revise large parts of their work - because some authors have talent but haven't master the craft of writing.
3) Virtually all professional writers have (and need) editors.
4) There is no causation link between mastering grammar and being able to produce creative writing.

Goodgulf

You can certainly teach people to "think outside the box" and if that isn't creativity, it is the next thing to it. of course, as with any teaching, some will respond better than others. Often this is done by teaching people to recognize 'the box' the standard conventional approach to a problem or issue, and then encouraging them to try something different, usually several different things. This many not be the same as the creativity that produces artistic masterpieces or Nobel prizes, but I believe that it is closer than one might think. I like to think of myself as a fairly creative person, both in my writing (which you can judge here) and in my day job. I am not, however, the equal of the true masters of either field, in my own opinion. (I am neither a Knuth nor a Bujold, nor even a Benson.) And I attribute a good deal of my creative abilities, small or large, to my own early environment and training, and to examples of creativity i was encouraged to emulate. How can you distinguish between creativity that is 'innate" and that is learned in, say the first 10 years of life? A baby surely does not display much creativity, who is to say it is 'in there" some how?

Actually, number 3 is not nearly as true as it should be, or as it used to be. This is because publishers, at least US publishers of popular fiction, no longer provide much in the way of traditional editing. They do have employees with teh title of "Editor" but what those employees do is primarily a) acquisitions: deciding what books to purchase and for how much, and b) product management: shepherding a book thru the complex and arduous process of publication and marketing. Editors have always. or at least since well before I was born, done these things, but it used to be that a significant part of their time was spent in actually *editing* that is, making significant critical comments on unpublished works designed to improve those works. But the pinch on profit margins (so that an editor has twice as many books to supervise as a 1980 editor did) , and the increasing complexity of teh publishing process, have pretty much squeezed all that out. Authors who really want through editing hire a freelance editor out of their own pockets (I have a couple of close friends who have worked in the US publishing industry, and have discussed this with several commercially published authors as well.)

As to your point 4 (and the related point 2) while there have been some great storytellers who did not master the craft of writing, there have not been all that meany who were successful published authors (IMO there is more to writing than story telling) and in the rare case that such an great but nu-tutored story teller does master the craft of writing, IMO s/he usually becomes a better writer, and the quality of the output goes up.

Any author can benefit from assistance with technical and craft-skill issues, we all have something to learn. But a basic knowledge of the craft does, IMO improve and facilitate the expression of the talent as well. Many if not most writers of quality have indicates that the want to master the skill of writing to the best of their ability, and work at doing so. Talent and craft-skill are synergistic, each tends to improve the other to some extent, I think.

I agree with this. There are few things more frustrating than reading a wonderful story full of errors. There have been some that I've copied, pasted, and then edited the hell out of stories just so I could read them more clearly.


I agree that many writers want the ability to better tell the stories that live inside them.


I'm not in complete agreement with this. I'll agree that being better at expressing your talent often leads to better stories, but I disagree with the idea that mastering the English language can awaken the spark of talent. Doing so may give one the confidence to express their long buried talents but I don't see it as awakening creativity where there is none.

The English teacher (or professor) working endlessly on the unpublished and unreadable "The Great Novel" is a stereotype founded in truth.

When it comes to writers on spanking sites, I've followed several of them as they've matured. Watched them move from walls of text to paragraphs to better use of paragraphs to creative use of white space. In honing their craft one of the two most important things they've done is to write. The other, of course, is to read - to see how other writers craft their stories and learn from that.

I have read many interviews with writers over the years and most of them have the same basic message to aspiring writers - WRITE! Don't plan to write, learn about writing, go to workshops, take courses, work on outline after outline, etc but sit down and actually write something. Anything. Because writing is one of those things you learn by doing. Yes, you need to know about your tools, but a self taught handyman is a better carpenter than someone who studied countless books on woodworking without ever putting hammer to nail.

I think Stephen King may have said it best when asked if you can fill a single page with text in one day. Not 20 pages, not 10 pages, but a single page. If you can do that, and keep at for a year, you'll have 356 page novel. Odds are it will be crap (no outline, poorly thought out characters, etc) but you would have started defining your writing style and learning what does and doesn't work.

Goodgulf

Now to get back on topic....LOL

I have to ask. If one can show another how to bloom in public speaking or any thing else, is that not teaching creativity? teaching one to master a skill is a creative process. I think we have deemed the definition of "creativity" way too far.

Sometimes all it takes is courage and a bit of encouragement.

I've exchanged emails, messages, comments, etc with several people over the years who swore that they "weren't good enough" to write a spanking story. And I always tell them "You're writing well enough to communicate with me - and that's good enough to post in the stories forum".*

Because often what they lack isn't talent but the courage to write, or to post what they have written. Too many people refuse to post unless they think something is perfect so never post at all - denying us the chance to hear their voice. Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement for a writer to share his talent with the world.

It was either Stephen King or Jim Butcher (or both - it could be a common piece of advice) that if someone tells you to stop writing and you do then they've save you some time - because you're not a writer if you stop just because someone tells you to. A writer writes, especially when they have to hone their craft, because that's what being a writer is.

To quote King:
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
"The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better."
"you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will."
"Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do -- to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street."

If anyone reading this thinks that he or she can't write, then I'd like you to know that you're at least half wrong. If you can read this then that's half of Stephen King's equation right there. Even if it's just a one line story such as "Daddy came in the room and spanked Suzie." it's still a story and it's something you can expand on. Fan your talent. Give voice to your fantasies by writing them.

At least try; if you don't like it then you can stop. And don't have to post until you're ready to, but sometimes posting it and getting a comment can make all the difference in the world.

Goodgulf

*Um, a slight correction - if they approach me on this site I'll recommend another site to do their first posts on. The library has an exacting standard when it comes to submissions. There are countless spanking sites that lack gatekeepers - spanko.net springs to mind.

In a nutshell, creativity can be taught if started at an early age by teaching kids to 'think outside the box'. There are many forms one can express creativity. it isn't just thru the written word. Visual art, performing arts etc is just as creative as is the art of writing. All can be taught by expanding the thought processes of the individual to free up their confidence in their inner selves. This is more effective when started at an early age, but if someone is open to the idea of clearing the 'arts' in whatever form that takes, it can be achieved at any age. Openness to learning is the key.

I saw a book, thirty years ago. It was a reprint of a "penny dreadful" from the 19th century; about a vampire, but what interested me, was the foreword, in which was quoted a printer, who had been apprenticed around 1840. He described, how one of these authors worked. when deadline was near, he sat down and wrote the skeleton of the story. a galley-proof was made, and he started to make embellishments, descriptions of persons and surroundings etc. If this was not enough to fill the
32 pages, then he had to put in descriptions of the weather or the moonlight. With a computer a writer can in that way create a story; without troubling compositors and printers.