Inside Creative Writing: Episode 2
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- Watch a Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer create a short story in real time, from first inspiration through all the bad sentences and wrong turns to final, polished story, commenting on his process as he works.
Robert Olen Butler, who teaches creative writing at Florida State University, recorded this 17-part series in the fall of 2001. For more on the project, visit www.fsu.edu/butler For more on Professor Butler: www.robertolenbutler.com
I just wanted to thank you for making your Inside Creative Writing series on UA-cam. I feel I've learned so much, and I'm only on ep2. Thank you for your openness, your honesty and your insight. I've been writing and reading everyday for the past six years and have yet to get published, but I'm so hopeful and I'm trying so hard, and I feel your videos have helped me immensely. I've already started a new story that I think is far better than anything I've done to date.
Much love and appreciation!
What a wonderful experience it has been for me to be an observer of this creative writing process. Thank you, Professor.
Tuned in for Day 2
It is so difficult to examine things critically online without sounding like you are tearing somebody apart so I hope anybody reading this has already seen how much I admire what Butler is doing. Incredible!
That said, what he begins to say at 143:40 is so much more complex than he makes it, and, I think, reveals some fairly heavy filters on his part. That said, he still is teaching some incredible stuff.
Your insight with how to find your right mind state to write is remarkable. Thank you very much Sir for another pleasing viewing
Can relate to the putting on of cozy footwear, and the playing of conducive music in the background, as well as that "trance state" that can so easily be crashed by rude intrusions.
Just connected this year. Great material and valuable stuff. Where are you these days? Will use with my students and my own writing. Bless
love it, @7:20 'time to knock on the muse's door' , yes indeed, I think I will be hearing those words in my head every time I start from now on. the moccasins, funny, I need my feet to be comfy as well or it's a distraction.
say I was wondering what to do when you have scenes but trying to add dialogue to them??🤔🤔
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity... And so my journey continues
Do we know if this short story has been published in a collection at this point?
+The Lost Scrapbook I answered my own question with my very own fingertips:
www.amazon.com/Had-Good-Time-American-Postcards/dp/0802142044?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
Love the part around 1:45:00 amazing
So was he falling a tree or at church that morning?
getting the audiobook of hot country, time to see if you have the goods, sir!!! :-)
@30:38, feels like The Road by Cormac McCarthy just a wee bit, that is not a criticism, just an observation.
disagree on 1:42:00 re: Stephen king, I think the rationale is a bit of a stretch, however with Sartre, or in my experience, Ayn Rand, atlas shrugged and the fountainhead is philosophy using a fictional story as its vehicle, the philosophical 'point' was known to the author ahead of time, I agree.
But I think Stephen king is debatable as literature (and no I am not a fan insomuch as I have read very little Stephen King),
Does mainstream popularity negate or reduce its literary value? I think king uses horror as a backdrop, but you seem to argue that his work process cannot be considered as literature, I haven't studied king's work process, but perhaps as he works he develops an understanding that he didn't know when he thought about it or outlined it or during various drafts.
He starts at 8:28
What he says about excluding the rational from writing seems very odd to me. How does a writer like James Joyce write books which seem to draw in other influences and references purposefully? It seems things like this are planned. Do authors not have ideas about themes to explore beforehand as well? I am newer to writing
The short answer is, some do, some don't. Many writers, especially older ones, had previous life experiences that they could effectively draw from and make a unique story. An example would be Melville's Moby Dick, he was a whaler, and wrote a book based off of that experience. I would recommend if you are newer to writing, is to find out what works for you. (Look up Plotter vs Pantser) Hopefully, this helps some.
If there was ever such a thing as writers porn - this is it.
is there any other dictionary than merriam webster!!!???
Are you Searching for online courses just google search as "Zoe Talent Solutions".
As much as I like Butler he is wrong about Steven King, at least some of the time. Kings method is actually very, very close to Butlers in it's fundamental aspects, and he does not know where his works go or how they will end either. What comes out of King is just different from what comes out of Butler, because he is full of something else. Because he is a different guy. In his own words, "just a guy". I am not comparing their products but I am comparing their method.
+whynottalklikeapirat He is right though, King has a certain aim and that is to incite fear.
Mick W I know KIng has said so in interviews, especially back in his ... errh ... cokier days. But you know - knowing that overall you are in a certain genre is not the same as deliberately going for that superficial effect all the time. King has very often remarked that when people ask why he only writes about horrors his reply is "why do you assume I have a choice?". King does not sit down to deliberately and consciously construct or design a horror-machine. His ideas come from "the guys in the basement". He does not plot. He sees characters in a situation and it evolves from there. He has spoken about the use of menstrual blood in "carrie" for example which he never thought of as symbolic but realized after a while was a recurring theme so he explored it further. In practice king writes very much like Butler. He describes his process as that of an archeologist. You find a bone sticking out of the ground and you start digging. It may be just the one bone or an entire dinsaur skeleton. You won't know until you are done. I think King has a leg in each camp. He written so much and some of it is probably design more than art. You'll find Bradbury talking about the different approaces to story as well. Sometimes they just come and you run with it. King is deeply in the camp of the explorers of the unconscious and essentially an emergent and non-plotting or scheming writer. Sometimes he catches fish. Sometimes he doesn't.
+outraged american yes, this is true. i question that Butler doesn't have very specific kinds of emotions that he is unconsciously aiming for. ..I' m not arguing. I think this becomes a bit of cherry-picking from both sides.
The Lost Scrapbook It's completely within Butlers method for the unconscious to have emotional aims. These aims are implicitly expressed in the yearning of the voice that he is channeling, for want of a better word, and it is unfolded and discovered in the writing process as that yearning drives the story towards the final epiphany, which is revealed to the author only then. The story then is a gestalt of the unconscious and the unconscious drives that were channelled into the story. Further our conscious experience always becomes part of our unconscious lives as forgotten memories and are eventually decomposed and recombined into new emerging patterns. So the snake is eating it's own tail to some extent.
+whynottalklikeapirat Very well put. Yes, I think I'm saying the same thing, essentially. King describes a process in which he lets his story unfold from moment-to-moment. Being that King has Stephen King's unconscious guiding this process, it isn't surprising that some very horrific and scary situations are going to arise as he follows his guts. I'm not equating their methods though. I'm very much appreciating Butler, on many levels. That said, the way he speaks about King, in his book, it seems to me that in coming to his opinion about King (that King starts with a conscious goal) Butler is projecting his needs, as a reader/artist, onto King's stories. Anyway, I very much appreciate what you said.
This guy seems to use 'and' quite a lot. I've always thought using and that much was just plain lazy writing. Also a lot of writers say just write your first draft don't correct spelling mistakes or grammar until the 2nd draft. Hey what do I know this guy's critically acclaimed but why the alternative information?
Didnt know you could just decide not to follow comma rules
Watching him work, I don't get the impression that he is CONSTANTLY experiencing his worst trauma. I'm referring to his hyperbolic Michael Jordan analogy around 1:35. I must appreciate what he is doing but there's something a little off, to me, each time he talks about what torture he is in....
Could you have a more boring writing style. And ..and..and...and ...and