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To cite this article: Charlotte L. Doyle (1998) The Writer Tells: The Creative Process in the Writing of Literary Fiction,
Creativity Research Journal, 11:1, 29-37, DOI: 10.1207/s15326934crj1101_4
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Creativity Research Journal Copyright 1998 by
1998, Vol. 1 1, NO. 1,29-37 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
ABSTRACT: The experience of creating fiction, a topic methods for exploring the creative process have tended
that has been taken up independently in literary publi- to deemphasize conscious experience (e.g., Freud,
cations and in psychological works on creativity, is a 190811925; Weisberg, 1986). But recently, psycholo-
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promising topic for interdisciplinary conversation. I gists interested in the arts have turned again to fine-
interviewedfive contemporaryfiction writers,focusing grained descriptions of experience as a rich resource for
on their experiences in creating fiction. The common- gaining insight into the making of creative work (Csik-
alities, along with theoretical concepts from psychol- szentmihalyi, 19%; Franklin, 1994).
ogy, phenomenology, and literary theory, allowed me In the present study, I asked contemporary fiction
to construct a tentative modal account. Writers identi- writers to describe the creation of particular short stories
fied seed incidents whose meanings went beyond their and novels and how their works developed over time.
narrative understanding and so stimulated exploration Each writer had an individual voice; by offering many
and discovery. Writing progressed through alterna- quotations from each interview, I hope that those unique
tions between a "writingrealm" (in which the writer voices can be heard in this article. But there were also
withdrewfrom everyday life with intentions to write, to commonalities in the stories the writers told-com-
plan actively for specific works, and to reflect on what monalities that brought to mind the work of psycholo-
had been written) and a "jictionworld" (which was gists (Bruner, 1986; Gruber, 1981; Polkinghome, 1988;
described in more passive terms, in which story ele- Werner, 1948), literary scholars (Bakhtin, 1981;Burke,
ments came to the writer as narrative improvisation 1945), philosophers (Gadamer, 197511989; Same,
unfolded). Like other creative endeavors, the creative 193911948). a phenomenological sociologist (Schutz,
process in fiction writing is a voyage of discovery but 1962). and a phenomenological anthropologist (Young,
differs from most other arts and sciences (even the art 1987). Combined, the interviews and the theoretical
of poetry) in one of its major modes of thought-narra- work allowed me to put together a tentative, composite
tive improvisation, a nonreflective mode that typically account of the experience of creating fiction. The re-
involves stances in a fictionworld from viewpoints dif- sponse of one of the interviewed writers, Joan Peters,
ferent from one's own. A response to the suggested appears as a postscript to this article.
account by one of the interviewed writers appears as a
postscript to this article.
The Interviews
How do particular works of fiction come into being?
What is the writer's experience of creating a The five writers who collaborated with me in this
story-from the first impulse to its final realization? study-Peters, the late Jerome Badanes, Kathleen Hill,
These questions are promising beginnings for an inter-
disciplinary conversation between the literary world - --
and psychology. Writers and literary commentators This article is in memory of Jerome Badanes.
Manuscript received May 3 1, 1996; revision received September
have been interested in such questions for many years 6.19%; accepted June 21, 1997.
(see, e.g., the regular "Art of Fiction" feature in the Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Char-
Paris Review and Cowley's 1959 introduction to the lotte L. Doyle, Department of Psychology, Sarah Lawrence College,
first volume). In the past, psychological theories and Bronxville, NY 10708. E-mail: cdoyle@mail.slc.edu.
Gadamer (1975/1989), among others, suggestedthat the paramount world of real objects and events into which we
gear our actions [the everyday world], the world of imagin-
recognition of a question already points in the direction i n g ~... such as the play world of the child, the world of the
of possible answers. In fiction, that direction is the insane, but also the world of art,the world of dreams, the
creation of an imaginary world, one that draws on a world of scientific contemplation. (p. 341)
particular kind of narrative thinking (Bruner, 1986).
Seed incidents provide a starting point-sometimes a For Schutz, each distinctive sphere involves specific
major character, sometimes a central incident, some- cognitive modes-a specific kind of experience of self
times the sweep of the plot. In addition, we see in the and a specific form of sociality.
present articlethat there is a felt sense of story direction, As the writers described what it was like to sit at their
which at times tells the writer that the story is going off desks in their writing places, it seemed as if they were
course. describing such a distinctive sphere of experience. Its
form of sociality was solitariness; the experience of self
The 'Writingrealm" was highly self-conscious; thinking was intentioned,
purposeful, reflective. Drawing on Young (1987), such
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Are seed incidents really the beginning? In most a sphere of experience can be called the "writingrealm."
cases in this study, sometimes even with an author's Sometimes, while sitting in their writing places,
very first stories, something else had happened first. writers had recognized an event from the past as a seed
Each had decided to write fiction. As Gruber (1981) incident. Hill had been a child when she first heard her
pointed out, creative people actively construct condi- mother tell about an experience with her father (Hill's
tions that allow creative work to happen. Talking about grandfather). Only after Hill had set up a writingrealm
this explicitly was sometimes part of telling the story of did this incident become the beginning of her story,
a story. For example, Hill told of acritical step in writing "Willie." Just as often, the seed incident occurred long
her first stories. after the self-definition of self as fiction writer; then,
an incident may have been recognized as the story seed
I had atiiend who went out everyday, and I rented as soon as it occurred. Paley became intrigued as a
her place. ... I would go to her apartment, and that writer as soon as she met the bigot with his Black
gave me a sense of sanctuary. I wasn't going to grandson.
read her books. I wasn't going to answer her
phone.
The "Fictionworld"
Others spoke of home offices, going to writers' colo-
nies, and, in general, designating certain places to be In fiction writing, the self-conscious, intentioned,
their writing places. Paley spoke of writing everywhere purposeful mode of being gave way to another mode of
she could, including subways and trains, but even she experience. Writers typically spoke of this mode after
spoke of renting a hotel room at critical points in her describing the seed incident, and I asked, "What hap-
work in order to give herself a chance to put things pened next?"e usual answers were "I got an image,"
together. "I wrote a sentence," or "I wrote a paragraph."
The designated writing places were not just places. LaChapellesaid that the story based on her landlady had
They were occasions for a particular way of being-a begun with the line, "Iam a poodle." Writing that line,
withdrawal from the hurly-burly of everyday life. The she had begun to feel her way into being a poodle. With
places had to be solitary, because fiction is "the kind of a stroke of the pen, she had imaginatively transformed
writing you do in a room by yourself," as Badanes put herself into a dog, allowing the sounds and sights and
it. There was a sense of self as someone whose task is smells of a dog's world to come to her. She had left the
to write. writingrealm and had taken a step into another world of
The works of Heinz Werner (1948) and Alfred experience-what can be called the "fictionworld," the
Schutz (1962) are relevant here. Werner suggested that unfolding world of characters and events as they appear
it is useful to distinguish among distinctively different in the imaginative experience and words of the author.
spheres of experience. Schutz called them "finite prov- It was only a glimpse of the fictionworld. Immedi-
inces of meaning" (p. 341) and pointed to ately after, LaChapelle remembered thinking "Could I
- - -
You don't think it out. You become the poodle When b r i b i n g their expdaiences in the writingre-
and see what happens. ... I first was doing it from alm, writers terrded to speak in the first person: "I
a first-person poodle. I am a poodle, the mailman wanted to ...,""I saw that ...."W b n describiag writing
comes ... but it just wasn't true ... it was too that had gone well, though, they no lower spob of
farcical. So then 1tried a third-person poodle, and themselves as active agents. Rather, they described their
it seemed more real. experience in much more passive terms, as if the fic-
tionworld were acting on them,even possessing them.
Sometimes finding the rigbt viewpoint is a long Hill told me "Some voice had taken over in the writing."
struggle. Paley had w r h n the h t two pages of her Paley said, "I had to let w o w s 1 6 see it with his own
story of the man with the Black grandson from the point eyes." Peters cmtrasted two chtuwbrs in her
of view of a woman who him in the park. After novel-Manny, who had come to her in the fiction-
that, Paley had been stuck for 2 ycsars, &though she had world, and Elkn, with whom she was still net fully
worked on other storks. Then she came back to it, wrote satisfied. "Ellen was more constructed. ... Manny came
another incident, and realized what had betn wrong. to me. He possessed me."
The woman didn't really know the story. Paley spoke Bsdancs, in the writingreslm, had had dl sorts of
of saying to herself, "It's his story. Why don't you let inteations for his Holocaust novel: He had wmted to
him tell it, for Chrissakel' So she did. give voice to the survivors' stories, to deal with con-
tern- Black-Jewil issues,to use all of the ssnses
in his writing. He h d begun a novel h u t a filmmaker,
somewhat like himself, trying to make sense of survi-
vors' lives. He had w d on it for several months,
This seerch for the narrative voice iliwtratw another knowiag s9nne$tingwas wrong. EQie had finQy realized
typical featm of the creation of fiction in all of its that asurvivorhad to t d J the stmy directly. But
stages-alternation between reflective and nonreflec- had felt he could not do it; the survivor's pemality
tive thought (Sartre, 1939/1948), between refiective and history were too different from his own. So,
The Writer Tells
Badanes had continued doing it the old way. Then, one LaChapelle said, "It's real weird. You can feel like part
day, he heard his survivor's voice speaking the opening of everybody, every character. I felt like Lakund, too,
sentence. At another point, Badanes said: and like the little boy."
Authors also told of feeling responsible to their
I was halfway through the book, and I felt I characters. Several spoke of doing or not doing their
needed something, but I didn't know what I characters justice. In one Paley story, we meet Mrs.
needed. And she came to me ... one day as I was Rafferty through the eyes of another character (Vir-
writing. And I wrote her name-Malkala-and I ginia). Paley has a second story about Mrs. Rafferty told
could see her face ... her large lips and a certain from a different point of view. She explained what had
sort of, like a clown smile. ... It moved me compelled her to write the second story:
greatly. It gave me chills.
I always felt that girl Virginia didn't see her
[Mrs. Rafferty] straight. ... That bothered me.
In the fictionworld, characters take on a reality of their
I didn't like leaving her in that rotten condi-
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and purposeful in the fictionworld, authors feel as they write, eveu first drab. Paley, fore ,said, "I
though characters act and events unfold in-tly talk to time ptople all dK:time. And I must ralkto &em
of their conscious control, sometimes in ways that 60 times before I'm sure they sound right."
surprise the authors. In the fictionworld, the self-con- Several writers spoke of a particular kind of
scious "writing self' disappaars (Csiksmntmihsdyi, revision-reflecting on the themes and i q e s in
1990, 19%); if there is a sense of self at all, it is as the their work. Althouah some of the writers had had
fictional narrator or as one or more of the characters. some idea (before beginning to write) of the more
Emotions ate not connectad to the writer's aims and abstract themes they had wantnd the fiction to deal
purposes but to the exptrien;cesand fates of the charac- with, new meanings and central images had
ters. Although characters and events may begin with emerged from the fictionworlds. Will had written
seed incidents and characters from the everyday world, some passages with references to Orpheus 9ad De-
they typicaHy change as events in the fictionworld meter seemingly carried along by the rhythmn of
unfold. the language. She said,
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Completion and the Sharing of the Work Still, the process of writing fiction-planning for
and then using narrative improvisation to conjure up
The pull toward completion (Lewin 1935) must be and enter a fictionworld-is a particular way of con-
strong in order to be chosen and sustained over long fronting the unknown. Two of the writers were poets
periods of time, disappointments, interruptions,feelings too. In the interviews, each spontaneously offered a
of failure. The writers did not speak of the pull in terms sense of the difference between writing fiction and
of making a choice: Badanes spoke of being haunted by writing poetry. Paley said, "You can say poetry is a
the Furies; Peters, of being possessed by her character; person's way of addressing the world. Fiction is the way
Hill, of an obsession, as if everything had depended on you get the world to address you." Badanes put it this
getting to the end of her story; Paley, of the compulsion way:
to tell the truth about an invented reality.
Authors have a sense of when their work is fin- A lyric poet celebrates his or her own voice, his
ished-a sense that the story as written gives the expe- or her soul in some way. ...This is me in the world
... this is how I see it. ... Fiction is very good
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tionworld-a story about the fiction-writing process writers and those who write about fiction: Does the
itself. The story of writing that story may be very account resonate with their experience of fiction writ-
different what was described in this study. Exploring ing? What is left out? What should be elaborated?What
differences in the experience of creating diffmnt kinds should be modified?
of fiction (e.g., short story, realistic novel, postmodern One of the interviewed writers, Petets, has already
work, satire) is a subject for further research. responded. In a letter, she sugp~tedthat the proposed
Even this tentative modal account has implications account can be rnmingful and relevant to a writer, that
for psychologists to consider. Psychologists have sug- it provides a framtzwork about which a writer can aug-
gested that the creative process is a kind of problem ment and query. Petam's letter appears in full as a
solving, but the problem to be solved in the arts is less postscript following the refeaences. Again, the fruitful-
evident than the problem in the sciences.For the authors ness of interdisciplinary conversation between those
in this study, a seed incident that had gone beyond who create and those who study the creative process
ordinary narrative logic provided the problem to be becomes manifest.
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Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory ofpersonality: Selected papers. I would add one thought here that might interest you.
New York: McGraw-Hill. I've heard a lot of authors speak of something that often
Paley, G . (1994). The collected stories. New York: F m .
Perkins, D. (1981). The mind's best work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
happens to me. When I'm "in" the fictionworld, I can
University Press. get restless or overexcited and decide to leave, which I
Peters. J. (1985). Manny andRose. New York: St. Martin's. later regret. It's as if, at times, you wade too deeply into
Polkinghome,D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the humon sciences. the fictionworld, or you get scared of the power of it, or
Albany: State University of New York Press. you feel so sure of it you think you can leave and come
Rothenberg, A. (1979). The emerging goddess: The crearive process
in art, science, and otherjiefields.Chicago: University of Chicago
back any time, which isn't necessarily true. This is a
Ress. very different experience from being "thrown back into
Sartre, J. P. (1948). The emotions: Outline of a theory ( B . Frcchtman, the writingrealm." It's almost the opposite.
Trans.). New York: Philosophical Library. (Original work pub- I think that everyone who writes seriously has the
lished 1939) experience of being outside the writing and then,
Schutz, A. (1%2). Collected papers (Vol. 1). The Hague, Nether-
lands: Martinus Nijhoff.
suddenly (or finally, after much effort and time),
being "in" it. I have that same feeling when I'm
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