The Psychology of Creative Writing

Abstract

21Approximately 3 billion books are sold each year in the United States, and more than a quarter of the population reports reading more than 15 books per year (Ipsos 1). The work of creative writers -including novelists, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, and sitcom writers -has a significant impact on our lives. Not surprisingly, creative writers elicit much curiosity from their audience. Freud had already noted that "We laymen have always been intensely curious to know . . . from what source that strange being, the creative writer, draws his material, and how he manages to make such an impression on us with it, and to arouse in us emotions of which, perhaps, we had not even thought ourselves capable" (Freud 36).To further stimulate our curiosity, Freud noted that when asked, writers often give no explanation, or no good explanation, for their creative behavior -shrouding the creative writing process in an intriguing veil of mystery. The seemingly mysterious nature of creative writing may at least partially explain the relative lack of scientific attention this central human activity has garnered from psychologists. As noted by Sternberg, "creativity has been relatively little studied in psychology, creative writing even less so" (xv). Given the importance of writing in our daily lives, why haven't psychologists attempted to pierce the mystery and to understand the processes underlying creative writing? Creative writing is a complex, multifaceted endeavor that can only be adequately apprehended using an interdisciplinary perspective. Researchers may have therefore been discouraged by the necessity of taking into account insights from other fields, and by the fact that creative writing may be harder to study (because A Companion to Creative Writing, First Edition. Edited by Graeme Harper.

The construction of the “College English creative writing workshop” as the second class

“…The flourishing of creative writing workshop in native English speaking universities provides further confirmation that it is effective in cultivating students' writing ability. This has been proved by many scholars of language teaching (Howe, 2016;Forgeard, M., Kaufman, S. B., & Kaufman, J. C., 2009;Krom, C. L., & Williams, S. V., 2011;Nick, E., 2005;Moxley, 1989). For instance, according to Nick (2005), English creative writing workshop is effective in enhancing English writing ability by giving students both a more thorough understanding of literature and alternative but equally valid ways of expressing their feelings; and Moxley (1989) also confirmed that creative writing is very effective in training students' English writing ability.…”

Creative Intelligence and Creative Writing

“…There is no precise definition of what creative writing is, as many interpretations have been given to the concept of creativity (Kotopoulos, 2012). In an attempt, therefore, to clarify the term, we could say that it is the understanding, exploration and recording of experience (Marshall, 1974), the re-creation of emotional experiences (Sharples, 1996), the spontaneous expression of thoughts and feelings (Gerard, 1996), the enhancement of imagination (Hooker, 1997), the organization and revision of ideas (Harmer, 2004), a discipline involving knowledge and techniques (Dawson, 2005), the original composition (Evernett, 2005), expressive art (O'Rourke, 2005), poetry, prose, drama (HMIE, 2006), a tool of various types of therapy (Morley, 2007), imaginative interpretation of the world (Bennett et al, 2008), intuition and personal memories (Maley, 2009), active engagement with reading and writing (Freiman, 2009), creating imaginative narratives (Nettle, 2009), developing thinking skills (Chen & Zhou, 2010), originality (Temizkan, 2011), the free expression of opinions and feelings (Oral, 2012), a field of research in psychology (Forgeard, Kaufman & Kaufman, 2013), the connection of new information with previous information (Demir, 2013), a kind of catalyst in discussions about cultural differences (Harper, 2014), self-expression in an imaginative way (Ghani & Din, 2017), and finally, creative writing is limitless, as it has the potential to accept all writers, asking them to be completely original (MacVean, 2016), while also being linked to all three aspects of literacy: the functional, the critical and the creative (Kiosses, 2019). In education, the benefits of creative writing are manifold: a) It helps to develop language at all levels, including grammar, vocabulary and phonology.…”

Problem-Based Learning and Mind Mapping: Boosting Creativity in Architecture Education

“…Creativity is a multifaceted psychological phenomenon that has gained increasing attention in the field of psychology (Forgeard et al, 2013). While creativity has historically received less attention in psychology, there is a growing interest in understanding the psychological factors that influence and motivate creativity (Grant & Berry, 2011).…”