Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Mind Mapping
So firstly, a creative writing "thesis" is not really a thesis in the conventional sense. I'm actually creating a work of creative writing. So, my plan so far is to create a work of children's literature, since that's the field I'm most interested in (although I need to work with my adviser to figure out if the creative writing committee will accept this kind of thing). So... I did some preliminary mind mapping and came up with this:
Okay, but then you get to that "Content Subject(s)" bubble and realize that I'm dancing around the field of children's literature, but I haven't concretely set down or even discussed what my content is going to be at all yet. I have many half-formed ideas, which include such diverse subjects as astronomy, art history, and folklore, but like most creative projects, these ideas are still in the amorphous, changeable stage, and aren't likely to be fully developed until I start writing and outlining. But I haven't gotten to that point yet, especially as I'm not sure the committee will be on-board with this. So for now, I'm going to be devoting my research to children's literature in general, examining styles, conventions, notable works, etc. Ideas welcome!
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Are you planning on creating a children's book? I like the idea of looking at development psychology and creating a children's story book towards a certain age group. It'd be interesting once you get your subject narrowed down a bit more to see what you're really interested in. By looking at your ideas of prose, folklore, and poetry, it reminds me of a fairy-tale type story. I'm not sure if that is the way that you want to go, I'd be interested to see. Also, it would be totally awesome if you were to illustrate this book yourself!
ReplyDeleteJumping off of what Ericka said, I think it'd be cool if you researched the role story books play in an individual's development and wrote an story that exemplifies your concept of the "ideal children's story." Just an idea. You have a very fun and exciting field to work in. :)
ReplyDeleteI think based on the web you made so far that you're off to a good start. You seem to have covered a great deal of the bases already. I think that there should be dashed lines between marketing and several of your other bubbles. When you consider marketing your creative writing piece I think you would have to consider education/reading abilities, developmental level and also content subject of the work so you know how to/who you're marketing your work to (I'm assuming that not only do you want to develop a creative writing piece, but you want people to read it). Since you're starting off looking at children's lit in general I'm sure you'll find an avenue that seems most interesting to you and it will direct your project further!
ReplyDeleteWow. Good ideas here. I love your interests, Gabe, and I think you have time here to explore this landscape and to flesh out your ideas. One suggestion I have is to become familiar with this year's (and previous year's) children's book award winners. I know that the Newbery Award, for example, was just recently announced. I bought the book! It's called The One and Only Ivan, and it's told from a captive gorilla's point of view. You might research all of the different kinds of children's book awards--I know there are separate ones for fiction and non-fiction, for instance, and you also might talk to some children's librarians, maybe the one in your local public library? Librarians are definitely an under-appreciated and under-used community resource. And, free! And, accurate! I once heard someone say this: "Google will give you 1000 answers. A librarian will give you the right answer." Anyway, why not start with the best of the best and see what you notice, what they have in common, why they are considered to be extraordinary.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as a writing teacher, I can't help but suggest that you should sit down and do some personal writing about the books that were important to you as a child. What were the titles you chose over and over again, the books you memorized before you could even read the words? What characters and stories stuck in your head? Why? I think this kind of writing is so valuable for a researcher, as it helps to "unearth" the autobiographical roots of the research--your rationale, your motivation, the significance of this work. Keep going, Gabe!
Gabe,
ReplyDeleteSo I was telling my mom this morning about your dilemma with getting creative writing to accept your idea of writing a children's book. She was a children's librarian for almost 15 years and she's been a first grade teacher for the past 15 years. She told me that when she still worked at the library, children's books had to be 32 pages to be published (that included the title pages and copyright pages at the start and end, pretty much all pages except the covers). So I looked at a few books in my bookcase (The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett) and they were both exactly 32 pages. I think that if you look into what publication guidelines exist now that would be something you could bring back and show creative writing (if you haven't already). Maybe they're concerned you're only gonna have something 5-10 pages long. You could check out Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, or look at Scholastic or Mifflin's information about people who want to submit manuscripts to find out for sure. A librarian at the public library could probably help too to talk to and find this information.
Thanks, this is really helpful. And yeah, something in the 30+ page range is definitely what I'm shooting for. I think if I clarify that in my proposal, that will certainly help. The only real problem is that it won't be 30+ full pages of text -- there will be pictures and some pages may not have all that much text on them. But as long as I can convince them that much of the storytelling lies in the brevity and images, letting the committee know that it will actually be a substantial amount of pages (about as long page-wise as many of the other theses I looked at), will probably help my case a lot.
DeleteAlso, looking at the guidelines for different publishing houses is a great idea, and definitely something I'll be looking into. And I'm going to the library today to ask and find out more.
Thanks so much!