Intersecting Genre

A Skills-based Approach to Creative Writing

Jason Olsen

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781350288652
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350288676
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Screenwriting

Creative writing takes on many genres, or forms: fiction, poetry, nonfiction and dramatic writing. Whilst all have their own principles and 'rules', all modes of writing overlap and borrow from each other, and so what you learn in one form can influence, inform and inspire your practice in others. Intersecting Genre holds this idea at its heart, embracing the dissolution of disciplinary and genre boundaries to discuss the ways each genre supports the others. Whilst traditional approaches typically discuss one genre independent of others, this book explores genre relationships with each chapter focusing on the intersection between 2 modes and what you can learn and the skills you can transfer by combining the wisdom gained from the study of, for example, fiction and poetry together.

With most introductory creative writing courses aiming to apprise you of such mechanics of writing as narrative, pace, vocabulary, dialogue, imagery and viewpoint, Intersecting Genre is the ideal companion, offering a unique methodology that analyses these ideas as they feature across the different genres, thus giving you the ultimate, well-rounded introduction before you settle into the modes of writing that best suit you as your progress with your writing. Covering fiction, poetry, nonfiction, writing plays and screenwriting, and also taking stock of the forms that do not fit neatly into any genre silo, this book uses models, critical questions, writing warm-ups and writing practice exercises to give you a solid understanding of the points discussed and encouraging you to put them to practice in your own work. With the field of creative writing evolving constantly, and with approaches to teaching and learning the subject vast and continually expanding, this book offers a dynamic, and uniquely holistic method for developing your writing skills, asking you to deeply consider the issues, and possibilities, present in genre.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Pronouns
• 1 Question Everything
• 2 The Genres in Brief
• 3 Stories and Song: Intersections between Fiction and Poems
• 4 The Stage on Which We Stand: Intersections between Creative Non-Fiction and Plays
• 5 Structure of Action/Action of Structure: Intersections between Screenplays and Fiction
• 6 The Uninvented: Intersections between Poems and Plays
• 7 The Self and the Screen: Intersections between Screenplays and Creative Non-Fiction
• 8 Wants and Perspectives: Intersections between Plays and Fiction
• 9 The Smallest Building Block in the Universe: Intersections between Poems and Screenplays
• 10 Voice and Perspective: Intersections between Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction
• 11 Know Your Audience: Intersections between Plays and Screenplays
• 12 The Lyrical Self: Intersections between Creative Non-Fiction and Poems
• 13 Playing Tennis without a Net: Further Genres
• 14 Sixteenth Thought: Revision and Editing
• Glossary
• Works Cited
• Index
• Copyright