Creative research: mixing methods in practice-led research to explore a model of stories-within-a-story to build a novel

ABSTRACT

We may associate the process of creative composition with spontaneity, yet it is inevitable that each artist applies an individual method in their approach to the creative space. Creative writing as a practice and a discovery presents an argument, a line of thinking, a means of ‘finding’, a ‘coming to know’. This paper conceives of writing as discovery and explores the practice of writing by others who had created or may create longer forms of writing that started as short fiction. In my quest to write a literary speculative novel using my strengths as an author of short stories, I sought to understand other people’s experience on converting short works into a novel or novella. I applied practice-led research, and mixed approaches – quantitative and qualitative – in a survey that supported two fundamentally different paradigms. The survey was a means of symbolically identifying with other short story writers and their ‘lived experience’, a way to explore my own model for crafting a novel story-by-story. This paper offers a practical solution in creative research by relating a scientific approach to an arts-based inquiry, and by offering a model that short story writers can productively adopt to write a novel within their strengths. ­

KEYWORDS:

• Short story
• practice-led research
• art-based inquiry
• survey
• quantitative approach
• qualitative approach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Eugen M. Bacon MA, MSc, PhD studied at Maritime Campus, Greenwich University, less than two minutes’ walk from The Royal Observatory of the Greenwich Meridian. Her arty muse fostered within the baroque setting of the Old Royal Naval College, Eugen found herself a computer postgraduate mentally re-engineered into creative writing. Eugen has published over 100 short stories and creative articles, and has recently completed a creative non-fiction book and a literary speculative novel. Her short story ‘A puzzle piece’ was shortlisted in the Lightship Publishing (UK) international short story prize 2013 and is published in Lightship Anthology 3. ‘Swimming with daddy’ was shortlisted in the Alan Marshall Short Story Award 2016. Eugen's creative work has appeared in Meniscus, TEXT Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Antic Journal, Australasian Review of African Studies (ARAS) and through Routledge in New Writing, The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing.