Working Words: The Process of Creative Writing

by Wendy Bishop

Working Words is a multigenre introduction to creative writing. Designed for beginning writers, the text focuses initially on the process of creative writing before turning to genre distinctions and end products. Abundant exercises, student writing samples for analysis, and activities and suggestions for workshop settings enable students to gain the greatest possible writing fluency and to become more demanding and competent readers of their own and others’ writing.

Genres: Writing

Paperback

First published December 19, 1991

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

When people hear that I’m interested in connecting composition and creative writing they often refer me to Wendy Bishop.. I quite like the idea that there are things that we can learn from each other in terms of authority, peer influence and writerly autonomy. But I don’t think reducing creative writing to a series of worksheets and peer A-D grading (201) is quite the direction we want to go—let’s take the best of composition research, not the worst. Let’s be consistently rhetorical, even when reciting creative writing saws like “avoid clichés” (ironically itself a cliché)—why don’t we want clichés? What do clichés do?—instead of relying on received wisdom. (53). Bishop’s book takes the temptations of creative writing advice books (lists of exercises, using own work as paragon, platitudes from famous writers) and adds a veneers of process theory. Don’t get me wrong—I love and respect the work that Bishop’s attempting, but it was an early attempt and perhaps Bishop herself would have developed her method further if she could have. As it is, this book is lacking research, serious application of process theory and, perhaps most importantly, the question “what are the connections between creative writing and composition, anyway?”