The Scrapbook

The original contribution to knowledge in the following dissertation consists exclusively of the insights it offers into the creative processes that the writing of my novel, The Scrapbook, involved. My starting point is that while the idea of creativity is widely celebrated in contemporary society, the startling fact remains that no theorist (in the sphere of art or science) has come close to defining what creativity actually is. In fact, as Terry Eagleton sardonically notes in Literary Theory: An Introduction, there is as yet not even an agreed definition of what literature is, nor, for that matter, consensus about the criteria one would employ to determine what makes one statement poetic and another non-poetic. It follows, therefore, that the best a writer can do is to provide an analysis of their own creative process; this alone is an original (albeit modest) contribution to knowledge. Each chapter in this dissertation frames a specific aspect of the creative process in terms of the need to find working (or workable) solutions to the problems that confronted me - the 'author' - as I tried to construct a finished product of around 65,000 words from an idea for a novel which had first suggested itself in the form of an image which flashed before my mind's eye. I begin with the roots of the novel, and devote chapters to the structure, the themes, the story and the more general context. The dissertation concludes with a reflection on how far removed the finished work is from my original conception of it and how my role, as the author, must inevitably change in relation to the changing circumstances - publication, review and public response