ABSTRACT
This chapter asserts that creative writing can be approached from the perspective of language, and not just from that of literary studies. It justifies this using frameworks drawn from literary stylistics (the analysis of literary texts through their use of language).
In the introductory section, the fundamental paradigms of the chapter are set out: first, whether or not there is such a thing as a ‘literary language’, and, second, the dichotomy between mimesis and diegesis (‘showing’ versus ‘telling’). The second section centres on the proposition that the reader of a literary text ‘sees through language’. A cline exists between language which aspires towards transparency, to more self-conscious, linguistically deviant language. The writer may situate their ‘voice’ at either end of this cline, or, more usually, at a point somewhere along it. Thirdly, the chapter draws on narratology to discuss story structure and the relationship between ‘discourse’ and ‘plot’. There is a section with suggestions for practice, including exploration of the following stylistic ‘tropes’: point of view and focalisation, figurative language, presenting speech and thought, metaphor, and, finally, prosody (rhythm, metre, sound and sense). The final section speculates on further connections between developing areas of stylistics and creative writing: cognitive metaphor theory, text-world theory and deictic shift theory.
