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. ­

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