On the writing front, I recently completed a practice-led PhD, during which I examined some of the challenges writers can experience when creating fictional AI characters.
If you’re wondering what “practice-led” research is, it means that your research is explored through, and often originates from, your practice. That practice doesn’t have to be writing of course, it can be painting or sculpting or fashion design or any manner of other creative activities. For me, it involved starting to write a character in a novel, identifying the themes and problems my writing raised, seeking out scholarly thinking on those same themes and problems, then allowing that academic influence to help me better understand and complete my creative work.
At times it was a frustrating process and a steep learning curve, but worth it. It proved a great way to make my creative writing more considered and relevant. In a nutshell, merging my intuitive thinking with scholarly research opened up a new way of discovering insights—allowing me to explore both my writing and the world around it from a perspective I hadn’t thought about before.
Mind you, my research journey took some surprising turns. As I mentioned earlier, my project focused on the challenges of portraying AI characters in children’s fiction. However, when the AI character I chose to write manifested in my imagination as a parent—a synthetic father figure acting as the primary caregiver to two human children—I found myself not just exploring AI, but the representation of fathers. And that in turn, led me to explore the portrayal of mothers. This is because relatively little attention has been paid to paternal characters in fiction for the young, and to build a foundation for my project, I ended up having to grasp other, different but related areas of knowledge. At the time I worried that I was moving too far from my original focus, but I now realise that creative writing research is often like that. You locate an area that interests you, and then find you have to read a great deal more widely than you initially expected, navigating through adjacent subjects to fully understand the nuances of your own.
On top of all this, I had to decide which scholarly lenses I would use to examine my AI father. One of the key aspects of a PhD is situating your work in relation to that of other academics, and this meant finding the right theoretical perspectives to frame my investigation. If, like me, you don’t come from a background in English literature, that can be pretty daunting. Once again, deciding which lenses would be of use to my investigation turned out to be far more time-consuming than I anticipated. I had to wade through a considerable amount of academic material just to gain an understanding of the perspectives which seemed prevalent in discussions of children’s literature—including aetonormativity (the power dynamics between adults and children in literature), posthumanism (questioning the boundaries between humans and technology), ecocriticism (exploring literature’s relationship with the environment), and various psychoanalytical frameworks. And a lot of that reading never even made it into my thesis!
So, if you’re thinking of doing a PhD yourself, my advice would be start reading academic articles and books now. Honestly, it’s never too early. Just pick the general area you’re interested in and begin. And don’t worry if you don’t understand everything; I certainly didn’t. Some academic work isn’t written in a way which is easily accessible, but understanding comes with patience, familiarity and time. It pays to remember that every piece of reading helps build your knowledge and makes the next piece a little bit easier, even if it feels overwhelming at first.
Now that my PhD is over, I’ve returned to more personal writing such as journaling, while I decide what story I want to tell next. Over the years, I’ve dedicated much time and effort to various forms of writing, from screenplays to children’s fiction. Alongside my new PhD, I hold an MA in screenwriting, a PGCE in English, and have over ten years of experience helping other writers develop their stories. In 2014, I was longlisted for the Manchester Writing for Children Prize but I’m best known for my Father Christmas letters, particularly online. When it comes to style and genre, I’m pretty wide-ranging, I’ve written for children in prose and humorous verse as well as a more literary poetic form. You can read some of my children’s poems here. In regard to screenwriting, I have a particular interest in supernatural horror, science fiction and historical drama, although when reading the latter I do find it refreshing if it isn’t a setting I’ve seen a million times before.
In addition to writing alone, I work with a co-writer, Keith Dando. Co-writing has been another steep learning experience for me but I have enjoyed every moment. It particularly lends itself to screenwriting and simple children’s stories. I suspect it would rather less successful as a way of creating literary work. Indeed, in order to fully reap the benefits of co-writing, you need to be aware of its limitations. That said, good co-writers can inspire each other to make best use of strengths, regulate each other’s weaknesses and create clarity at the speed of light. To date, Keith and I have co-created screenplays and short, humorous children’s books. Possibly the most popular of our co-creations is the children’s story, Santa’s Cat.
As may be obvious from other parts of this website, I also have a profound interest in teaching creative writing. Other writers and their working experiences are as important and engaging to me as my own. I have developed an extensive interest in screenwriting narrative theory and am particularly fascinated by the relationship between intuitive writing and the more conscious process of applying the three act structure. I love hearing other writers’ thoughts on this. As is likely evident from my words about my PhD above, I’ve also become an enthusiastic advocate of using practice as a springboard for and vehicle of research. At the time of writing, I have yet to secure my first post-PhD teaching position, but I can’t wait to bring this exciting way of contributing to knowledge into my classroom.