This is SO accurate - thank you Toby! I've done a CW PhD, examined two, and helped with dozens, and I'm definitely adding this link to my Itch of Writing posts about PhDs, because it puts things so clearly. I'll look forward to tomorrow's post.
I hadn't really thought about the critical component of a CW PhD. Writing 30k analysing my own writing sounds terrifying! I've written articles to promote novels explaining aspects of writing the book (I co-write fiction, which is unusual and as a result, people find the process intriguing), but analysing it academically sounds rather terrifying!
I'm going to take a guess here that you have to decide where you're positioned in the literary tradition, or if you're disrupting an aspect of it, and how writing it reflects that? And discuss the process but in an academic way, not in the voice of a "how to"? And talk about theories of writing? Do people write the critical component while writing the novel, or leave it to the end as a work of reflection? I suppose making notes as you write would be best. I started an MPhil but kept being told I write like a Sunday supplement journalist, not a PGR! So I shelved that. Then I went on a library MA course but couldn't do the thesis as trying to sound academic about things I did every day in my dayjob felt weird. "The theory of weeding out of date textbooks", God help us.
I'm now fascinated by what the critical component contains. Even though I have zero plans to write one. ;)
Mostly Pros!^^
Have you ever told a PhD candidate to rewrite their whole thesis? Asking for the sake of my mental health...
This is SO accurate - thank you Toby! I've done a CW PhD, examined two, and helped with dozens, and I'm definitely adding this link to my Itch of Writing posts about PhDs, because it puts things so clearly. I'll look forward to tomorrow's post.
I hadn't really thought about the critical component of a CW PhD. Writing 30k analysing my own writing sounds terrifying! I've written articles to promote novels explaining aspects of writing the book (I co-write fiction, which is unusual and as a result, people find the process intriguing), but analysing it academically sounds rather terrifying!
I'm going to take a guess here that you have to decide where you're positioned in the literary tradition, or if you're disrupting an aspect of it, and how writing it reflects that? And discuss the process but in an academic way, not in the voice of a "how to"? And talk about theories of writing? Do people write the critical component while writing the novel, or leave it to the end as a work of reflection? I suppose making notes as you write would be best. I started an MPhil but kept being told I write like a Sunday supplement journalist, not a PGR! So I shelved that. Then I went on a library MA course but couldn't do the thesis as trying to sound academic about things I did every day in my dayjob felt weird. "The theory of weeding out of date textbooks", God help us.
I'm now fascinated by what the critical component contains. Even though I have zero plans to write one. ;)