Creative Writing: Where do creative writers get their stories from?

CREATIVE WRITING:

Where do creative writers get their stories from?(My speech)

 

Our Honorable guests, Members of the American diplomatic mission among us,  The American Embassy staff, the coordinator of the English club, fellow teachers, friends, ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon.

 

This Wednesday like no other will it be. This afternoon is different from others 2008 is packed with. Because this Wednesday will arm us to be contributors and collaborators in the area of Creative Writing.    Because this day will be a day, a new day, a new beginning in the politics of the written word. So thus why I am here not to sing:

This is the day

This is the day

That the lord has made

That the lord has made…..

But I am here to share with you the topic which reads: WHERE DO CREATIVE WRITERS GET THEIR STORIES FROM?

 

Dear friends, if Creative writers have sources. If they have somewhere to scrap their ideas and knit them into stories. Believe me; we too, can use the same sources to compose our own creative pieces of literature. Our own stories, poems, dramas, songs, novels and short stories.  We too can be like or greater than them. We too can. This is my aim today.

 

I love not to speak in Proverbs or Parables that you do not understand. My mother always instructed me with; “My dear son, when you speak, speak the language of man. Your are not an Angel.  If you think you are, Heaven should then be your home”. Firstly, let us settle this: WHO IS CREATIVE WRITER? If we manage to overcome this huddle. I should end my sharing here. But because of some who have just joined us, I will be forced to continue.  Dear friend, I have thrown you my ball. Now its your turn to pass it back to me. WHO DO YOU THINK IS A CREATIVE WRITER?

 

(Give 5 minutes for sharing)

WHO CAN BE A CREATIVE WRITER? This is my second question this afternoon.

(Give 3 minutes)

 

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my honor to tell you that YOU CAN BE CREATIVE WRITERS.  It my joy to tell you that YOU CAN BE CREATIVE WRITERS.  It is my honor to tell you that WE CAN BE CREATIVE WRITERS.

 

When I came today, I had the opportunity to speak with some of you. I was touched and still I am. The English I heard was good. Not just good but very good! Dear friends, look you have qualified to be creative writers. Though I am not sure of your written English, but the first round, you have qualified. I believe no one among us was born a writer. And I strongly believe that we can all be writer provided we given a proper education on our sources of stories and how we can draw from them. As I have said earlier I am here to help you with the former. The Sources; to put it in the right sense: WHERE DO CREATIVE WRITERS GET THEIR STORIES FROM?

 

As an upcoming artist, a poet to be specific, I have some of my works performed, read both on public and over the radio. Some have been published in and outside our Continent, though some are still piled at home. My own experience, the experience of other published creative writers I have met or interacted be in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Angola, Nigeria, here Mozambique or the internet will help us to see that all of us here  can use the same sources to compose interesting and  meaningful creative works.

 

1. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES: First and fore most what had happened in our lives constitutes a good foundation for remarkable stories.  These experiences are different from person to person. And many are lesson that worth sharing with other people from our lives.

Charles Dickens wrote about his own youth experience in his novel DAVID COPPERFIELD. He is David Copperfield, the young boy whose father and mother died and left in the care of an aunt. Dickens wrote of his self realization and struggles as a young boy until he reached manhood.

 On the other hand, the same is can be said of Bessie Head in her book Maru.  Clearly she describes her life when she ran out of the apartheid South Africa to Botswana. She is the new  school mistress who came to understand the cultures and tradition of people not her only. Finally, she fell in love.

Caroline Wanjiru Nderitu, a Kenya in her latest collection of poetry, has many poems that tell us of her love life.

The 2005 Nobel Prize winner, Professor Wangari Maathai’s autobiography is also a true example of someone’s personal experience. That was her life that she wrote in the UNBOWED. Professor Maathai is from Kenya.

In a poem published in my latest collection of poems; A Walk in Verse,  I also tell my life in so many poems. One of them I entitled THE DAY DADDY DIDN’T RETURN…I talked of what happened when my father didn’t come one. That was his first not coming home and it became his last. I never saw my father again. It was such a painful experience. I ended the poem with hope of meeting him in Heaven

 

The day Daddy didn’t return home,

Was followed by another longer and painful one

Before detectives came with difficult news

We never hoped for:

Daddy had  been robbed and brutally murdered.

His body was  heaped in a ditch,

Where it peacefully lay.

I remember, relatives, friends,

Neighbors all flooding  our house

To comfort us in our deepest loss.

We buried our Father with much hope.

For sure, we will meet him when we get there,

Where we shall dance our sorrows off.

 

Think of your own personal experience, be a joyful one or a sad ones. I believe you will find many in your life. One important thing is to know that you are not supposed to take our whole live but just some important fragments.

Believe me, dear friends, your own experiences are important story sources!

 

2. CURRENT EVENTS: The daily newspapers, magazines, news reports from both radio and television, the internet are filled with all kinds of happenings which suggest stories for creative writers. As you know our world is a hive of activities. There are many things which happen in our time.  Cross the border, enter South African, last week we have their president, Mr. Thabo Mbeki resigning. Why did he resign before his term of office expires? Yes, something had happened. 2 months ago, South Africa was on the map again, Xenophobia. A good number of foreigners were killed. Some were displaced. I have also a friend who perished in it.

Last night from the BBC came a report about the white farmers in Kenya. They are still some of them who own 2500hectares of land. And they are afraid that the Land grabbing spirit that shook Zimbabwe some years ago, may come to the Kenyans warriors and create another crisis in Africa.

Dear friends, in newspapers, magazines, journals, radio or TV, you may read  or hear accounts of all sorts of things: train disaster, terrorism attacks, heroic rescues, strange weddings, earthquake, robberies etc. Such accounts are the best materials to come up with your own creative works.

By the way, I am reminded of my niece. She is only 4 years old now. Last year when went home for my holidays I asked her, “Do you know what a teacher is?”

“Yes uncle!” she replied excitedly. “A teacher is someone who asks questions and answers them alone” I was puzzled by her intelligence. At this juncture, I am going to ask you some questions but I want you to answer them.

1. What was today’s newspaper?

2. What struck your attention?

3. Can you create a story from what struck your attention and share it with your partner?

 

 

3. PEOPLE: The world gave us models be it in religious circles, politics, science, Philosophy among others.  I had the opportunity of living with the Nuns, Priests and Brothers of Mother Theresa some years ago. Dear people, I haven’t met Mother Theresa in person. I saw her on pictures and Movies. But truth be said, among her poor followers, the sisters, priests and brothers she founded, I met her.  In spirit but not person. I got the story of her life. It is to her I  have dedicated a poem that reads: Dying Again.

 

Mother Teresa earnestly gave to me her tale;

How she rejected voluntarily remaining sterile.

 

My ears feasted on her childhood,

Whose peace and tranquility reigned in the neighborhood.

 

A time came in her life,

All to do was to experience the strife.

 

This calling was no other than death.

Death, to leave luxuries of the Earth.

 

Thus, she gave herself as a sacrifice,

With vigor and no compromise.

 

What is but special on her dying?

Which I continue saying?

 

Mother Teresa died again and again…….

Her death was a life gain.

 

It was given and shared to many others;

All fragile and sterile sisters and brothers…

 

 

  I take another example to be our Nelson Mandela. His life alone is worth putting on paper. 27 years in Robin Island prison. When the opportunity knocked at his door to lead the South Africans, what did he do? Did he spend another 27 years in power or what? But we have some leaders; they have been power decades and decades at the expense of the ordinary people. They have created a Suffering Africa. A blood shedding Africa. They have fully designed a DEPENDANT AFRICA. “THAT IS THE WAY IT”, so said my late friend Luck Dube, the Reggae star from South Africa.  Some died mocked by the same people whom they led. I do not need to repeat the names of Mobotu Seseko from Congo, Idi Dada Amin from Uganda and Malawi’s Kamuzu Banda.   Some are clinging to power at all cost. Sometimes, they are not only model but dictators, murderers, thieves, conmen even smugglers.  These people, be good or bad, provide important sources for stories. Therefore, a creative writer can come up with a story on these people whether he had met them or not. 

In your lives, I believe you might have known some of these people. Why not today, why not today take a pen and paper, and then put down something about them. Many are people who going to learn from what you are going to do. That is the challenge I am throwing to you this afternoon.

 

4. HISTORY. History is a rich source where creative writers can draw ideas from. History provides events and people which are suggest interesting stories if you may say it. Histories are filled with heroes and victims. I have seen that most creative works in Africa have been heavily influenced by the historical experiences of the continent.

Ebrahim Hussen’s Kinjeketile is based on the Maji-Maji uprising  that happened in Tanzania in the 1940s. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe depict the general picture of what when the whites came to Africa. Things fell apart in the African context. Christianity came; some  Africans had to choose the new way. Others remained with their  traditions. Schools came; the Africans at the receiving end had to accept. The same happened. Those who took time to accept, the winds of change caught them and banged them against the reason of the society. “Things fall  apart, the center  can not hold” said  W. B. Yeats in his poem; The Second Coming. This is where Achebe burrowed the title of his book.

In addition, we see that  Charles Dicken’s A Tale of two cities is based on the French REVOLUTION. (Those who are up to date with the histories of the world, here is a question for you. When was the French Revolution?)

History is rich and full of drama. It is the most valuable source for creative writers. Why can’t we look at some events that happened and draw story materials from them? Why can’t we? Why can’t we……. That is my question that in your minds you should be asking yourself.

 

5. IDEAS AND CAUSE: This is so rich a source creative writers use. Stories arise from ideas and cause. A creative writer may feel that man is intolerant. That man is inhuman. Intolerance and inhuman can then be his theme which he can use and find suitable materials for his story. Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter brings the feminism ideas and causes. The main character, Ramatoulaye is a woman lamenting over the abuses of her womenfolk in Africa. Who is abuses them? Men, of course. Her letter is a strong cause to liberate women in religious circles, in home affairs, in educational fields and empower them for the day to day running of their societies. Her letter is also a strong appeal to the male dominated society to give women equal opportunities to the girl child. That is the ideas behind Mariama Ba’s So long a letter. Some weeks ago, got another book of this kind. This is Whisper from Vera by Goretti Kyomuhendo from Uganda. It is so interesting. I read it on one sitting. Gorreti’s Vera shares with us the account of an Africa career women and the challenges they face in the society. She is pleading with all male players to give her room to earn her freedom especially in marriage related issues.

During the Apartheid era in South Africa, many were novels published to tell the outside world the evil of Apatheid. Alex La Guma wrote a novella, A WALK IN THE NIGHT portraying the lack of opportunities for the non white South Africans.

Socialism, World governments, Poverty, in the developing countries, child Labor, Peace are only some cause which may provide subject material for creative writers. We too can come up with ideas or causes that we want to communicate to the world. I believe we can write beautiful piece of literature.

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have invited you to a new beginning. I have given you some of the common sources where creative writers can get their stories from. It is not much but I believe, though few it is, you can choose one source and draw from it to compose a story, a poem, a play or a novel. To sum up, creative writers can get their stories from 1. Personal experiences, 2. Current Events  3. People, 4. History and 5. Ideas and causes. I know they might be some I might have left. If you know them add to the list I have given you.

Let me take this opportunity to ask question if they might be some who have some.

(Give time for questions)

 

I am grateful for giving me this opportunity to come and present my ideas on creative writing. If were to give me a year here, truly, all of us were to come up with books and volumes of creative writings. Thank you very much.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I wish you all a pleasant afternoon.

 

 

by Musimwa (Viewed 1054 times)

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