The Social System of Creativity: How Publishers and Editors Influence Writers and Their Work

The Social System of Creativity: How Publishers and Editors Influence Writers and Their Work

The creation of a book does not end with a draft manuscript. Rather, writers seek out publication and communication with an audience as the culmination of their work. In general terms, this process involves a publishing house accepting the draft manuscript, structural and surface editing, printing a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The international journal of the book 2012, Vol.9 (3), p.9
Main Author: Paton, Elizabeth
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
bibliographical
creative process
Creativity
Editing
publishing
Publishing industry
Writers
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Summary:The creation of a book does not end with a draft manuscript. Rather, writers seek out publication and communication with an audience as the culmination of their work. In general terms, this process involves a publishing house accepting the draft manuscript, structural and surface editing, printing and criticism and then the eventual sale and reading of the book by an audience member. At each stage, individual actors and institutions other than the writer make decisions that can affect the content, style, design and reception of the work as well as the publication of future works and the writer’s career. As such, publication and communication represent a network of relationships an individual writer must negotiate before they may be considered creative. This complies with Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model, which posits that, in order to understand creativity in any area, it is necessary to investigate not only the individual and the domain of knowledge they draw on but also how this social system operates, making judgements on and shaping that knowledge. Accordingly, this paper investigates writers’ points of engagement with the social system of fiction writing, specifically their interactions with publishers and editors, and how these networks of judgement and support influence both the writer and their work.
ISSN:1447-9516
1447-9567