Fiction-writing and wonder: documenting a collaborative, creative writing process

Abstract

Purpose

We articulate cycles of creative storying and data analysis and the wonder that motivated the project by detailing our reading, thinking and writing processes to contribute to the conceptual and practical literature on collaborative writing as method.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper documents a process of collaborative writing as method that produced a co-written fictional narrative that evokes questions about schooling.

Findings

Our process began with world-building for our fictional future, creating characters to serve as a lens for analysis. From our discussions of the data, we crafted a plotline to present our themes in coherent story. As we explored and shared our readings, interdisciplinarity shaped our project in unique ways.

Research limitations/implications

Throughout, our collaboration and fiction-writing opened spaces for wonder, interdisciplinarity and joy that may inspire other researchers to engage in collaborative and/or creative writing processes.

Originality/value

Adding to the rich literature of arts-based research methods, we contribute our reflections on the pragmatics of incorporating reading, writing and thinking for collaboration and creative writing as qualitative research methods for document analysis.