Amy Tan Creative Writing Process

An Analysis of the Creative Writing Process in Amy Tan’s "Rules of the Game" and Flannery O’Connor’s "Everything That Rises Must Converge”

Author Analysis:

In this literary analysis, the underlying methods of creative r\writing defined by Amy Tan and Flannery O’Connor are being defined in the short story medium. The creative methodology of Amy Tan defines a blend of personal experience through “childhood trauma” in the writing process, which suggests that immigrant Chinese culture sought to impose a strict sense of duty and performance on academics, which Tan has cited as an influence of her education in an American-Chinese home:

Also, one of the principles of creativity is to have a little childhood trauma. And I had the usual kind that

I think a lot of people had, and that is that, you know, I had expectations placed on me (Tan “Where Does”, 3:35).
In this speech, Tan is talking about the personal experiences of her childhood, which have influenced her writing methods as a way to express the Chinese-American experience.

This writing approach is part of integrating perceived realities with personal experiences in the writing process. In this manner, Tan does not believe that the creative writing process should entail fabricating a story, but that it must be part of the writer’s experience in some form or another. Certainly, Flannery O’Connor is another writer that also believes in using personal experiences as a white woman to project a sense of personal background to stories, especially in stories about racial tensions in the United States:

I don’t understand them [African Americans] the way I do white people. I don’t feel capable of entering the mind of a Negro. In my stories, they’re seen from the outside. The negro in the South is quite isolated; he has to exist by himself (O’Connor” Conversations” 59).

This aspect of O’Connor’s understanding of African American is part of the personal experience, which she utilizes as a way to authenticate stories in the mode of creative writing. Much like Tan, O’Connor relies heavily on knowing the difference between personal experience and artificially created stories that deviate away from direct personal experiences of the

author.
On way in which Tan and O’Connor deviate in the creative writings process is that O’Connor remains more loyal to the specific aspects of dialogue and interaction between characters, which may only change a name to deviate from personal experiences. In her personal education, O’Connor had a mix of various literary influences and techniques, but her writings remained solely involved with reflecting an honest opinion of her own personal experiences in the South: “I found it more interesting than I had thought there are many and diverse degrees of experience (some very dull)” (O’Connor “Letters” 965). In Tan’s creative writing process, the entire setting and dialogue of the story can deviate from personal experience, yet it must remain loyal to the core values of the writing process:
It's important to understand their motivations, their intentions, where those beliefs derive from and then having a set of questions to make sure that what they give to you is equally important and meaningful to you (Tan, “Interview” para.16).
In this manner, Tan defines the undercurrent of personal experience that inspires her to write, but she also understands the power of creativity to expand on these experiences in the creative writing process. In contrast to O’Connor’s strict sense of personal experience, Tan takes far more liberties as a writer to create more dramatized narratives in terms of Chinese-American lifestyles that she depicts in her short stories. These are the primary differences between O’Connor and Tan that define the different uses of experiences and creative writing, which shows different perspectives on the authenticity of the short story form that is depicted within the context of the interracial depictions of American life.

(450)Story Analysis:

In Tan’s "Rules of the Game", the main character, Waverly Place Jong, is a talented young chess player that struggles to get along with her strict and domineering mother. In terms of personal experience, Tan endured the strict academic upbringing, which created a tense relationship with her own mother. In the story, Waverly has a competitive mother that forced to remain silent as a technique to win victories over one’s enemies: “My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances” (Tan “Rules of the Game” para.2). In this context, Tan is describing the way in which her own mother imposed power over her as a child in the home, but of course, Tan is not a world class chess player, as is Waverly. In this manner, Tan’s storytelling style deviates greatly from her own experience as a writer (and not a chess player), which shows some elements of parental strictness in her own background, but deviates greatly in the fabrication of Waverly’s story as a talented chess player. This is one way in which to define the differing, yet similar use of personal experiences and creative writing that define Waverly’s struggles as a Chinese-American and the immigrant experience that Tan brings forth in this short story.
In O’Connor’s "Everything That Rises Must Converge” the story of Julian, the son of a racist white woman, creates a fictional narrative on the racism of the post-segregation era of the South.

Julian must endure the racist taunts of his mother, as she is terrified of traveling on buses that allow African Americans: ““With the world in the mess it's in,” she said, “it's a wonder we can enjoy anything. I tell you, the bottom rail is on the top” (O’Connor “Everything that Rises” p.2). With a world “in the mess it’s in”, Julian must learn to cope with his mother’s racism in terms of rejecting desegregation in the South. In this manner, O’Connor’s’ remains true, just as Tan, on the issue of reflecting a personal experience of white Americans without assuming to understand how African Americans may think of the segregation issue. However, O’Connor lived in the time of Desegregation and the characters that she creates have not been altered too greatly from her own personal experiences as a white southerner. This shows less creative writing stylistic s in the interpretation of the story, but does present a fictional view of the abstracted forms of racism that many whites project during this historical period. These are important aspects of O’Connor’s more personal understanding of racism she encountered in her own life, which does not exaggerate the fictional short story in the mode of Tan’s far more creative fabrication of Chinese-American life in “”Rules of the Game.

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