Creative Pleasure and Autofictional Pain: Towards a Queer Narratology of Trauma

This thesis includes two interconnected components: 1) a work of auto-trauma-fiction titled Perpetual Stew and 2) a critical investigation of queer and pleasure-centred narratological frameworks for writing about lived trauma. Drawing together practice-based research and in-depth interviews via critical autoethnography, the thesis develops textual strategies designed to balance trauma theory’s emphasis on ethical representation, BDSM scholarship’s focus on consensual relationalities and queer narratology’s interest in non-normative temporalties. As an original contribution to creative writing research, this queer narratological framework is intended to help writers of auto-trauma-fiction to explore their desire for – and maximise their experience of – kinky creative pleasure.