Creative HAZOP (CHAZOP)

Overview

Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP) is a structured, collaborative technique from safety engineering that uses a set of guidewords to ask “what could go wrong with the system? What would happen in each case?”. We have taken HAZOP, modified it into Creative HAZOP (CHAZOP) and applied it to fiction editing. CHAZOP comprises a set of guidewords and a set of fictive components.

As with HAZOP, the guidewords are structured around information flows to each part of the system or, in our case, parts of the fictive artefact, e.g., a short story or a novel. Examples of guidewords are:

Early: what if some information gets to this part of the system / story too early?
Late: what if some information gets to this part of the system / story too late?
Reverse: what if information arrives at this part of the system / story in reverse order?
Partial: what if only some of the necessary information arrives at this part of the system / story?

In addition, we add a set of fictive components. The fictive components may be understood as parts of the “system”. Examples of fictive components are:

Plot: structure and sequence of events
Setting: the physical, emotional, thematic environment
Character: the people undertaking action or experiencing the plot events
Voice: the syntax, vocabulary, metaphor, imagery and other literary devices
Theme: the development of underlying ideas, perspectives, resonances, moral standpoints or considerations
Structure: the perspective, tense, composition and organisation
Linguistic creativity: the language, word, style choice and sentence structure

Part of the activity of applying CHAZOP is to determine which fictive components are (most) important.

Two modes of application

Creative HAZOP can be applied in the following modes:

Critique: the reader (which might be the writer too) or readers, attempts to identify what didn’t work for the reader.
Brainstorming: the reviewers of the story undertake a “what if…?”, e.g., what if some information was presented earlier, or later, or differently?

The effect of applying CHAZOP

In the brainstorming mode of application, the CHAZOP process, together with the physical cards used, encourages those participating in the process to approach the piece being “CHAZOPed” with curiousity rather than judgement. By collectively focusing on “What if…?”, CHAZOP encourages participants to create a “safe space” in which participants treat the piece being CHAZOPed as a piece of work “out there” in the “centre” of the group that the group can collectively wonder about. This is a little bit like a group of observers engaging with a sculpture. This approach helps to move the group away from a dynamic of group vs author, where the group collectively ``attack’’ the piece and the author finds themself “defending” it. When used in this curiousity-oriented brainstorming mode, where everyone is in a safe space, the author may find that they are confidently able to answer many of the “what if?” questions being asked, and in doing so the author can discover they have a much deeper understanding of the piece than they might first have realised.

In summary:

The guidewords provide neutral language;
The guidewords and fictive components provide a standard framework that participants can use to “objectively” ask questions;
The physical cards encourage an attitude of detachment, helping to de-personalise the conversation;
The placing of the cards in the centre of the space (e.g., on the table) helps to also centre the conversation, again de-personalising it.

Indicative types of fiction to which CHAZOP can be applied

Creative HAZOP has been successfully applied to:

Short stories
Chapters from novels
Scripts

Furthermore, whilst Creative HAZOP might typically be applied to drafts, the technique can in principle be applied (retrospectively) to completed pieces of work, e.g., those that have been published.

Fictive components

A summary of the fictive components is provided below.

Guide word	Meaning
Not enough	Insufficient emphasis, clarity or focus on this fictive component
Too much	Too much emphasis, clarity or focus
Early	Information gathered by reader earlier than intended
Late	Information gathered by reader later than intended
Never	Information never gathered by reader!
As well as	Side effect, or additional information conveyed to reader
Reverse	Opposite of the writer’s intent
More	Effect of increasing focus on, or adding to, this component
Less	Effect of decreasing focus on, or reducing, this component
Before	Effect of a specified fictive component being encountered by the reader prior to another
After	Effect of a specified fictive component being encountered by the reader after another
Same	Information conveyed to the reader about this component remains the same throughout
Different	Information conveyed to the reader about this component changes

Example questions ‘‘triggered’’ by Creative HAZOP

The following table provides examples of the questions that might be “triggered” in the process of applying Creative HAZOP. In the table, C = Critique and B = Brainstorming.

Guide word	Component	Example application	Mode
Not enough	Plot	As a reader, I don’t think enough happens	C
Early	Plot	What if we found out about some event earlier?	B
More	Theme	As a reader, I thought the themes under-developed	C
Reverse	Theme	What if the opposite (literary, political, moral…) perspective were presented?	B
Same	Character	I didn’t think the characters changed or had a narrative arc	C
After	Character	What if (some aspect of) a character was only conveyed after another event?	B
Different	Voice	As a reader, there is too much metaphor	C
As well as	Voice	How would our perceptions change if this were told with multiple narratives?	B

Examples of the application of Creative HAZOP

Creative HAZOP has been used in two workshops at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast. In the first workshop, we applied Creative HAZOP to draft short stories, and one chapter of a novel, all written by professional writers. In the second workshop, we applied Creative HAZOP to chapters of novels, a short story and a script.