College Thoughts

[DragonOfTheAerie]

If i haven't been active on MS in a while, this is definitely why. For a while I was going a little bit bonkers trying to stay hydrated and get sleep while taking classes.

So I'm in a creative writing intro class and I wasn't expecting this to happen, I was expecting to be challenged in some unexpected ways, but I'm actually bored out of my mind. The textbook we have is kind of an amalgam of most other writing books I've read, and the assignments are...not difficult. More often than not I do things the day they're assigned. It's not so much the assignments though as the discussions and lectures...it's just pretty basic stuff and I don't find it interesting to talk about. I'm actually interested most by the class I thought I would hate, my politics class.

Right now we're workshopping short stories and it's nice to have this experience but I don't care a whole lot about the thing I wrote. Again, we're being judged on the basics.

Bleh.

 

[Orc Knight]

So, you want the more advanced work stuff? The ability to take plots and happily twist them your own way?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

So, you want the more advanced work stuff? The ability to take plots and happily twist them your own way?

I don’t know exactly. There’s been little opportunity for complex discussion.

 

[Orc Knight]

Ah. Maybe you can talk to the teach about it. Or just power through the basics and then get to the good stuff. And keep drinking lot's of water.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Ah. Maybe you can talk to the teach about it. Or just power through the basics and then get to the good stuff. And keep drinking lot's of water.

It really may just be her teaching style that’s not very engaging, or it might be just me being already familiar with a lot of the terms she spends 5-10 minutes defining.

 

[pmmg]

College is not for creativity. Its purpose is conformity. Your purpose is to get through it and then be something more.

 

[Devor]

It's called an intro class for a reason. It's probably too late now, but in the future when you see in a syllabus that a class isn't what you expected, get out of it. Even if it's necessary for a degree path see if you can place out of it, or delay the path and take the dumb course on a summer community college program so you can get more out of the university.

 

[Chessie2]

At the college I went to (go Seawolves!) we had two weeks to be fully refunded for a class we didn't like. What's hard is that sometimes it takes a bit more time (like 3 or 4 weeks) to really gauge a class. Just get through this with an easy A and be glad you can spend more study time on classes that matter to you. Also, you are a more advanced writer than an intro class is meant to cater to. Likely you had to take it because you were forced to sign up at the 100 level. I took writing classes in college. They teach you something different than is applicable to the real world industry, imo.

 

[auwebber23]

College is not for creativity. Its purpose is conformity. Your purpose is to get through it and then be something more.

Support your opinion! Often in college they do everything not to develop creativity.

 

[Fox]

I thought about my own university's writing program certificate, but meh, I don't know. I suppose at the very least it could force me to write... But at that point maybe I could just light a fuse that leads to a barrel full of $2000.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The writing classes I had sucked putrid pond water. I studied English Lit, not writing, and in hindsight? My classes in anthropology and history are more useful to my writing than any Lit or writing class I ever took before UCLA’s screenwriting courses… and even then, maybe more useful. The old adage that a writer should study anything but writing to help their writing, could be true, LOL. Sadly, I didn’t take my shot at attending the Iowa Writers Workshop back in the day (no guarantee I would’ve gotten in, but I had a good shot) so I can’t speak to how useful a high end writing school might be beneficial.

Personally, I think the writer can learn everything they need to know about writing from the internet these days. Of course, there’s a lot of crap to sort through, and even the good stuff gets repetitive, but it’s all there for the learning.

 

[skip.knox]

I've long argued that history is a good place to learn how to write. Course, I'm a historian, so there's always the possibility I'm prejudiced. I can say, however, that writing term papers year after year, on into grad school, was *excellent* training. I learned how to take criticism (those who can't, don't stay in the discipline for long). I learned the importance of clarity, word choice, structure, and writing to both length and deadline. IMO, creative writing classes don't pay enough attention to the craft side of writing.

As for learning "how to write" itself, that's a misleading phrase. Every course (including what's found in my own field) might be able to teach how to write, but none of them can teach how to write *like you*. AFAIK, there are only those exceedingly rare occasions when just the right editor is able to help a particular writer improve his own work and voice. And no one, including those fortunate few, can explain how that happens.

I do deeply disagree with the proposition that college is for conformity. To my eyes, it's most of the rest of the world that values conformity. College is the place to find variety. A whole universitas of it.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I’m not sure about conformity. I think that’s the ideal, but I’m not sure about in practice. Free thinking seems to be on the chopping block these days. It’s a bit like the industry itself, where they claim to want to hear a unique voice, and yet so many authors you see in print sound much alike. I will compare it to the wine industry, where of course, everyone speaks of great vintages, great vineyards, great years, etc., but when it comes right down to it, most wineries strive to be McDonalds, attempting to make their wine taste the same every year to fit customer expectations. Without naming names, when I peruse Trad epic fantasy on Amazon, there are quite a few writers, purely by writing and style and voice, who are McDonalds. I couldn’t tell the writers apart if you gave me random samples I’d never read. The stories change, of course, but… It’s like ordering a burger instead of the chicken, heh heh.

I totally agree with the lack of craft in general courses, but some place like Iowa Writers Workshop, I hope they worry more about craft. The one example I have from Great Courses on crafting long sentences would be a fine example of a deeper study of writing.

I've long argued that history is a good place to learn how to write. Course, I'm a historian, so there's always the possibility I'm prejudiced. I can say, however, that writing term papers year after year, on into grad school, was *excellent* training. I learned how to take criticism (those who can't, don't stay in the discipline for long). I learned the importance of clarity, word choice, structure, and writing to both length and deadline. IMO, creative writing classes don't pay enough attention to the craft side of writing.

As for learning "how to write" itself, that's a misleading phrase. Every course (including what's found in my own field) might be able to teach how to write, but none of them can teach how to write *like you*. AFAIK, there are only those exceedingly rare occasions when just the right editor is able to help a particular writer improve his own work and voice. And no one, including those fortunate few, can explain how that happens.

I do deeply disagree with the proposition that college is for conformity. To my eyes, it's most of the rest of the world that values conformity. College is the place to find variety. A whole universitas of it.

 

[Fox]

I've long argued that history is a good place to learn how to write. Course, I'm a historian, so there's always the possibility I'm prejudiced. I can say, however, that writing term papers year after year, on into grad school, was *excellent* training. I learned how to take criticism (those who can't, don't stay in the discipline for long). I learned the importance of clarity, word choice, structure, and writing to both length and deadline. IMO, creative writing classes don't pay enough attention to the craft side of writing.

As for learning "how to write" itself, that's a misleading phrase. Every course (including what's found in my own field) might be able to teach how to write, but none of them can teach how to write *like you*. AFAIK, there are only those exceedingly rare occasions when just the right editor is able to help a particular writer improve his own work and voice. And no one, including those fortunate few, can explain how that happens.

I do deeply disagree with the proposition that college is for conformity. To my eyes, it's most of the rest of the world that values conformity. College is the place to find variety. A whole universitas of it.

Neither here nor there I suppose, but my university experience has been one of ideological conformity. This isn't to say there isn't also variety to be found, but the initial variety tends to end in a point of a certain persuasion / worldview. I'm sure others, such as yourself, in different places at different times have had different experiences though.

I'm not saying I'm a master in terms of clarity, word choice, structure, and the other very important things you mention. But...

Where I am struggling right now is with characters. Plot. Making my fiction entertaining. And not hating every syllable of my attempts at fiction. Often times it's so bad that no words come at all.

I can sit here and write thousands of non-fiction or conversational words in the span of an hour, and spend a bit of time editing or revising them after that, and in the end I can sleep sweetly and soundly. I wouldn't say I think that what I've written is perfect, yet I am almost always quite content.

With fiction, I may be lucky to write double-digits worth of words, hate every single one of them, and spiral into an impressive depression. In this regard, the nearly two decades of free-writing, writing essays, papers, etc., has seemingly done nothing to help me write fiction that I'm not disgusted with before, during, and after creating.

It's a shame that a university writing course probably couldn't help me with that lol. Basic grammar, spelling, word choice, revising for clarity; this seems very *clinical* to me. It's tangible and teachable.

Creating characters, a plot, a setting, and making them all work together seamlessly into a whole, does not seem teachable, or tangible. It seems like some magical power that has yet to be explained to me, and somebody is yet to spend 9 months out of a year, every year, from age 5 to 25, teaching me. Any work we did with fiction, even at an honors or AP level, was more oriented toward reader comprehension. We didn't spend months, years at a time implementing anything into our own fiction, having writer's workshops of our own fiction. There'd be like one week max of that in an entire school year and, uh, that's it. I assume that's because the corporate world for which all of education is directed needs *literate* people, people who can read instructions, write legibly enough, and anything else is indoctrinational or you have to pay extra for. What use would it be to try and turn millions of people into Stephen King by having a government mandated Fiction Writing class for 6th period?

Storytelling in every form—anime, film, theater, video games, and even to a lesser extent poetry or song—has fascinated me. I love it. I've studied it. I intend to teach it as a career. Yet as much as I've immersed myself in it since I was old enough to walk and talk, and for as much time as I spend in my mind's "creative mode" while driving or at work or whatever, I'm still painfully dreadful at it, like listening to Beethoven try to play the piano after he went completely deaf.

That's why I think the only thing a university creative writing program could offer me is forcing me to write. What good that would do, I don't know. I guess it's possible to learn by doing, and therefore being forced to do it by paying somebody thousands of dollars COULD work... but if you're trying to learn to build skyscrapers and all advice sounds like Cthulhu language or the "wah-wah" sound of parents in old cartoons, or the advice you do follow ends up backfiring in some way and you're left feeling like the apprentice in an old kung-fu movie, well, finally you end up in a place where you don't even know what to fix and what not to fix, and you've killed a lot of people while failing to figure it all out, if you ever get a building to stand-up at all.

And at this rate, as an architect I've killed thousands of imaginary people in my attempts to build something to rival the Taj Mahal, Notre Dame, the Pyramids.

Snapple fact: this singular, useless forum post has a higher word count than the total amount of fiction I've written in the past year.

 

[skip.knox]

Consider other art forms. A teacher (in college or out of it) can teach about color, composition, media, etc. A teacher cannot make a painter out of someone who has no eye for it. The same goes for music. Sure, "anyone can learn to play the piano" as the ads say, but not everyone and not well. And certainly not so one can compose new music.

Not everyone is an artist.

People seem to have no problem accepting that not everyone is a chemist or carpenter or veterinarian. Yet there appears to be a belief that pretty much anyone ought to be able to write a book, and if *I* can't seem to do it, I need only take some classes (Hemingway's "Monologue to the Maestro" is cruel but unarguable). One aspect strikes me, though I don't know its significance. Artists tend to have support groups, with people cheering each other on, saying "you can do it!" I don't think chemists have critique circles.

For a long time I did not think of myself as a writer. It was only quite late in life, around 60, that I realized that I had been writing my whole life. Not in any disciplined way, and not always fiction, but I seemed always to have written and seemed unable to stop, like an unfortunate habit. That's when I decided I would finish something rather than continually starting things. It worked. Now I claim to be a writer, poor wretch, I.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'm going to disagree. Anything can be taught, and almost anyone can learn anything. Natural ability plays some role in it for sure. But there is more and more research which shows that talent is simply a lot of practice put in at (often) a young age. It takes 10.000 hours of dedicated practice to become world class at something. And dedicated practice isn't simply playing the tune your piano teacher gave you a handful of times until it sounds okay. It's digging deep and concentrating on the details and doing it over and over again until it's perfect.

That kind of dedication is harder to find. The reason then that not everyone becomes a chemist or a writer or a piano player is that you need the passion to put in the hours to become great at it. There is a difference between arts and other professions, in that there is room for an average programmer to make money, but few average trumpetists can earn a living playing the trumpet. There's just no demand for it.

Writing can be taught. The problem with it is though that it's hard to teach it in groups. Everyone's process is different, and what works for one person doesn't work for another. But it is why some critique groups manage to turn out an unusual high number of good writers. They've found a way to teach writing to each other. This elevates someones writing faster than when they go it alone.

This would make a professional writing education expensive. You would need a private coach who helps you figure out your method of writing, who analyses what you write and who gives concrete feedback on those pieces. And the closer this feedback is to the moment where you wrote it, the better. So you'd go a session of writing followed by direct feedback on that writing.

For my second novel I hired an editor to first offer a critique on the manuscript and then to give it an edit. And the feedback of both of these helped improve my writing. The first showed me some issues with my story telling / plotting, the second showed me where my use of language could be improved. Both made me a better writer because it showed me what I was doing wrong and offering me hints on how to fix it.

 

[Fox]

I'm going to disagree. Anything can be taught, and almost anyone can learn anything. Natural ability plays some role in it for sure. But there is more and more research which shows that talent is simply a lot of practice put in at (often) a young age. It takes 10.000 hours of dedicated practice to become world class at something. And dedicated practice isn't simply playing the tune your piano teacher gave you a handful of times until it sounds okay. It's digging deep and concentrating on the details and doing it over and over again until it's perfect.

That kind of dedication is harder to find. The reason then that not everyone becomes a chemist or a writer or a piano player is that you need the passion to put in the hours to become great at it. There is a difference between arts and other professions, in that there is room for an average programmer to make money, but few average trumpetists can earn a living playing the trumpet. There's just no demand for it.

Writing can be taught. The problem with it is though that it's hard to teach it in groups. Everyone's process is different, and what works for one person doesn't work for another. But it is why some critique groups manage to turn out an unusual high number of good writers. They've found a way to teach writing to each other. This elevates someones writing faster than when they go it alone.

This would make a professional writing education expensive. You would need a private coach who helps you figure out your method of writing, who analyses what you write and who gives concrete feedback on those pieces. And the closer this feedback is to the moment where you wrote it, the better. So you'd go a session of writing followed by direct feedback on that writing.

For my second novel I hired an editor to first offer a critique on the manuscript and then to give it an edit. And the feedback of both of these helped improve my writing. The first showed me some issues with my story telling / plotting, the second showed me where my use of language could be improved. Both made me a better writer because it showed me what I was doing wrong and offering me hints on how to fix it.

Thanks for this. A lot of what you say makes sense; I've long wished that I had some kind of mentor, like "With Hemingway" by Arnold Samuelson.

I suppose one nice thing is that we can get such advice from public interviews, or from books such as Stephen King's "On Writing". This decently approximates the process you described. But it's still not the same as staying with Hemingway for months or whatever and in exchange for helping him on his fishing adventures, he helps you in the twilight hours on your novel.

Therefore, I suppose writing groups is the next best thing, or simply a creative partner of sorts. Though I feel sometimes this can be the blind leading the blind. Most university creative writing courses provide this sort of experience, but I don't know if that justifies the expense.

If I stop hating my fiction writing to the point that I can complete a sentence without wanting to commit pyromania, perhaps I will miraculously finish a long novel; it's possible that the goal of hiring a professional editor could help push me through. "You can do it Fox; you're just gonna' pay somebody else to burn it for you once you get to the end..."

Are there other services that can be hired for similar purposes (not burning but genuine writerly assistance and advice)? I seem to remember that there are people who do something similar to providing editing, but it's more like a paid beta reader or something. I don't remember now, but I just seem to remember there being a few resources aside from professional editing that writers can hire.

 

[Stevie]

Simple answer, yes you can hire beta readers. I've used the Fiverr website to find beta readers before. Much cheaper than editorial services, I found the feedback useful and value for money.

I agree with pretty much everything Prince of Spires says above. Good writing can be self taught but it helps if you have a coach. I suspect the best writing groups are those that focus on critique and hang the niceities of trying to stay pals with everyone in the group.

I'd also add that to be a good writer, you need to want to write and have to have some faith in yourself and in your writing. You need to be able to say to yourself, "That's not too bad. Better than the last effort. How do I make the next one better yet?" Yes there will be days when every single word sounds wrong but you can't let that be every day.

It's painful and heart-breaking to read your posts about how you hate your writing. I don't know why you feel this way but I imagine its currently your biggest obstacle to growing as a writer and (at the risk of stating the obvious) the main problem you need to focus on resolving. For what its worth, at this stage, a mentor/writing partner may not be the answer to that problem.

 

[Fox]

Simple answer, yes you can hire beta readers. I've used the Fiverr website to find beta readers before. Much cheaper than editorial services, I found the feedback useful and value for money.

I agree with pretty much everything Prince of Spires says above. Good writing can be self taught but it helps if you have a coach. I suspect the best writing groups are those that focus on critique and hang the niceities of trying to stay pals with everyone in the group.

I'd also add that to be a good writer, you need to want to write and have to have some faith in yourself and in your writing. You need to be able to say to yourself, "That's not too bad. Better than the last effort. How do I make the next one better yet?" Yes there will be days when every single word sounds wrong but you can't let that be every day.

It's painful and heart-breaking to read your posts about how you hate your writing. I don't know why you feel this way but I imagine its currently your biggest obstacle to growing as a writer and (at the risk of stating the obvious) the main problem you need to focus on resolving. For what its worth, at this stage, a mentor/writing partner may not be the answer to that problem.

I first want to apologize if I've hijacked the thread! Didn't mean to make it about me. But yeah, primarily this has been an issue with my fiction writing, but not so much with other writing. And yes, overcoming this issue is something that will come from within me, as I've pretty much come full circle in terms of the advice offered by others. It's important to know what university courses or writing mentors / partners *can* do, and what isn't their job.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Talent matters, but most people who decide to seriously pursue a discipline have some raw ability or they wouldn’t pursue it. The trick to writing, in part, is that it is multiple disciplines rolled into one.

Liberace is an interesting example for piano. Folks like me thought he was amazing, but piano people often considered him a technician lacking the subtlety and emotional depth of a great pianist. Huh. And therein lies the issue, what the hell does it even mean to be “world class” in a subjective profession? 50 Shades is not well-written, an understatement, but it sold huge. JK Rowling is a good writer, but not great, but sold boatloads. Literary award winning novels often sell fewer copies than I’ve sold... Some, many thousands less. Literary awards (as well as Genre) are so prone to politics and trends that they could be argued to be poor indicators of “greatness”.

Writing groups of enormous success are as likely to be a group of equally and highly talented people. Natural selection… a gifted writer is unlikely to hang out in a group of people who can’t string a paragraph together. Or don’t understand story. Or don’t understand dialogue. And down the line of disciplines involved in writing. Talent will gravitate to talent. I recall in college being asked to meet with some people… I didn’t, but one of the other better writers in the class did, and after two meetings she dropped out, and explained why with glazed eyes. Hemingway or any other great writer is unlikely to mentor someone who they don’t think has the chops for it. And on and on.

Personally, one day I would love to find a young, open-minded writer with a strong foundational talent, and of course one that I have a natural rapport with, and see what I could do for their writing and story-telling. I think it would be a fun.

I'm going to disagree. Anything can be taught, and almost anyone can learn anything. Natural ability plays some role in it for sure. But there is more and more research which shows that talent is simply a lot of practice put in at (often) a young age. It takes 10.000 hours of dedicated practice to become world class at something. And dedicated practice isn't simply playing the tune your piano teacher gave you a handful of times until it sounds okay. It's digging deep and concentrating on the details and doing it over and over again until it's perfect.

That kind of dedication is harder to find. The reason then that not everyone becomes a chemist or a writer or a piano player is that you need the passion to put in the hours to become great at it. There is a difference between arts and other professions, in that there is room for an average programmer to make money, but few average trumpetists can earn a living playing the trumpet. There's just no demand for it.

Writing can be taught. The problem with it is though that it's hard to teach it in groups. Everyone's process is different, and what works for one person doesn't work for another. But it is why some critique groups manage to turn out an unusual high number of good writers. They've found a way to teach writing to each other. This elevates someones writing faster than when they go it alone.

This would make a professional writing education expensive. You would need a private coach who helps you figure out your method of writing, who analyses what you write and who gives concrete feedback on those pieces. And the closer this feedback is to the moment where you wrote it, the better. So you'd go a session of writing followed by direct feedback on that writing.

For my second novel I hired an editor to first offer a critique on the manuscript and then to give it an edit. And the feedback of both of these helped improve my writing. The first showed me some issues with my story telling / plotting, the second showed me where my use of language could be improved. Both made me a better writer because it showed me what I was doing wrong and offering me hints on how to fix it.