Former MFA teacher spills

[Jo Zebedee]

Puts hand up - the phrase was special snowflakes. which just means snowflakes are mostly all the same and for one to think it's special would be hard to quantify.
Um. I'm glad I said it here and not on Twitter...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Yer hed's fulla sweetie mice.

 

[ZombieWife]

Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

It's the notion that your writing and work is so brand-spankin new and special and world-changing. Writers who think they have the one idea that nobody has thought of. Doesn't matter if they don't execute it well....it's special! Or, that their writing and work is so precious that they shouldn't have to edit or revise.

 

[MWagner]

And others might find it rage-inducing, as does Chuck Wendig over here.

Wow. That Wendig dude came across as far less rational that the ex-MFA teacher. The teacher didn't say anything about talent making it easy to write. Rather, that lack of talent is a real thing. And it is.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It is definitely a real thing. But in many (perhaps most) cases it can take a long time to figure out if it is really lacking. Some people are so talented that you know right away. The best and worst cases tend to be obvious. Others have to get the mechanics down before they can unleash their creativity. Some have to experiment until they find what they truly want to write about.

Learning to write well is largely about developing your instincts, for what works, what doesn't work, what will move readers etc. Some seem to have that instinct naturally, or at least have picked it up from all the reading they have done, without quite knowing how they have done it. That shows a great deal of aptitude on their part. Most writers have to develop that instinct... if they are ever going to have it at all. Some never do, either because they give up too early (they didn't care that much) or because their talents don't lie in that direction.

So I think they are both wrong, Chuck Wendig and that teacher. Wendig because he is not acknowledging that not everyone is born with the drive (or that what drives them isn't writing), and that teacher because he is premature in some of his judgements.

 

[ZombieWife]

I dunno, I still agree with the guy on much of what he says, BUT, I also acknowledge that if you've been teaching creative writing for a long time, you're sure to get a wee bit jaded.

I love Wendig, though. And yes, Finnegan's Wake is straight from the devil's bunghole. And it did nothing to further my writing style or skill--other than to swear that I would never, ever write like that. So help me God.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I dunno, I still agree with the guy on much of what he says, BUT, I also acknowledge that if you've been teaching creative writing for a long time, you're sure to get a wee bit jaded.

I love Wendig, though. And yes, Finnegan's Wake is straight from the devil's bunghole. And it did nothing to further my writing style or skill--other than to swear that I would never, ever write like that. So help me God.

You do get jaded as a trainer. You see the same stuff in different classes and it gets very draining.

On the other hand - Finegan's wake! As an intro to Joyce, someone's having a laugh. I've never tackled Ulysses yet (I might, one of these days) but Dubliners is a lovely book. People seem to want to approach Joyce as an endurance test. Start at the relaxed end of the spectrum. Even most Irish don't read Finegan's Wake. Or none I've met.

 

[MWagner]

On the other hand - Finegan's wake! As an intro to Joyce, someone's having a laugh. I've never tackled Ulysses yet (I might, one of these days) but Dubliners is a lovely book. People seem to want to approach Joyce as an endurance test. Start at the relaxed end of the spectrum. Even most Irish don't read Finegan's Wake. Or none I've met.

Yeah, I have no idea why an instructor would recommend the cipher text of Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses to writing students, when Dubliners has such beautiful and perfectly accessible prose. People forget Joyce was a wonderful conventional writer before he took the plunge into meta.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I thought this piece by Steven Erikson kind of touches on the original subject:
http://www.stevenerikson.com/index.php/on-authorial-intent/

Not least, his assertion that some published writers really don't understand what they're doing, even before we get onto the subject of challenging presumptions inherent to the writing.

 

[MWagner]

I thought this piece by Steven Erikson kind of touches on the original subject:
http://www.stevenerikson.com/index.php/on-authorial-intent/

Not least, his assertion that some published writers really don't understand what they're doing, even before we get onto the subject of challenging presumptions inherent to the writing.

I'm not surprised Erikson feels a barrier between himself and CanLit authors. They're writing in different genres for different audiences. Fantasy genre authors are going to be much more conscious and deliberate about plot and world-building than literary writers, many of whom regard plotting as pandering artifice. On the other hand, judging by Gardens of the Moon (and the essay itself), Erikson has a lot to learn from literary writers when it comes to cadence and elegant prose. For all his imagination and skill in world-building and plot-weaving, the man has a tin ear for language.

As for the presumptions behind writing, Erikson makes a few huge presumptions of his own on the subject. But that probably deserves its own topic.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote Child of Saturn, which is why it took umpteen rewrites and revisions before I felt I had finally achieved what I wanted to do with it and sent it to a publisher. For the next two books I was largely operating on the instincts I had acquired while writing the first one.

But a one-day course in fantasy writing helped me to understand many things about writing in the genre. I am not sure that I learned much of anything new from that class, but it gave me a way of understanding what I already knew subconsciously, and in that way it was incredibly valuable.

It wasn't until I joined a writers group and started doing critiques (and receiving them of course) that the same thing happened for me for the craft of writing in general (not just genre fiction, although it was a genre writers group). There were people explaining why some things tended to work and why other things usually didn't. And when I did a critique I, too, had to put into words things I had up until that time merely known instinctively -- as an avid reader, or a writer who had developed those instincts through much trial and error. And that was very helpful for me because I was learning how to get some of those things right the first time myself. I would see something that I had considered doing (usually something I thought would be extremely clever), see that it didn't work, see why it didn't work, and avoid making the same mistake.

With the editing I am doing now, I am still learning to formulate into words things I have known for years without quite knowing that I knew them, which can sometimes be a great revelation even to me! Editing, like critiquing, can be a fantastic learning experience.

It saves time knowing these things, and it can make the writing look more assured, which is a good thing in itself.

But I will admit that there can be something fresh and attractive about someone's first book if it is written on instinct alone, if it is someone who has good instincts for writing. It is something that may -- probably will -- be missing in their later books when they have more knowledge of the mechanics. But of course that sense of a newborn talent can't last forever, and if that writer tries to emulate it in later books, without learning anything new, without growing more adept at their craft, the whole thing can get very tired. Readers enchanted with the original premise may stay with a series until the bitter end; other readers will eventually realize that the writer is never going to create the same magical experience again, and they'll give up on the series and (perhaps) anything else the author writes afterward. An early success that locks one into doing things one way and one way only is not the way to become a better writer. But there are other writers who despite such success continue to learn and grow, and cultivate their talent, and go from strength to strength.

About writers who see other writers as competition and don't want to share what they have learned, and want to maintain their mystique and stay up on their pedestals: one sees so little of it in the SFF community, it is always a shock to be reminded that it happens elsewhere. Just as it is impossible sometimes from those who come from those other environments to understand that we don't do things that way. Usually, SFF writers are all too ready to spill our guts about what we think, and what we have learned, and what we believe about writing. In fact, it can be hard to shut us up.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I agree the first freedom of your first book is hard to recapture. Having said that, the many, many rewrites have been gruelling and I'm happy going in a little more polished at the start. I'm also glad I pushed and finished the trilogy when I was still relatively new as the gap in writing skills between them isn't too obvious. I think, though, I'll struggle to replicate such rich characters again - but then again, I did spend 20 odd years developing them, as opposed to the writing me who develops them as I write over months.

I learned most from a combination of editing - Teresa has more knowledge about writing in her little finger than I'll have in a lifetime and I feel very priveleged to be working with her - and a regular writing group. The group gave me space to grow and a safe environment to muck things up in and present horrid experiments. And here, of course.

 

[ZombieWife]

It wasn't until I joined a writers group and started doing critiques (and receiving them of course) that the same thing happened for me for the craft of writing in general (not just genre fiction, although it was a genre writers group). There were people explaining why some things tended to work and why other things usually didn't. And when I did a critique I, too, had to put into words things I had up until that time merely known instinctively -- as an avid reader, or a writer who had developed those instincts through much trial and error. And that was very helpful for me because I was learning how to get some of those things right the first time myself. I would see something that I had considered doing (usually something I thought would be extremely clever), see that it didn't work, see why it didn't work, and avoid making the same mistake.

I think this is true for so many writers. I went into college (late), having already been published in a minor way, but I had coasted on that instinct until I realized I was spinning my wheels and needed to understand exactly what it was that I was doing. I needed terminology and language for my own sake and for the sake of revision. I remember attending my first workshop in undergrad and being extremely frightened during the first session. My story wasn't up, but I had to critique someone else and I had no idea how to do that. But you learn that over time--especially through critique (whether that critique is in an academic setting or a writing group or whatnot). And it was a very long process for me. I'm still learning, actually. Which is good.

About writers who see other writers as competition and don't want to share what they have learned, and want to maintain their mystique and stay up on their pedestals: one sees so little of it in the SFF community, it is always a shock to be reminded that it happens elsewhere. Just as it is impossible sometimes from those who come from those other environments to understand that we don't do things that way. Usually, SFF writers are all too ready to spill our guts about what we think, and what we have learned, and what we believe about writing. In fact, it can be hard to shut us up.

Yeah, I have only encountered this covetous mentality from amateurs, to be perfectly honest. I think most of those folks tend to "get over it," or simply move out of the writing discipline altogether. But, as you said, in the SFF community, I find that people are genuinely interested in helping one another and receive help in return. I don't think I've encountered someone grasping all their knowledge like a dragon over gold in a very long time. I was young. Super young. And those people were in over their head in general and do not write anymore.

 

[LittleStar]

On critiquing, for me this is the best method of learning. I have probably learned more in the last few months, since I started going thigh the critique threads here on Chrons, than I did for the first two (teaching was a little better in the third year) of my uni course. As Teresa said, I was being forced to put into words exactly what I knew instinctively or felt, something which I still find very difficult, but am much better at it. And this translates brilliantly to my own work, and to critiquing in workshops on the course.

On research, my MA, which I'm just over halfway through, had a whole module on it, and production of a piece based solely on this research. Until then though, it wasn't really mentioned. But I think anyone who reads anything is building up a storehouse of research they can draw on. And not just books, I love history programmes and quiz programmes, and science etc. All of them give facts and information that is pertinent to something I might write in the future.

On reading to write. I'm not so sure about this one. I have been writing since I was a kid, and while I loved books, I think the first book I read properly was Eragon at around 15 or so (before that I had read the hobbit when I was much younger, but I don't really remember it, I think it was more a trophy because it was my first library rental). There may have been a few others, (I remember being so excited when I read thenfirst page of a goosebumps, it took me so long to read that page, it's just a shame I didn't know that the copywrite page isn't actually part or the text!) but nothing standout, and not really anything that wasn't a school assignment.

Between Eragon and my uni starting, 8 years or so, I read probably around 15 books, if I'm being generous. And it was around eragon that I started writing, and a year or two before uni that I started getting serious, and I think this latter period I wasn't bad. I know I'm much better now, than then, but I don't think that's through reading that I have done since. Uni had me reading maybe anoer 20-30 books over the three years (It was a combined lit course) and last year, since discovering audio books and having 8 hours a day at work to listen to them, I have devoured many of the classics, churning through about 70 books since July.

So, my writing, I don't put down to being well read. I could blag my way through a conversation about Moby dick or Dante or Verne, and sound like i knew what i was talking about, but I'd never read them, until a few months ago. I came to these books when I could appreciate and enjoy them and I took so much more away from them than I would have ten has ago or so. I think people need to find books when they are ready for them. That's not to say children shouldn't read, but read appropriately. GCSE for example shouldn't set big literary staples for their students to read, because a lot of them won't take anything away from it, and perhaps even turn them away from an author, a genre, or god forbid, books themselves. Pre-Eragon, they set for me and my class, Kazuo Ishiguro's remains of the day. I actually read it and I hated it. It bored me more than anything, I couldn't figure out why there was a whole chapter about how he polished spoons. I still haven't gone back to it, and I have touched anything written by him since. I woud like to read it again, but that's just curiosity, about if I missed something (which I'm sure I did) rather than a desire to read it because I know it made me feel bored. There are other examples of this. Books that I just wasn't ready to read at the time.

I'm kinda getting off topic a little, but my point is at these books, or the lack of books didn't really have any bearing on my writing. Quite the opposite, i beleive im only ready for these books now becasue of my writing. Without the desire to look deeper into a text to find out what makes it tick, i woud miss much of what the book was about, as im sure i did in the ishiguro example. I am almost certain at I would only read books for their surface text, not really get into character, or deeper meaning, and is probably a lot of the reason why I started out writing in fantasy, and have developed as a writer to begin to at least explore other genres, even if the fantasy element remains in some form.

To come full circle, What helped my writing, was the critiquing, the seeing reasons why people did something, or why something didn't work, and examples of what would work (I work a thousand times better with examples of something done 'right' than I do with being told something is wrong). The ideas in schools that we need to learns all about the themes and grand literary theories is all very academic, and I think the wrong frame of mind for something as creative and artistic as creative writing. Bouncing ideas off of people, discussions about character and scene description, about technicalities of dialogue. These are the things that people should have the option of being taught. But as it is now, at least in my experience, our schooling only seems to cultivate literature, and literary students. So it really is no surprise that people who choose to do a creative writing course with this teacher, haven't had the full experience of what creative writing is.



I'm sure I had some central theme or topic I was going to mention, but my rambling post spagghettied around too much and I lost it...

 

[Hex]

I struggle with "conscious" writing. I still enjoy things far more if I'm just running with instinct and letting things work the way that feels right. It does mean I have re-writing to do and it does mean that I make mistakes, but if I try to do things in conscious, structured ways, I don't want to write the story at all.

I'm a new writer and maybe I will change when I've written more, of course, but quite often I find that analysing things to their nth component breaks them for me. I don't always want to identify why X makes me happy or Y makes me sad. I don't want to reduce it to a structure or a combination of notes, or whatever. I didn't do English at uni because I didn't want to ruin the books I loved by analysing them to death. And I suspect creative writing courses.

When I was just a reader (before I started writing), I could identify a book that had been written as part of a creative writing course/ after one with a high degree of accuracy.(*) This was lit fic and I suspect it doesn't apply much in genre, but once you start telling people the "right" way to do things and having a group invested in making sure that "right" way is followed, you risk producing novels that are in a particular form, because that form is "best".

(*) Part of it may have been that creative writing courses allow people who wouldn't otherwise be published the opportunity to write a publication-worthy book. That it's a bit stale and samey is presumably not a problem as long as it ticks the right boxes and follows the approved structure.

 

[LittleStar]

I agree entirely with you, Hex. As I said, the course, for me, didn't do half as much as beng a writer here and joining the community. What it did do for me though, was ensure a steady stream of writing was being produced. There werent really oppertunities to stop or get bored of the craft, and when assignments werent due in i was all the more excited to be writing something for me afterwards. Kind of enforcing that I do actually like writing all the while.
And the 'right' way of doing things is exactly why we aren't allowed adverbs anymore, or said bookisms, or 'suddenly' (though I mostly agree with that one). There are certainly elements of individuality and preference that make a better, for the writer, novel, but I don't think there can ever be a 'best' way. And there should never be a copy/paste fiction method.

I don't mind a little bit of evaluation (it can and does sometimes go overboard in examination) of why X character felt sad, or more importantly why I/reader felt sad, not for a greater understanding of the book, but for an understanding of how to replicate that in my own stuff. But that again is a preference thing, and will certainly change for individuals

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Always be learning, it's the only way to grow and get better.

Yeah, I have only encountered this covetous mentality from amateurs, to be perfectly honest. I think most of those folks tend to "get over it," or simply move out of the writing discipline altogether. But, as you said, in the SFF community, I find that people are genuinely interested in helping one another and receive help in return. I don't think I've encountered someone grasping all their knowledge like a dragon over gold in a very long time. I was young. Super young. And those people were in over their head in general and do not write anymore.

Aside from the covetous non-sharers, there's also a crowd of torpedo-sharers. Those who seem to go out of their way to share explicitly wrong or terribly bad advice. Near as I can tell there's one of two reasons for this: they're amateurs who honestly don't know any better, or they're actively trying to give damaging advice, most likely because they do view other writers as direct competition. They're both lobbing torpedoes, one because they simply don't know any better, the other with malicious intent and hopes of blowing someone up.

The most obvious example of the wrong-headed or outright dangerous advice is the old chestnut 'there are no rules'. Well, given that those same posters also magically happen to follow as many of the rules of spelling and grammar as they seem to know, they're clearly up themselves. There very obviously are rules that must be followed. There are some exceptions that writers should learn and the rules can be broke by well-established pros, but the trick is to learn the rules first, then learn how to break them. Not jump in with some wrong-headed notion that there's no rules and anything goes from page one, word one of your very first attempt at writing anything. The real trick is trying to suss out which version any given 'there are no rules' poster is. Rank amateur with no real grasp of things, or intentionally malicious person gleefully trying to torpedo others.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think "There are no rules" and "Write what you know" (and, to a limited extent, "Show don't tell") are the result of oversimplification. "Write what you can realistically depict to a point where it will convince the reader" is less punchy.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

"Write what you can realistically depict to a point where it will convince the reader" is less punchy.

But at least it's succinct. It usually takes me several paragraphs to say that same thing.

I still enjoy things far more if I'm just running with instinct and letting things work the way that feels right. It does mean I have re-writing to do and it does mean that I make mistakes, but if I try to do things in conscious, structured ways, I don't want to write the story at all.

But you have good instincts, Hex. And I do believe that the more we learn about writing the better our instincts become. The thing about learning the rules, so far as I am concerned, is that once you have really absorbed them you don't have to think about them consciously -- leave that up to your subconscious mind to handle for the time being -- until it's time for editing and revising. Then, when there is something that bothers you in the revision, or that has been nagging at you all along, if you can identify what the problem is, and you know how to fix it, it will save you a lot of trial and error to get it right.

But, as I have said before many times, if something works then don't bother yourself over whether it follows or breaks the rules. If it works it doesn't matter how many rules you broke.

I do believe that it is better to just write the first draft and worry about the rules later, even if that means multiple revisions and rewrites (just not a dozen like I did with CoS). And there are some things I never worry about at all, like structure and theme. I have always believed that after you've done a few drafts you'll find that those have evolved on their own.

 

[ZombieWife]

I hate the bad advice. Actually, it's more "lazy" advice.

Write what you know.
There are no rules...

Ugh.

The one that gets me is, "Just read. A lot."

Because when I "just read a lot," I'm magically cured of all my writing ailments.