I read these two beautiful passages in two books that I am reading now. Thought you might like them J
From ‘Reading Like a Writer’ by Francine Prose
Can creative writing be taught?
It’s a reasonable question, but no matter how often I’ve been asked it, I never know quite what to say. Because if what people mean is : Can the love of language be taught? Can a gift for storytelling be taught? then the answer is no. Which may be why the question is so often asked in a skeptical tone implying that, unlike the multiplication tables or the principles of auto mechanics, creativity can’t be transmitted from teacher to student. Imagine Milton enrolling in a graduate program for help with Paradise Lost, or Kafka enduring the seminar in which his classmates inform him that, frankly, they just don’t believe the part about the guy waking up one morning to find he’s a giant bug.
What confuses me is not the sensibleness of the question but the fact that it’s being asked of a writer who has taught writing, on and off, for almost twenty years. What would it say about me, my students, and the hours we’d spent in the classroom if I said that any attempt to teach the writing of fiction was a complete waste of time? Probably, I should just go ahead and admit that I’ve been committing criminal fraud.
Instead I answer by recalling my own most valuable experience, not as a teacher but as a student in one of the few fiction workshops I took. This was in the 1970s, during my brief career as a graduate student in medieval English literature, when I was allowed the indulgence of taking one fiction class. Its generous teacher showed me, among other things, how to line edit my work. For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what’s superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially cut, is essential. It’s satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form : clear, economical, sharp.
Meanwhile, my classmates were providing me with my first real audience. In that prehistory, before mass photocopying enabled students to distribute manuscripts in advance, we read our work aloud. That year, I was beginning what would become my first novel. And what made an important difference to me was the attention I felt in the room as the others listened. I was encouraged by their eagerness to hear more.
That’s the experience I describe, the answer I give to people who ask about teaching creative writing : A workshop can be useful. A good teacher can show you how to edit your work. The right class can form the basis of a community that will help and sustain you.
But that class, as helpful as it was, was not where I learned to write.
From Literary Theory : The Basics by Hans Bertens
Within binary oppositions we do not only find an oppositional relationship between the two terms involved, we also find a strange complicity. Take for instance ‘light’ vs ‘darkness’. Arguably, light needs darkness. If there were no darkness, we would not have light either because we would not be able to recognize it for what it is. Without darkness, we would in one sense obviously have light – it would be the only thing around – but we would not be aware of light. We would not have the concept of light so that what we call light (which implies our awareness that there is also the possibility of non-light) would not exist. One might argue, then, that the existence of darkness (that is, our awareness of non-light) creates the concept of light. Paradoxically, the inferior term in this oppositional set turns out to be a condition for the opposition as such and is therefore as important as the so-called privileged one. The two terms in any oppositional set are defined by each other : light by darkness, truth by falsehood, purity by contamination, the rational by the irrational, the same by the other, nature by culture. Here, too, meaning arises out of difference. If there were no falsehood, we would have no concept of truth; if there were no purity, we would have no concept of contamination. Once difference has given rise to meaning, we privilege certain meanings and condemn others. Some privilegings will strike most of us as wholly reasonable – good vs evil, or truth vs falsehood – others have done incalculable damage – white vs black, the masculine vs the feminine. But whatever the effect of binary oppositions they always have their origin in difference. To analyse and dismantle them, as I have just done, means to ‘decentre’ the privileged term, to show that both terms only exist because of difference.
Hi Vishy,
I have to admit that I was a bit confused after reading the first part of your post. The love of language and the ability to tell a story are different concepts altogether. One may love to read but not be able to write – they are not one and the same.
I’ve never attended a workshop on writing but I’ve had people read my work and do some constructive criticism which was very useful for me – as writers, whether we write a blog post or a novel, we don’t always see our faults (or our strengths for that matter) and this is probably what these workshops do, they guide you on that path and teach you a few rules, but in the end it’s up to the you to get that story on to the paper and make is something truly unique.
Hi Delia,
I agree with you that love of language and ability to tell a story are different things. Probably Francine Prose implies that a love of language will inspire an aspiring writer to write beautiful prose. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on workshops and creativity – that though constructive criticism given by friends or participants of literary workshops is definitely useful, how it is really upto the writer to create a work of art. I agree with you.
Vishy, it’s such a delight to read these concepts again! It’s been some time since I have read anything related to literary theory, it’s highly illuminating, thought provoking passages, abandoned to more mundane reading. Not to say this is lofty or what I have been reading has been boring. There is a certain beauty about literary theory that cannot be found everywhere… 🙂 glad you are enjoying it!
Glad to know that you liked the excerpts, Birdy 🙂 I loved that passage about opposites and how literary theory says that the world is a combination of opposites but how the opposite elements are bound in a very intimate way. It is so beautiful and makes me think.
Francine Prose’s book is one of the most important books I read in the last few years. I loved it. I find the question about Creative Writing and whether it can be taught interesting. Europeans tend to say no, Americans tend to say yes. I have seen discussions on European blogs where the author of the post and those commenting made fun of creative writing courses and I found it very unjust. I took several courses, I knew how to write before I took them but I think the input was valuable. And it’s a great way to show what you’ve been doing. I’m a bit wary of University degrees in creative writing but courses to shape language and to exchnage with likeminded people are great.
I think what you cannot teach is the voice, a unique voice. That may be a reason that some young writers who graduate from certain schools write well, have nice stories and plotlines but they have no voice. I’m not sure, I’m making sense…
Glad to know that you liked Francine Prose’s book, Caroline. I don’t know why I haven’t read any of her books before. After starting to read this book, I am loving her style and the way she describes and explains things and want to explore other books of hers. I also discovered that her fiction is also quite interesting. I don’t know why she hasn’t won (m)any literary awards or why her books aren’t bestsellers, because she looks like a really fascinating writer.
It was interesting to read your thoughts on whether creative writing can be taught and about your experiences in creative writing courses. I agree with you – I think creative writing courses are useful with respect to getting inputs on our work and in sharing our work with others. I participated in a creative writing workshop a few years back and it was fun. It was interesting to read your thoughts on how graduates from certain schools write in nice prose but have no voice. Very true.
Anna whats your take on creative writing, is it a natural gift or it can be obtained by proper training
Thanks for stopping by, Shiva 🙂 I think some aspects of creative writing can be taught – like editing a line to make it look better, trying to tell a story in fewer words. But things like coming up with an original idea and telling the story in an innovative new form or developing one’s own prose style are difficult to teach, in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing those passages, Vishy. Very thought-provoking. I’ve heard of Francine Prose’s book and been meaning to read it for a while – looking forward to your review! I’ve never taken creative writing classes, but I know other writers who have, and who’ve got great benefits from them. I think maybe it depends on your personality – some people like the class interaction and hearing others’ comments, whereas I’ve always been a bit of a loner and preferred to learn from books. I’ve learned to write by reading good books and seeing what works or doesn’t work in them. It’s the main reason I blog, in fact – I find that writing reviews and talking about books with people like you forces me to think about the structure of successful books, rather than just reading without analysing.
I also enjoyed the second passage. It reminded me a little of Taoism with the emphasis on opposites which can’t exist without each other. I haven’t read much literary theory, but have a book by Terry Eagleton that I refer to sometimes. This one sounds interesting!
Glad to know that you liked the passages, Andrew. It was interesting to read your thoughts on creative writing classes and learning from reading. I am a big fan of learning from reading, but I have also attended a creative writing workshop and liked the experience. That Terry Eagleton book looks quite interesting! The literary theory book I am reading has a few references to Terry Eagleton 🙂
I read Reading Like a Writer several years ago. I think I would appreciate it more now and would really like to reread it. I remember there being some excellent passages! I haven’t heard of the Bertens book, but the passage you included is really interesting. Thank you for sharing these!
Glad to know that you liked ‘Reading Like a Writer’, Erin. Hope you get to re-read it again and like it even more. I am loving it till now – I love the way Francine Prose guides the reader in a gentle tone, like a favourite teacher and helps the reader navigate the literary terrain.
Love those quotes! Prose seems to be a really engaging writer and I’m only writing papers not fiction, but still, I know what she means when she talks about the satisfaction of polishing a sentence 🙂
Glad to know that you liked the quotes, Bina 🙂 Prose really rocks 🙂
I really enjoyed reading Prose’s thoughts and will have to find a copy of the book. As for the debate, I don’t know how I feel. Maybe after I read the book I’ll have a better opinion.
Hope you get to read Prose’s book and like it, TBM. It is a really beautiful book and I loved the list of book recommendations at the end. Happy reading! I will look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.