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<blockquote data-quote="Heap Thaumaturgist" data-source="post: 222902" data-attributes="member: 4516"><p>Well, hours-wise I'm a BA, I just didn't take the option to graduate. I'm picking up a business minor. My major, however, is English: Rhetoric and Communication.</p><p></p><p>I don't know why I feel the need to explain myself. I suppose some deep-seated feelings of inferiority because I don't yet have that piece of paper in my hand. It's for a good reason though; the aquisition of funding for masters.</p><p></p><p>At any rate, I started English four years ago with some high minded ideals of getting a degree in creative writing and that degree being in some small way useful in my drive to be "A Writer". After two years I realized a few things ... 1: I didn't like "Literature". That is, the classes on classic and new-classic High Literary literature. 2: I didn't like Creative Writing much, either.</p><p></p><p>Somewhere in there I actually started reading what authors were saying about the -industry- I wanted to be in. "Industry?" says I. Here's something they're not telling us in Creative Writing I or II. I also notice that these successful authors say various negative things about Creative Writing classes they've had, and lo, many of them have degrees in ... Law? What gives? </p><p></p><p>I've gone to a junior college and a state university. The junior college was free. The "Creative Writing" classes at University were those type we've discussed here that out and out refuse to work with "Genre Fiction". "I don't want to read Genre Fiction. I'm not saying that Genre Fiction is bad, I just want us all to stay on the same page." ... I will, at least, give my second instructor due regard ... she's not a professor, doesn't have a doctorate, but she's well published in her genre (Literary) so they brought her in to teach Creative Writing classes. And since she's not a genre writer, she teaches non-genre writing. It is, after all, what she knows. And she's good.</p><p></p><p>The problem has many sides. One of the first sides, and one people will yell at me about, but I'm brutal, is this ... the vast majority of people who want to write have no talent for it. Invariably these people read Genre Fiction. Why? Genre Fiction sells. Genre Fiction is fun to read, it entertains, so people who want to be entertained read Genre Fiction. Of the genres, Fantasy and Science Fiction tend to attract people of an intellectual and imaginative strain. These people get to college and invariably sign up for Creative Writing, where they will hone their skills and get feedback on their stories and become the next Robert Jordan. </p><p></p><p>Unfortunately through a combination of laziness, ego, and excited imagination 99% of these people just aren't any good. They don't have the patience, time, or grasp of linguistic nuance to BE any good; and they all want to write Genre Fiction. So, by eliminating Genre Fiction from the roster, a surprising number of these people drop out entirely, muttering: "They dont' understand the real worth of Fantasy." The rest, at least, are willing to work outside of their genre. Though, again, a large number of those remaining are the artsy crowd who've read a little "Literature" and realize they too have pain. Pain which must be shared, and shared with the eloquent exploration of their artsy little character. (Who usually sounds alot like the author, physical blemishes done away with and hair color changed.)</p><p></p><p>In the end, of a class of twenty you'll get 8 that stay and 2 that actually have any talent. Talent is a hard term to define, but most of us know it when we hear it. Unfortunately, it just isn't socially acceptable to say, after sitting through a seven page reading of low-level Furry smut, "You're really not very good. Not to be mean, but that was physically painful to sit through." </p><p></p><p>Now, to go back in time, I had a few Creative Writing courses at the junior college, as well. Four, I think. Two of them I took while still in high school. All under the same professor, a kind old blind man named Dr. Smith. He's not really that old, I suppose, but old enough when you're in high school and his hair is turning white. He isn't, I suppose, all that blind, either. He can see general shapes, and usually enough to know if somebody is in the room, but only if they're standing up and away from any tall objects. For this discussion, however, he shall be old and blind. </p><p></p><p>At any rate, Dr. Smith levied no such limit on Creative Writing. Poetry, action fantasy, vampire smut ... he just said: "Bring something to the next class" ... and he would listen to it. We had to read our something out loud (him being unable to read), and he would sit on top of the high-school style teacher's desk at the front of the room with a black marker and a legal pad ... every once in a while he would stare distantly at the pad and make a very large chinese character, then turn the page. And, when you were through, he somehow could turn those three or four chinese characters into a half hour of deep, directive questioning about specific parts of your "something", peering intently at the page, an inch from his nose, moving the pad as he traced the outline to see which one he wrote. "Let's go back to where Kareon was facing the large demon and said ..."</p><p></p><p>As a small junior college, we'd only start with 8 people ... and we'd never lose a single one. Horrible poetry, overdrawn smut, bad action fantasy ... it all got equal regard and equal questioning ... I'm still not sure how he did it, but the ones that wanted to learn got to learn, and the ones that just wanted very badly for someone to listen to their attempts toward creativity didn't learn a thing, but went home happy. I wouldn't have that kind of patience, at all. I can't honestly remember WHERE or HOW I learned anything in that class, but I did. It stimulated me to go out and learn about the industry I wanted to work in. It stimulated me to go out and learn about literary theory and literary psychology. A few hints here and there, a crumb or two, a "you might like to read _______" or a "what did your favorite author really do when he did _____".</p><p></p><p>I'm not a published author, yet, so I can't make any claims toward a position of higher knowledge. WotC expressed interest in an article I wrote for them, once, but I had the bad luck to hit the turn-over to 3E and they asked me to wait a few weeks for the PHB to hit the shelves and refit it from 2nd Ed and I never did. Got caught up with classes and relationship drama. That and most every county and state-wide award for poetry and short fiction. I've spent most of my time in what I call "My apprenticeship" ... I discovered an aspect of English studies that caught my attention and allowed me a possibility of work after graduation, and I follow that and apply every nuance of it to my own writing. </p><p></p><p>Like most authors, I don't think "classes" at a university or college will "make" anybody a better writer. No actual aspect of Dr. Smith's classes gave me any skills ... as a person, his patience and willingness to point me toward things I could take and teach _myself_ made me a better writer. The university classes I took were totally useless. After the self-training I'd had from junior college, I was a better writer than anybody in the classes, so I could honestly scribble out a two page short in an hour that the instructor would love and go on about and then sit there in abject boredom while she tried to blacksmith the rest of the class into her ideal of what writers should be. I short-shrifted myself because she never stimulated me to LEARN anything I didn't already know about writing as a craft and an art, and I had alot of homework to do in other classes. So if I could get away with a literary-literature short about a couple guys discussing an ex girlfriend and drinking coffee in a cafe in an hour, that's what I was going to do. The friends I made in that class would all moan and complain that she trashed their ideas and smothered their creativity, and all I could do was point out that at every turn she was right. And, honestly, she was ... this bit of overdrawn exposition, this cardboard character, this or that bad adjective, and seven pages in passive voice ... none of it was good. The thing was, those people were never going to BE good. They just wanted somebody to listen to their stories and nod and make gentle suggestions that never sounded like actual suggestions. </p><p></p><p>Being a writer is either something you're born with, or an incurable disease, I haven't decided which. Writing is a craft, but a craft based on this ineffable thing we call "Talent" ... talent can be learned, but is almost impossible to teach, and I don't think we realize when we "learn" talent. </p><p></p><p>... I think I might have gotten derailed from the topic train somewhere in there.</p><p></p><p>--HT</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Heap Thaumaturgist, post: 222902, member: 4516"] Well, hours-wise I'm a BA, I just didn't take the option to graduate. I'm picking up a business minor. My major, however, is English: Rhetoric and Communication. I don't know why I feel the need to explain myself. I suppose some deep-seated feelings of inferiority because I don't yet have that piece of paper in my hand. It's for a good reason though; the aquisition of funding for masters. At any rate, I started English four years ago with some high minded ideals of getting a degree in creative writing and that degree being in some small way useful in my drive to be "A Writer". After two years I realized a few things ... 1: I didn't like "Literature". That is, the classes on classic and new-classic High Literary literature. 2: I didn't like Creative Writing much, either. Somewhere in there I actually started reading what authors were saying about the -industry- I wanted to be in. "Industry?" says I. Here's something they're not telling us in Creative Writing I or II. I also notice that these successful authors say various negative things about Creative Writing classes they've had, and lo, many of them have degrees in ... Law? What gives? I've gone to a junior college and a state university. The junior college was free. The "Creative Writing" classes at University were those type we've discussed here that out and out refuse to work with "Genre Fiction". "I don't want to read Genre Fiction. I'm not saying that Genre Fiction is bad, I just want us all to stay on the same page." ... I will, at least, give my second instructor due regard ... she's not a professor, doesn't have a doctorate, but she's well published in her genre (Literary) so they brought her in to teach Creative Writing classes. And since she's not a genre writer, she teaches non-genre writing. It is, after all, what she knows. And she's good. The problem has many sides. One of the first sides, and one people will yell at me about, but I'm brutal, is this ... the vast majority of people who want to write have no talent for it. Invariably these people read Genre Fiction. Why? Genre Fiction sells. Genre Fiction is fun to read, it entertains, so people who want to be entertained read Genre Fiction. Of the genres, Fantasy and Science Fiction tend to attract people of an intellectual and imaginative strain. These people get to college and invariably sign up for Creative Writing, where they will hone their skills and get feedback on their stories and become the next Robert Jordan. Unfortunately through a combination of laziness, ego, and excited imagination 99% of these people just aren't any good. They don't have the patience, time, or grasp of linguistic nuance to BE any good; and they all want to write Genre Fiction. So, by eliminating Genre Fiction from the roster, a surprising number of these people drop out entirely, muttering: "They dont' understand the real worth of Fantasy." The rest, at least, are willing to work outside of their genre. Though, again, a large number of those remaining are the artsy crowd who've read a little "Literature" and realize they too have pain. Pain which must be shared, and shared with the eloquent exploration of their artsy little character. (Who usually sounds alot like the author, physical blemishes done away with and hair color changed.) In the end, of a class of twenty you'll get 8 that stay and 2 that actually have any talent. Talent is a hard term to define, but most of us know it when we hear it. Unfortunately, it just isn't socially acceptable to say, after sitting through a seven page reading of low-level Furry smut, "You're really not very good. Not to be mean, but that was physically painful to sit through." Now, to go back in time, I had a few Creative Writing courses at the junior college, as well. Four, I think. Two of them I took while still in high school. All under the same professor, a kind old blind man named Dr. Smith. He's not really that old, I suppose, but old enough when you're in high school and his hair is turning white. He isn't, I suppose, all that blind, either. He can see general shapes, and usually enough to know if somebody is in the room, but only if they're standing up and away from any tall objects. For this discussion, however, he shall be old and blind. At any rate, Dr. Smith levied no such limit on Creative Writing. Poetry, action fantasy, vampire smut ... he just said: "Bring something to the next class" ... and he would listen to it. We had to read our something out loud (him being unable to read), and he would sit on top of the high-school style teacher's desk at the front of the room with a black marker and a legal pad ... every once in a while he would stare distantly at the pad and make a very large chinese character, then turn the page. And, when you were through, he somehow could turn those three or four chinese characters into a half hour of deep, directive questioning about specific parts of your "something", peering intently at the page, an inch from his nose, moving the pad as he traced the outline to see which one he wrote. "Let's go back to where Kareon was facing the large demon and said ..." As a small junior college, we'd only start with 8 people ... and we'd never lose a single one. Horrible poetry, overdrawn smut, bad action fantasy ... it all got equal regard and equal questioning ... I'm still not sure how he did it, but the ones that wanted to learn got to learn, and the ones that just wanted very badly for someone to listen to their attempts toward creativity didn't learn a thing, but went home happy. I wouldn't have that kind of patience, at all. I can't honestly remember WHERE or HOW I learned anything in that class, but I did. It stimulated me to go out and learn about the industry I wanted to work in. It stimulated me to go out and learn about literary theory and literary psychology. A few hints here and there, a crumb or two, a "you might like to read _______" or a "what did your favorite author really do when he did _____". I'm not a published author, yet, so I can't make any claims toward a position of higher knowledge. WotC expressed interest in an article I wrote for them, once, but I had the bad luck to hit the turn-over to 3E and they asked me to wait a few weeks for the PHB to hit the shelves and refit it from 2nd Ed and I never did. Got caught up with classes and relationship drama. That and most every county and state-wide award for poetry and short fiction. I've spent most of my time in what I call "My apprenticeship" ... I discovered an aspect of English studies that caught my attention and allowed me a possibility of work after graduation, and I follow that and apply every nuance of it to my own writing. Like most authors, I don't think "classes" at a university or college will "make" anybody a better writer. No actual aspect of Dr. Smith's classes gave me any skills ... as a person, his patience and willingness to point me toward things I could take and teach _myself_ made me a better writer. The university classes I took were totally useless. After the self-training I'd had from junior college, I was a better writer than anybody in the classes, so I could honestly scribble out a two page short in an hour that the instructor would love and go on about and then sit there in abject boredom while she tried to blacksmith the rest of the class into her ideal of what writers should be. I short-shrifted myself because she never stimulated me to LEARN anything I didn't already know about writing as a craft and an art, and I had alot of homework to do in other classes. So if I could get away with a literary-literature short about a couple guys discussing an ex girlfriend and drinking coffee in a cafe in an hour, that's what I was going to do. The friends I made in that class would all moan and complain that she trashed their ideas and smothered their creativity, and all I could do was point out that at every turn she was right. And, honestly, she was ... this bit of overdrawn exposition, this cardboard character, this or that bad adjective, and seven pages in passive voice ... none of it was good. The thing was, those people were never going to BE good. They just wanted somebody to listen to their stories and nod and make gentle suggestions that never sounded like actual suggestions. Being a writer is either something you're born with, or an incurable disease, I haven't decided which. Writing is a craft, but a craft based on this ineffable thing we call "Talent" ... talent can be learned, but is almost impossible to teach, and I don't think we realize when we "learn" talent. ... I think I might have gotten derailed from the topic train somewhere in there. --HT [/QUOTE]
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