“Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.”
So writes Louis Menand in his article Show Or Tell, in the June 8 & 15 edition of the New Yorker. His article takes a broad approach to tackling the question: Should creative writing be taught?
Or, CAN creative writing be taught? Everyone has his or her own answer here. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
As some of you know, I’m what might be considered a “product” of an MFA program (makes me feel like I’m a can of green beans). I’ve participated in and even lead workshops to help other beans (er, writers) improve. And I admit, even though I paid an amount of money that shall not be specified here, I am a bit skeptical of workshops and of teaching creative writing.
My interest in getting an MFA was only in part to improve my craft. The rest of it had to do with a) seeking opportunities and meeting awesome people, b) getting a degree so I could teach, c) having a good excuse to concentrate entirely on my work, and write, write, write.
Do I think you can teach writing? Sure. Basic technique? You bet.
Can you teach creativity? Sure, to a certain extent.
But for me, it’s the overlap–the shifting, elusive, unnamed interaction between creativity and writing–that just can’t be pinned down or taught.
Here’s a few more quotes of interest:
“Harvard once considered hiring Nabokov to teach literature; Roman Jackson, then a professor of linguistics there, is supposed to have asked whether the university was also prepared to hire an elephant to teach zoology.”
“What is usually said is that you can’t teach inspiration, but you can teach craft.”
Wallace Stegner says ”a work of art is not a gem, as some schools of criticism would insist, but truly a lens. We look through it for the purified and honestly offered spirit of the artist.”
“Teachers are the books that students read most closely, and this is especially true in the case of teachers who are living models for exactly what the student aspires one day to be-a published writer.”
What do you think? Can creative writing be taught? Leave your thoughts, and win a chance to pick anything you want from my LOVE TO READERS page.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, Lisa.
Hmm. Well, as a writer, I don’t think it can be taught, no. You have it, or you don’t. Now, that’s not saying we don’t need help. Workshops, classes, critique partners, are all useful for our craft. It only makes us better. But to be taught how to be creative. That’s messing with left brain/right brain, man. Nope.
Love ya!
~K
xo
Thanks for the comment, Kelly! I should clarify that I certainly did learn from my MFA classes, but part of what I really loved about it was just being alone with my writing. There’s so much learning in that.
Honestly, I don’t think it can. I think someone who has the potential to be a good writer can hone his/her skills and even improve upon what he/she has. Like for me, I know when I write a good poem and get shivers reading it, I know it’s not something that was taught to me. It’s like a spiritual intervention or having the Muse truly take over. That probably sounds so cliched, but that’s especially true for my poetry. I believe it because I *haven’t* gone to any professional creative writing programs and am published. It’s something I believe I was born with and have improved over the years.
Hi lisa..
Big topic eh? Thanks for taking it on.
I disagree somewhat with Kelly. A craft is not lowered from the sky by art faeries. So I don’t buy the have and have not theory. I’d argue that to produce anything creative, one needs mentorship. A skin master can in fact lead a novice to the appreciation of leather, the tone, the scent, the compliance. Same with the violin. My violin teacher would say, “That’s an F. Do you hear that?” The same with my mentorship with Thomas Kennedy at FDU. But two problems arise. The lack of patience on the part of both mentor and novice. And, our educational systems are arranged in the way potato chips come off the line. If then, these two issues are surmounted, craft can and will bloom. There are of course a few geniuses, but maybe even then, who comes sliding out of the womb onto the NYT best selling list.
Cheers,
Samuel
Samuel Saint Thomas’s last blog post..Danny’s Homo Demon: An Excerpt
i feel that you can try and teach a person how to tap into creative energy but teaching a person to write creatively isn’t creative writing. this is the same with art. to put art in parameters isn’t art, its the teacher’s perspective of art that they are handing down to his or her students. writing is art, absolutely it is, and you cant just flip a switch and create gold. it comes when you’re waiting in line or driving or overhearing a conversation that people are having. what gives people the inspiration differs from person to person. when it hits, some build things or cook or let it go to waste, whatever, but writers write. thats what i think creative writing should be, teaching an awareness that inspiration can come at you from nowhere and how to better hook into that flow.
Wow. You guys all make such great comments–all tackling whatever that mysterious thing is that is inspiration.
@Dove95, I love that you are so strong and confident about what inspiration is. That speaks of real artistry. Your comment reminded me of Emily Dickinson saying “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
@Samuel Saint Thomas. You make a great point about mentorship. I worked with Renee Ashley at FDU–and it changed my whole concept of not only technique but how I saw the world. The good thing about creative writers is that, even if we are green beans (or potato chips) coming off the line, I think we’re at least encourage (superficially or not) not to become a product.
@ vongrimm. You write “teaching an awareness that inspiration.” This really spoke to me. I do agree that a deeper awareness of inspiration can be enouraged. The question is, what to do with it? You’re right the teachers of writing have a tough job. Inspriation is such a fragile thing sometimes. More easily broken by another person than it is lifted up. I think that’s why so many writers keep their WIPs close to the chest, secrets, until they’re done.
Lisa Dale’s last blog post..Can Creative Writing Be Taught?
i feel a question like this is designed to put artists in categories and separate them from their talent. for instance, i went to music school, and i heard the debate plenty of times in regard to famous artists (such as jimi hendrix) who could not read or write music as opposed to we the students spending a ton of money to be taught how to be the next jimi. seems paradoxical, no? but in the school of life, you either have it or you don’t, and it is only you who is responsible for what you have. whether you learn through an accredited institution or you plug away at learning the guitar (or good poem construction) on your own, it is that want to shape your own raw material that is important. besides, you can only go so far with the rules. yes, there is a formula for making music that pleases the ears; and yes, there is a preferred sentence structure that speaks to the reader, but it is how you break the rules and bend them to your whim that makes you a true artist, giving you your own voice. and that cannot be taught. that is what your own brain does organically with the tools you have learned. a teacher that has not been published does not lack any skills, and it is only those skills they can pass along–the rest is up to the individual. teaching is a two-way street.
Agreed, Samuel. That’s why I commented about workshops, classes, and such. Honing the craft and making it better. But you can’t teach someone to think like a writer. Those characters, plots, stories… they are there at all times. Humming, shouting, teasing-Wanting to be heard. You can’t teach that.
Love this topic, Lisa!
You can definitely teach the mechanics of writing; like not using -ly words like definitely; plotting; conflict; dialog; making your characters more vivid, etc. The characters and the story has to come from somewhere though and that is the part that can’t be taught. You either have the ability to create imaginary people in imaginary worlds or you don’t. My husband is a good example. He’s brilliant, but he could never do what I do. Ask your non-writer friends sometime to come up with an imaginary character and see what you get. I did that with my husband and he had to struggle to think of one. When he did, she was very two-dimensional and I think I saw her on some TV show he watches. You either have it or you don’t.
@ Liz I think you’re right about there being a sort of artificiality involved in the question (your suggestion of categories). Teachers are def valuable. I like your “teaching is a two-way street.”
@ Kelly. My pleasure! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!
@ Julie E I have never done that “ask your non-writer friends” to make up a characters. LOL! Wouldn’t I love to see a survery like that done en masse. I bet the results would be fascinating.
Lisa Dale’s last blog post..Can Creative Writing Be Taught?
I think most people over-romanticize the creative arts and artists. I do not believe there is some mysterious quality that creative writers, visual artists, musicians, etc., have that the rest of humanity lacks. I believe creative writing can be taught, but there are certain factors that making learning it through instruction more problematic than, say, learning bookkeeping or welding.
One problem that hangs over the whole discussion is the idea of “greatness”. When we think of the arts, our minds turned toward those who have stood out and made a memorably unique contribution: Shakespeare, Hemmingway, Mozart, Beethoven, Renoir, Picasso.
It’s fair to say that the greatest artists do have something mysterious about them, but I think it is more the mystery of alchemy – a special blend of the commonplace ingredients of life experiences, emotional disposition, technical skill, etc. One can debate endlessly about what is required to be considered part of this rarefied company, but I think that misses the point. I’d limit the scope of the question to something more pragmatic: Can a person who does not know how to write a story that typical readers would enjoy learn enough through study to do so?
I’d say the answer is almost always “yes”, given that the person also has a strong desire to write and to learn and improve. Everything comes in degrees, even inspiration. Sure, that first character concept may seem a lot like someone from a TV show, but you can *learn* ways to make your characters incrementally more interesting, if you recognize that as a goal.
The shortcomings of teaching writing through workshops, classes, etc., as I see it, is that these activities tend to be pretty left-brained: they teach you to analyze your own writing, identify problems, and give suggestions on improvement. A problem with this is that it tends to appeal to those who need it the least. If the idea of critiquing fiction appeals to you, you’ve probably already learned a lot about how to do it. The more spontaneous writers, who could really benefit from looking at their work through a left-brain lens, are unlikely to show up.
Conversely, writers who get into left-brain study of their craft may lose their connection with passion, intuition, and vision, and end up writing fiction as though they were assembling furniture.
So can right-brain stuff not be taught? It can be, but the methods are less obvious: you can do exercises to stretch your perceptions, liberate your intuition, and probe your inner emotional drives. (Bradbury’s _Zen in the Art of Writing_ has some inspirational thoughts in this area.)
I think anyone with desire, determination, and a minimal basic aptitude with language can learn creative writing. But “learning” needs to be taken a little more broadly than attending a workshop of college class–the learning experiences need to be chosen to fit the needs of the aspiring writer, and they can come from unfamiliar places.
I believe that one has to have a great desire to write, has to have some ability already to make up stories and has to just know what it is all about. You can learn more about the craft of writing but deep within must lie some knowledge already. You must have a sense of what it is about and what it takes and even a bit of a way with words. Anything above and beyond this can come with classes, trying over and over to write what it is you want to say or get across.
I absolutely BELIEVE people can be taught writing and completely agree with Tom when he said people can over-romanticize the process. I admit to not taking seriously the people you meet who say “Oh, yes, I want to write a book one day” but for every one of those you meet, there’s probably someone there who really DOES want to write a book and has the imagination but not necessarily the understanding of where/how/what to start. And for every one of those, there’s someone who’s started and who has a great story hidden beneath a mass of words.
And then there are those, like dove95, who have improved themselves–isn’t that another form of learning?
I also don’t feel it’s as simple as “you either have it or you don’t.” For me, it’s more like “you either have the DESIRE or you don’t.” Some people just aren’t interested in creating characters, their passion lies elsewhere. And then there are those who really want to and can’t–at first. They learn from others. They teach themselves. They just keep going until they either get it right. And sometimes, they don’t get it right.
I recently read Donald Maass’s The Fire In Fiction, in which he said:
“It disappoints me when authors perpetuate the myth that writing is magic. Some allow it to be so. It’s a shame that those writers fail to understand their own process. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong is simply that magic is unpredictable. A method that’s mysterious cannot be repeated.
“I believe that passion is available to every author, every time she sits down to write. Every novel can be inspired. Every scene can have a white-hot center. It is not a matter of conjuring demons, being obsessed or just plain luck. The passion that inspires great fiction can be a writing technique as handy and easy to use as those with which all fiction writers are familiar. Passion can be a practical tool.”
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@ Tom. I love this: “I’d limit the scope of the question to something more pragmatic: Can a person who does not know how to write a story that typical readers would enjoy learn enough through study to do so?” You’ve really got to the core of the issue there.
@ RobynL Right! Desire plays such a huge part in the equation. Really, it’s starts there.
@ Gabrielle. You make great points! I’ve always sorta thought that maybe that romanticizing thing comes from some deep cultural need for writers to be mysterious. And I LOVE Donald Maass. I haven’t read Fire in Fiction but I swear by Writing the Breakout Novel.
No….Creative writing can not be taught. Either you have it or you don’t. Creative writing comes from life’s experiences and the way that one can express it through one’s writing. Creative writing is about pain, love, struggles, happiness, sadness and all other experiences. So how can one teach others that? It has to come from the soul!
Lisa-
Great question and great discussion! Thanks for starting this!