“Harvard once considered hiring Nabokov to teach literature; Roman Jakobson, then a professor of linguistics there, is supposed to have asked whether the university was also prepared to hire an elephant to teach zoology.”

No. Just no. That only works if Lolita (the book, not the character) has been hired to teach literature, or God to teach zoology.

Aside from that, I pretty much believe you can teach it to a point. But the thing is, creative writing is not like maths or science. There is no right way to teach it, and there is no right way to develop the craft. Most of all, there is no right answer. All you as the teacher can do is give people various tools and tricks and hints and tips— an abundance of them— to show them their options and help them find their style. All you as the pupil and developer can do is to try each option until you find something that clicks, and once you’ve found that, to keep experimenting with other things as well.

I personally believe that writing is very much a hit-and-miss craft. And a personal one. Yes, there are ways to improve your hit scores, and there are ways that will work for many people. But at the end of the day, it’s up to you. We’re dealing with the very issue of the human brain and personality, here. And everybody is different in those respects. In most others, too.

And I’ve wised up. You as the webmaster are trying to encourage us to think about writing issues instead of going on about whether or not the Phantom of the Opera is hot. That’s why you’re posting all these discussion points, no?

He’s hot, I suppose. But Raoul wins in my book. I refer you to the Misused Words thread if you want to talk about the Phantom.

Interesting point: that was the other discussion point posted by Slushie, too…

EDIT: Excuse me, I meant The Death Of The American Short Story. No matter. Still posted by you-know-who. Still a discussion point.

Yeah. I have an anything goes attitude when it comes to writing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a complete anarchist, but I hate rules in stuff like this. They shouldn’t be there unless they’re handy and apply to everyone. Such as capital letters and semicolon placements.

@Moldorm

It should be taught, in English (Literature) classes.

Heh, I was about to say straight off that I disagree. That just because you enjoy reading books does not mean to say you can write them. But then, would not creative writing add an insight into an English Lit. course that you can’t get from merely analysing books? Hmm. My old English lit. teacher would have been excellent at a creative writing module…

Also, I disagree with the article in that I think people who aren’t published writers can teach creative writing. They just have less credibility. How many people on II are published, after all?

I think the idea is that their creative writing techniques clearly haven’t worked for them on a professional level. I’d be more interested in established authors teaching a few classes.

After a disastrous short story attempt, and a teacher’s nugget of wisdom, I now know that you shouldn’t use the theme of ‘unrequited love’ when you’re trying to talk about a crippled or disfigured person’s isolation from the world.

lolwut. It works as one of the reasons, but not the main reason otherwise it becomes fluffy.

By extension from that one thing, I have figured out when not to use innapropriate symbolism and why the symbolism is inappropriate. I have read books and gone ‘hmm, here’s a way of tackling this issue’, or ‘okay, that sucked bigly and badly’ and asked myself – “why”?

Agreed.

I disagree that creative writing should be taught.

Before you ask, it was chocolate. Definitely chocolate.

How about ‘taught’ in the sense of ‘techniques to help you’?

And can I add something to this:

After a disastrous short story attempt, and a teacher’s nugget of wisdom, I now know that you shouldn’t use the theme of ‘unrequited love’ when you’re trying to talk about a crippled or disfigured person’s isolation from the world. By extension from that one thing, I have figured out when not to use innapropriate symbolism and why the symbolism is inappropriate. I have read books and gone ‘hmm, here’s a way of tackling this issue’, or ‘okay, that sucked bigly and badly’ and asked myself – “why”?

My addition:

And I don’t see any reason why I can’t help somebody else not to make that mistake, using the examples I have garnered in my reading to show why, and providing many and varied reasons about how to fix this. It’s no lesson, otherwise.

Well, that does sound like I’m attacking Jeni now. But I’m just trying to get myself back to topic.

I don’t think you can really teach someone to be creative, or even teach them how to write. But a class in creative writing would be more like a class to encourage creative writing and critique the results, I suppose… not really teaching specific material.

Heh, don’t worry, doesn’t sound like you’re attacking at all. ;) As you say, you can teach the basics and techniques of writing, and the English language, like similie v. metaphor. When is it appropriate to use one or the other? Sure, you can bumble around in the dark on your own, but having a module to get up the first step would be useful.

And as for appropriate teachers, I was just exploring why some would think that creative writers aren’t “qualified” to teach. It would be impossible to be a fulltime creative writing teacher and an author, I think.

@ CB:

Even “techniques to help you” hurt you usually.

When they’re handled incorrectly. Or if you’re only given some of the tricks by a biased writer who thinks that their way is The Only Way.

I still think “unrequited love” could work as a theme.

In some cases, yes. But in my case, no. I’ll tell you why.

Unrequited love as a metaphor for humanity? Well, yes, it does work in a sense when you’re trying to say that everyone’s the same underneath. However, if you’re trying to make this the only theme, it can come off as simply angsty and boring. Not interesting at all. I mean, everyone’s had heartache issues. It’s only one facet of what could be any amount of issues. A few = immaturity, happiness, sleep, wishes, etc. Whereas not everyone has experienced isolation like this. It’s more ‘alien’ (no pun intended) to the reader, and therefore more interesting to read about. More emphasis on the general issue of isolation also helped add to the plot twis—positioned the reader in a general direction so s/he would go, ‘okay, is this kid emo?’ , throw in the multi-purpose facet of unrequited love to confuse things, and then the twist: she’s crippled. It’s like, ‘Oh. Wow. Wasn’t expecting THAT’. So I mentioned unrequited love briefly as a teaser for the last line. And thus it can be seen… that plot structure complicates matters even more. I was also writing within a 500-word framework, which does add another level to it. I could have done that another way, using a different emphasis, approach and ‘facet’, but this was simply the way I did it- second time lucky and I thought, yeah, I can run with this.

Now, if I was writing an article about this, I’d go into depth and detail on this. I’d wax lyrical about how one situation could be improved by using this, and how one would be completely spoiled if U.R. was added to it. But I’m not. (If I was, I’d be a bit less dry and technical about it.) The important thing is, I can tell you why my method worked better for me. That is not to say in any way that the theme of unrequited love won’t work for you. :)

Well, if you think about it, unrequited love can be a strong theme for a cripple.

For example unrequited love can push even more motives. For a cripple it’s not just that unrequited love is painful, it is also a statement about how they see themselves. For example, they might contend that it is only natural for them to not find love, but they might also contend that most of the love they get is based on pity and not the genuine deal. Furthermore they may question their own motives: if love is about caring for a person, and they are crippled, is it not selfish to let anyone love them, since their condition causes people who they are close to feel pain and sadness? They may feel it is only selfish to be close to anyone, because it would hurt the person ultimately, and so they purposely choose to isolate themselves from others so they don’t cause them any real pain. Then the theme gets even more interesting, because suppose someone cares for them, and they lie about how they feel about that person so that person can never get close, they are the ones rejecting love themselves, both that person’s love for them and what they feel themselves.

See how it works?

Well, to be fair, I only have this insight because I am writing a story like this.

Oh, and I wouldn’t say teenagers can’t be taken seriously, because the MC’s story takes place from childhood to adulthood.

I don’t know, for some reason even as I kid I felt like my age group did not suit me. Things I would come to realize by myself often took years before my peers came to the same conception. So from my personal experiences, it is a possibility.

I am a lot like that (though not completely), so I know it’s a possibility. It’s just that the majority of kids aren’t, and if you’re writing for the masses, you need to have somebody most people can relate to, otherwise it drives you up the wall when they’re being so mature.

If you’re not writing for the masses, yeah, go ahead ;). I personally would find it very hard, so I guess… hang on, wait a second. I just generalised AGAIN. (see, I’m not completely qualified to ‘teach’ creative writing yet lol). Let me rephrase this:

You might stand a better chance with a novel, but I still think it’d be likely to crash and burn.

One might stand a better chance with a novel, but I personally think I’d be likely to crash and burn if I attempted it.

At least I knew I was generalising that time. I just didn’t want to admit a weakness :P. Won’t make THAT mistake again.

In any case, I still think it’s possible to be mature in some ways, and not others. And I would say love also takes experience, not just maturity. As a teenager, you haven’t had that much experience, and you can’t look at most of the people (i.e. your peers, i.e. teens) around you except as a guide for what NOT to do. Ergo, no experience.

Plus you need to factor in hormones. Seriously, my head is pretty mature, but my hormones refuse to listen. And there is not a teenager alive who isn’t in the throes of hormonal—you know what? I think I’m going to stop right there :). cannot believe is having this discussion

Don’t worry about the length. 5000 words is nothing. Well, not nothing, obviously; it’s one-tenth of a NaNoWriMo novel!

Why are all my posts so dang long? Oh, yeah, that’s right, cause I insist on providing specifics. I do apologise :)