Writing classes?

Inkdaub,

I haven't, although I expect I should. My excuse...er, I mean my reason is one of schedule (not enough hours in the day). I applaud your efforts though. Assuming the instructor is competent, it sure can't hurt.

I took several while in college. Creative writing was my main focus until I dropped out.

I think, at the time, it helped my output. Probably helped my focus since in some of the classes everyone was expected to write on similar assignments. It was interesting how many different ways writers could approach the same subject.

The fiction workshops I took I thought were less helpful. You wrote your own stories and submitted them to the class for each student to critique. It taught me one thing: if you have 30 people reading the same story you get 30 different reactions to it and 30 different suggestions on how to fix things.

I took one a few years ago. I don't think I learned a whole lot about writing, but I found the process inspiring. And I met the people who would later form my writing critique group. It's nice just to be with people who care about writing as much as you do.

Have fun!

I took 2 in college. The deadlines were helpful in generating output, but critiques from students were only as good as they were. You get different types, some who actually enjoy writing.

Many wrote "literary" fiction, which is fine, but I felt their critiques were condescending to the handful of "genre" writers in the class.

There were also the "artistic" writers who felt their art could not be appreciated, nor should it be bound by conventions like grammar, punctuation, or comprehensibility.

Then there were people who took the class because it was very little work for a decent grade. Show up, critique a handful of stories per week, turn in the required 30 pages by the end of semester. Some could turn out interesting stories, but there are others that are borderline illiterate.

There were other people who actually took everything seriously. They were rare, but they are out there.

MattW said:

I took 2 in college. The deadlines were helpful in generating output, but critiques from students were only as good as they were. You get different types, some who actually enjoy writing.

Many wrote "literary" fiction, which is fine, but I felt their critiques were condescending to the handful of "genre" writers in the class.

There were also the "artistic" writers who felt their art could not be appreciated, nor should it be bound by conventions like grammar, punctuation, or comprehensibility.

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Matt,

I'm going to ask a really stupid question, but I've heard the terms "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction being bandied about, but I must confess I'm not sure exactly what they mean. (Goes to show I really do need a class...). The "artistic" writer you mention appears pretty self-explanatory from your post, but can you help with the other two, please? Thanks.

I've never taken a creative writing class myself. I've participated in a couple workshops...but no classes per se. I'm sure it couldn't hurt?

MattW said:

Many wrote "literary" fiction, which is fine, but I felt their critiques were condescending to the handful of "genre" writers in the class.

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Not just the students, some of the teachers had that attitude toward me, the lowly genre writer. You could almost hear the sneer in their voices as they discussed my "fantasy" or "space opera."

One professor had actually written a thriller so I didn't get that so much from him, but the others, they treated my manuscripts like I'd thrown a huge pile of offal on the table.

At least they were professional enough to grade them fairly even if they held disdain for "genre" fiction.

BruceJ said:

Matt,

I'm going to ask a really stupid question, but I've heard the terms "literaray" fiction and "genre" fiction being bandied about, but I must confess I'm not sure exactly what they mean. (Goes to show I really do need a class...). The "artistic" writer you mention appears pretty self-explanatory from your post, but can you help with the other two, please? Thanks.

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For me it's hard to describe. That's all the disclaimer I'm going to give, be warned.

Genre is anything that can be put into one of shelves used by more bookstores to break up the big category of fiction - romance, western, SF, fantasy. In opposition to that would be mainstream fiction.

"Literary" is a different informal subcategory - it is fiction that focuses on difficult topics, strong prose, or emotionally detailed characters. It has a strange appeal to people who read only to brag about how eclectic their tastes are, and the fiction often takes some undue criticism for smug self-importance or condescending attitudes of the readers towards other works on other shelves.

That's my interpretation, but it still doesn't make sense. It's more like porn - I'll know it when I see it.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Not just the students, some of the teachers had that attitude toward me, the lowly genre writer. You could almost hear the sneer in their voices as they discussed my "fantasy" or "space opera."

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One woman in my college class was writing a fantasy novel. Our prof was saying that people who read "this kind of thing" just "want a fix," and don't care about quality, or some crap. I don't read or write fantasy, but that pissed me off. I was like, yeah, dude, Lord Of The Rings much?

Then recently, I took a class in how to write a novel from a mystery writer. I absolutely loved it.

I took two creative writing classes in college. Both were disappointments. The first prof tried to explain to me how everything I wrote was about God. It wasn't.

The second prof tried to explain the dangers of screenwriting by telling us how he wrote this great screenplay that was stolen and made the theif a ton of money. It was about this little alien that gets left behind and befriends a human boy. Small colorful candies were involved. Yeah, right.

These were not good experiences.

Most MFA programs and college writing classes are put together by literary writers for the purpose of promtoting and generating literary work. I think genre writers are probably better off to find a good critique group or workshop that is geared specifically towards their genre.

I have found writing classes (and workshops, for that matter) to be both enlightening and frustrating. A novel, especially, is a tough thing to evaluate fairly in a writing class. Most of the writing classes I've taken were designed on the model of the short fiction workshop, which means if you bring an excerpt from a novel-in-progress to the table, it has to be pretty much a stand-alone piece. Somehow, even though readers are aware that the work is a novel-in-progress, they'll still expect your one small excerpt to have the complete arc of a short story, and are often prepared to blast your excerpt if it doesn't deliver. Unless you happen to have an episodic novel in which almost every chapter is a self-contained piece, this is often hard to do. Novels, especially larger ones, take time to develop. Writing class students are looking to find the development immediately, often expecting the full range of conflict, epiphany and climax within the first chapter. This isn't entirely their fault; it's what they've been taught by their professors and fellow students to look for.

The problem with most writing classes is that by their very nature, students are taught (or at least somehow seem to have gotten the idea) that it's all about jumping on the negative. College writing classes, especially, often degenerate into an ego-driven experience, with a lot of petty jealousies, nitpicking and clique-forming. Students often feel they are failing the instructor or that they will somehow look stupid if they aren't able to offer meaningful critique, which is often misconstrued as simply being able to identify everything that's wrong. Thus, they'll often go out of their way to look for the negative. It's all about getting the "A" for the class and impressing the instructor-not about helping the individual become a better writer.

I took one creative writing class in college. On the first day we were all told to bring a dictionary to the next class. I bought one of those little editions that would easily fit in my back pack. The next class the prof walked by my desk, stopped short and looked down with disgust at what sat on my desk. He reached out, picked it up with two fingers as though he didn't want to get anything on him and said, "WHAT...is this?" "My dictionary," I mumbled as I looked around the rest of the class and saw that they had all brought in huge (complete) editions. The prof dropped mine back down on my desk and said, "THAT is not a dictionary. Get it out of my classroom." >GULP< I went and set it in the hall, came back in and took my seat...mortified.

"When I find a word I don't know ... I'll tell you."

ponygal said:

I took one creative writing class in college. On the first day we were all told to bring a dictionary to the next class. I bought one of those little editions that would easily fit in my back pack. The next class the prof walked by my desk, stopped short and looked down with disgust at what sat on my desk. He reached out, picked it up with two fingers as though he didn't want to get anything on him and said, "WHAT...is this?" "My dictionary," I mumbled as I looked around the rest of the class and saw that they had all brought in huge (complete) editions. The prof dropped mine back down on my desk and said, "THAT is not a dictionary. Get it out of my classroom." >GULP< I went and set it in the hall, came back in and took my seat...mortified.

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Do the exact same thing when he passes out the teaching evaluations for the class. Finish it off by saying this puny little sheet doesn't have enough space for all the things I want to say.

All students should realize that they are the consumers in this situation. If you are not happy about the product, you have a right to complain. Go to the department chair and do so. There is no reason for a prof to humiliate a student in front of the rest of the class. Such arrogant profs are sometimes compensating for a size problem (with their record of academic accomplishments, I mean).

Seriously, the guy is an idiot.

Has he personally published anything, anywhere? If not, or if only in "little and literary" or university-based publications, you have my permission to laugh at him.

This was back in the 70's. I survived it all with good humor.

I've gone through a stack of method/style/editing/etc. books (John Gardner, etc.) on the different aspects of writing novels rather than attended a class. That way you can laugh at your 'instructor' and criticize all those silly rules you failed to follow and still get away with a good grade.

I'm taking some writing classes at the moment and the quality varies with the person teaching and the people taking it. If you've got a class with an enthusiastic, open-minded teacher and classmates actually willing to do some writing and read what others have done, then you get quite a bit out of it. If everyone's just going to sit there like slack-jawed sheep whilst only a couple do the work, then it's pretty painful.

I've also been in classes where the whole literary -v- genre smackdown thing happens and it's pretty painful. I mainly write in the fantasy, SF and crime genres and had some horrific exchanges with a guy who wrote (his words) "high brow, high concept literary endeavours". The fact that they were such high brow, high concept literary endeavours that they hadn't gotten him either an agent or publisher in 15 years of trying should have given him all the feedback he needed.

Regardless of whether you're in a 'good' or 'bad' class, it does motivate you to produce your own work. Each term sees me do at least two short stories (up to 5000 words) and another chapter of the WIP (or 2 chapters of the WIP and one short story), and the feedback does help me work out what needs refining and what needs binning and builds my self-confidence at the same time.

MM

Funny this thread should come about like it did. I attended two community college programs and ASU's creative writing years ago. I had good experiences with all of them and gathered a lot of knowledge about writing fiction. Since I'm going to stay in Arizona for at least six months, I was thinking of going back to ASU for another class or two this upcoming semester. My favorite professor is now the Dean of Creative Writing. I would love to say hello again and catch up.

I like writing classes because they help me focus on the mechanics of story telling. But I'm not sure fellow students always offer the best critiques when they are first starting out. I would rather have individual one-on-one sessions with the professor to help me write a better story -- although that's rarely possible since they have so many students to consider.

Take a class. If anything, you'll get out of the house for a few hours each week and meet fellow writers.

Writing classes I've taken:

short fiction
poetry
screenwriting
playwriting
personal mythmaking
journalism

My senior project was also long fiction.

I think the classes helped me immensely. The screen/playwriting classes helped my dialogue, the poetry helped my imagery, symbolism, and vocabulary (*smile*), and journalism helped me to be less rambling. The classes also helped me realize that novel writing is really my medium.

I'm glad I took them!!

I'm taking a writing class at my high school. It's very boring. We spend much time reading out of the book about how to write sentences and paragraphs. It was a very misleading class summary too; we expected it to be creative writing and we've been having to do tons of essays. Plus, the teacher feels it neccescary to drill five paragraph format and "Cite your sources!" into our heads.

I never had a creative writing/writing class. The only class I actually did writing really was my tv class and I was one of the main screen writers last year for other people's ideas.

Provrb1810meggy said:

I'm taking a writing class at my high school. It's very boring. We spend much time reading out of the book about how to write sentences and paragraphs. It was a very misleading class summary too; we expected it to be creative writing and we've been having to do tons of essays. Plus, the teacher feels it neccescary to drill five paragraph format and "Cite your sources!" into our heads.

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In high school (and most college undergraduate programs as well), a writing class is generally understood to be a composition class unless specifically labeled as a "Creative" writing course. It sounds as if you have enrolled in a composition course, which is, as you describe, a course intended to introduce students to the fundamentals of essay writing. If that's the case, lighten up on your teacher; it's not his or her fault. Your school or advisor should do a better job of making the distinction so that students aren't misled.