Drawing on a couple of points that have arisen in Harry’s thread on the best line ever, I would like to ask if you think that good writers are born, or can they be made. Also, as Andrea/Anj asks, who makes the current set of "rules" for what is meant to be good writing?

I've never taken a creative writing course (although I'm going on Robert Mckee's Story seminar next month), but I think there's a huge a parallel to be drawn between them and academic business courses, particularly in that the quality of both the participants and the teachers varies enormously, and the number of courses has exploded in recent years. I find it hard to believe that a creative writing class run by my local LEA has the same value as a an MA at UEA or Columbia, just as I wouldn’t value an MBA programme at almost anywhere you care to name as much as one from Harvard Business School. And I wonder if some of these courses might be doing more harm than good.

I have an investment banking background and did on-the-job training in finance, which I think is something that can definitely taught to most people, in the same way that English grammar can be taught (I also have a degree in Modern Languages, and hence formal training in literary analysis). However, I have never been convinced that most courses in entrepreneurship, which I see as akin to creative writing, have any great value. For a start, most of the people teaching them have never started or run a successful business, and for a pupil to succeed as an entrepreneur, I believe they need an innate type of character and temperament that simply can't be taught.

So, just as I believe that an aspiring writer with an intrinsic love for and sensitivity to language could undoubtedly learn things from being taught by a successful writer like Andrew Motion or Ian McEwan, or from editors and agents who have worked with good writers, someone who has the writing equivalent of tone deafness (word blindness?) being taught by someone who imposes on them a rigid set of rules, that just happen to be currently in fashion, seems to me to be unlikely to lead to success.

What do you think?

Adele.

PS If you think I deserve another kicking, then bring it on!

Mornin' Adele –

You have a point, but in my experience, you get out of these things what you put in. I trust in any expert’s opinion and advice, then put it into action and if it works, then go with it. I’ve done that in all the things I can do well, so that experience guides me. I don’t think all courses are made by charlatans, and taken by cretins just as I don’t think taking a course will make you better. You just have to accept guidance and take what you can to create an original voice. That’s why I personally think any creative writing course could have a value, if you’re (a collective you of course) willing to take what you can and use your head to put it into practice. Let’s face it, you can tell if someone’s bullshitting you, if you have enough experience of trusting in people and putting their guidance into practice. Like I said with Raindance, they charge a fair wad of cash, but put the money firmly in their gob, and you come out buzzing with ideas and excitement, about how you’re gonna write this script and that low budget film. But then, in my time in bands and stuff you meet some real stinkers as far as BS goes. It can either get you down, or can dust yourself down and just stick a finger up to them and try and find the next guy (or girl natch) who may be the real deal.

I think the main point you make is spot on. At the end of the day (nice footballer speak), in a course of 100 entrepeneurs, maybe 3 or 4 are gonna be millionaires, and 1 may, at a long shot, be the next Richard Gates, or even Bill Branson. Same with writers, filmmakers, butchers bakers and, definitely I think you’ll agree, with candlestick makers. It’s 2% guidance, 3% talent and 95% getting it out there and doing it I s’pose. Just go to Ottakers (not Smiths, Ottakers. I’m dead posh me) and check the hundreds of average to middling shite on the shelves. And don’t get me started on music!

Anyway, anyone tries to give you a kicking, I’ll be there with a gang of random zombies before you can say “three act structure”…

Luv n’ over-priced coursework



Dav

Dav, many thanks for your thoughtful reply. I agree that there will be a correlation between the effort you put in and your results (at least I hope so as I'm currently slogging through hours and hours of employment tribunal notes in the hope of becoming sufficiently well-informed to write dramatic fiction on this subject).

Perhaps I'm being too hard-bitten and cynical, but I find it hard to trust anyone without first knowing their credentials. However, there is nothing I like more than being taught by someone I really respect, and I'm lucky enough to be getting a bit of that now from my agent.

Back to the grindstone.

Luv 'n' witness statements,

Adele.

Hard bitten and cynical? I can't believe that for a minute!


Dav
xxx

On the subject of "Who makes the current set of rules?"

I'm new to writing anything more than a shopping list (and my wife writes them...), so I may be talking shite here... But isn't it a bit crap that there is a 'current' set of rules...A 'trend' that publishers insist is followed. It just reminds me of Simon Cowell, with his rules about what makes a pop star.

I think it'd be nice to see old styles being used...or brand new ones.

I'll get me coat.

<Added>

Insert question mark after question. Doh!

Hi Derek, thanks for your reply. I totally agree with you. Even Mr High-Waisted-Kegs admits that there's no magic formula for success. As Sharon/Eyeball said elsewhere on the forum, what works works, what doesn't doesn't.

Btw, would it be incredibly shallow to add that since Cowell's latest proteges, Il Divo, are all very good-looking classically- and credibly-trained musicians, they could come and croon outside my window any time?

Time for a tea break,

Adele.

I've never heard 'em. I've seen 'em... But being a proper butch bloke n all, they do nowt for me.

Anyway, I'm glad you agreed. I notice that Dav is keeping quiet. Maybe because he's just remembered he still owes me a critique.

Derek.

Derek,

http://www.thisislondon.com/showbiz/articles/12774147?source=PA

I think Dav may have gone to practise his scales...

Adele.

<Added>

Soz Derek, I misread what you wrote. I mistakenly thought you said you'd never heard of them - or perhaps it was just my subconscious telling me that I should sit and gaze at their piccie for a while - any excuse ;)

And while Dav practices his scales, IL Divo are practicing wearing their bowties undone without them falling off...

Okay okay Derek you got me, but that critique will be up tomorrow I promise. The weekend was, er...a little heavier than I expected, and work today has been busier than expected and my excuses are probably weaker than you expected. But I've printed it out and will take home and read over a nice cuppa cha this evening!

I think that the rules are there not because some cowell-esque litrary guru says so, but coz the reader is more attuned to modern sensibilities. Like I said on another thread, if I attempted to rewrite "Ulysses" by Joyce, it would be in danger of coming across as over written, wordy shite to be frank. His genius lies in his time and that's why he's recognised. Adverbs, overwriting, showing and not telling...all this stuff is not there to block people but to help them. If you write sommik that is so unbelievably great it defies all proposed rules then all the better, and all power to you. But experts like Sol Stein don't put these rules down just to piss everyone off, they are talking from 50 years experience from both sides of the game. Really, we should listen to them if we want to be better writers. Publishers aren't "insisting" on anything, they just won't publish you. I don't think its a trend, just a fact.

But then, what do I know? There are trends, like chit-lit or britpop in music, but that's marketing innit? Not really the same thing as making a story read better, which is totally down to the author.

There you go, there's me bent ten bob notes worth.

And Adele, lusting after pampered pop starlets? Shirly not? Where's the girl who went to see the FYC at Brixton?

And I know you're not cynical and hard bitten, in case you thought that was a bit harsh. Those kind of jokes don't always work online do they?

Luv n' hard biting rules


Dav
xxxx



<Added>

Oh soz mate, didn't realise they were a classy act, like. ;)

Anyway, I'm off b4 I get severly bollocked for using the fax line for internet.

Right...la, la, la, la, la, la, lala...this one is for you Adele:

Doh a deer, a female deer, ray a golden drop of sun...

(join in at will)

me, a name...etc

Hi Adele,

I don't think good writers can be made, but good writers can learn how to get better.

You need in anything - writing, acting, investment banking - a natural dispositon towards that craft or profession. Those people that are born with that have a chance of success in their particular field, and those that don't, don't. There is no teacher or course that could, in this or five lifetimes, teach me to play rugby as well as Johnny Wilkinson; but there are many people who, with the right teacher, could learn.

Most courses in creative writing - or anything really - sell themselves through giving a list of illustrious allumni. Those people were selected because the University/College recognised that they could be a success and that success would ultimately reflect well on the institution - they only select the most promising at Harvard business school, they don't turn High School drop-outs into CEOs. In the same manner then, it doesn't mean that the course at the LEA is any worse than the one at UAE, just that the LEA will have an open door policy that will ultimately reduce the number of authors whose reflected glory they can bask in.

Harry

Hi Harry, thanks for your reply. I agree that we can all improve at whatever it is we do. I'm afraid, though, that I side with George Steiner in his thought that some things are simply better than others, whether that's teachers or manufactured opera eye-candy. I'm off to watch the Donald Trump wannabes on The Apprentice - man, they are scary, especially the women!

Adele.

<Added>

Btw, Dav, remember it has to be Edelweiss and you have to wear those nice leather boots ;)

Good morning, did anyone hear Andrew Motion and William Boyd just now on the Today Programme discussing whether creative writing courses are sausage machines churning out cloned novelists? It was interesting to hear that Motion's defence of these courses ended with him saying that they give writers a sense of community and support - precisely what WW does, for a fraction of the cost of an MA course. Sensibly, no one attempted to argue that one can be taught to be a good novelist.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen for now,

Adele.

An interesting discussion this. It's just a shame Mr.Cowell had to come into it. Honestly, in all the 'talent' seeking that's gone on over the past two or so years, it's really funny how they haven't actually found any.

I'm a great believer in 'star quality'. Rules and structure and grammar can be taught, yes, but imagination cannot. This is only my opinion, and therefore, obviously, the right one.

Adele I agree about the WW thing. And I think you're cynicism is well founded. There are too many 'have a go' heros around lately, egged on by those paragons of literary wonder, Richard and Judy and the like. Face it, some people may learn ALL the rules, have all the right ingredients, and still manage to cook up a burnt bun of a book.

The secret? It's magic. I think you're born with it.

JB

Hi JB, thanks for your comments. You've caught me in Kaffee und Kuchen mode (with Choco Leibnitz biscuits, not burnt buns, thankfully).

I agree that talent is a mysterious and almost certainly innate, unteachable, thing. But as Harry says above, it can certainly be honed.

Back to the baking theme, though (in a who ate all the pies? sense), whatever happened to last year's bizarre choice of Pop Idol, Michelle? I still don't know what Cowell was thinking of with that one, other than wanting to carry out some kind of sick experiment in manipulation and control.

Adele.




<Added>

Nice demonstration of my own lack of literary talent in para 2 with two certainlys...

<Added>

Und Gott im Himmel, there's no 't' in Leibniz!