I was wondering: if everyone writes according to the same 'good principles' taught in creative writing courses/degrees, is this a good thing or will it result in an impoverished 1984-type newspeak? And, if we all write on themes aimed at a popular market niche, will we all end up writing novels about twenty-somethings living in North London and coming to terms with their sexuality? Discuss.

smudger

Jesus, I hope not.

Elbow

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I suppose a good creative writing tutor wouldn't be trying to instil orthodoxies, but would want to help the student develop as a writer - encouraging differentness rather than sameness.

Smudger, I hope we won't either.

Frances, you're right that

a good creative writing tutor wouldn't be trying to instil orthodoxies,

But alas, infant writers want certainties, and teachers like offering them. Certainties/orthodoxies about subject/theme/genre are the most reductive and therefore most tempting of all.

I think courses should concentrate on the toolkit (which can look like orthodoxy, but only in the way that a hammer is a certain shape because physics determines that that's what does the job) and on confidence based on real learning and achievement (as opposed to lots of undiscriminating praise). It's from a basis of confidence in her/his tools that a writer feels free to take on whatever subject really excites them. And that's when you get good writing.

Emma

Because we are all individuals and each have our own writing style, one supposes that even if two people were to write about the same topic, the finished articles would be different because of the writers style.

I think that it must be a bit like learning to drive, you are taught how to drive properly, then once you have passed your test, you go on to drive your own way.

We all need to know the basics of writing, what to avoid, how to lay things out etc. but the actual style and way the words are put together, is down to each person, and that cannot be taught, it is what comes from within.

I disagree with the principle of taking higher education to learn how to write. I always thought style was supposed to be developed, rather than dictated. Besides, which of the novels you read recently strictly adhered to the rules that were dictated to you in the classroom?

When it comes to creative writing, I'm talking about postgraduate education, not just higher education. No Masters' or Doctorate course worth its salt dictates anything, or indeed goes on in a classroom; workshops should be the principle medium, and the job is sharpening your own tools, and finding confidence in your own voice, not writing to order.

It's a very new academic subject, but, paradoxically, at their best, I think Masters' courses look back to the days when universities were about real education, and not job-training.

Emma

I can't see how writers being given the tools to write better can really produce any more mainstream, unimaginative pap than is already sitting on bookshelves at the moment.

I also think it's a little absurd that people still can't get their head around the fact that writing is about craft as well as art.

Formal training for writers should really have been around for a lot longer. After all, no-one seems to worry that composers study composition. Similarly artists go to art college, actors and theatre directors study their craft, film makers study film, architects and designers study too (even chefs have to learn how to slice and chop!!)

They do it in order to have a grounding in the basics.What you actually create as a result of getting those basics in place, well, that's up to your imagination.

Admittedly it took me a while to come around to this point of view. I believed for a long time that writers just sat down and did it. But when I decided I wanted to make writing fiction one of the main elements of my life, I soon realised I needed to learn more.

But going to college and studying on a course is not the only way to learn. I've been a journalist for over a decade and trained as a classical musician to professional level. Both of these have equipped me with a lot of lessons - not least that actually doing something (writing, playing, composing, designing), making mistakes and then understanding or having someone point out those mistakes, is the best way to learn.

Sibelius, you make some very good points and I agree with a lot of them. It's hard to compare the practice of one art with another and any comparisons can only go so far. But I would compare writing to singing more than instrumental music. Voice training can improve a singing voice but it cannot give someone a beautiful voice if they don't have one to start with. I think the same is true of writing. I have a feeling that formal education may fine-tune or hone an existing talent but I think that any step-change improvement in a writer's skill comes from inside. I am wondering if I could stretch the analogy further and say that the value of formal training might be linked to the type of writing just as in singing. It may be imperative for opera, classical but could be detrimental to rap, say, where rebellion, not conformity, is the basis tenet. Just a notion but I may be going too far.

Ashlinn

Sibelius, you are so right. (Love the music, too). Most of the instant-reject 99% of a publisher's slush pile are written by people who think all you have to do is sit down and write it.

Of course postgrad degrees aren't the only way to learn your trade, but no writer worth reading hasn't undergone an apprenticeship of some sort.

Emma

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Ashlinn, I agree that there are important parallels between arts, and the need to practice and develop all the time is one of them. One of my sisters is a professional classical singer, and we have more in common than you'd think, given that she's performing and I'm originating. The other sister is a composer in her spare time (she's a Maths lecturer the rest of the time) and with her I find I discuss the instinctive, intuitive sense you work with and try to train. And I have a drama degree, and know that acting a character and writing it have more in common than you'd think too.

Emma

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I'm not sure that rap or similar doesn't need training. One of the odd things about arts which have their origin in rebellion is that they have to appear to be spontaneous and un-restricted. But if you ever hear those musicians that stay the course, they're much more conscious of their craft and development than they'd appear to be. Plus of course, articulacy isn't a pre-condition, so they may not talk well about what they do - doesn't mean they're not doing it.

Ashlinn, I understand what you mean about the voice, although I'd have to stand up for instrumentalists, being one myself!

Does formal training only suit certain types of artistic style, be it writing or musical?

Well, for me at least, the answer is no. But maybe that's because I think of training very much in terms of gaining basic technique. For example a jazz musician can only extemporise, can only use the full range and force of their creativity after they have mastered their instrument (including the voice).

Of course formal training can go too far. There's plenty of classical musicians out there that are so stiff you'd think rigor mortis had set in. And literary creativity can't be judged by a tick box list beginning with good grammar and ending with 'Did the book have enough show not tell moments?'.

I think the bottom line is you won't become a good musician (voice or instrument) unless you have some inate musicality. Just as you can't become a good writer without an inate ability to use language to translate imagination (sorry, clunky phrase!).

Emma, I agree with your second par, although the length of that apprenticeship and what elements you need to take from it varies from writer to writer.

PS: I actually think rap music is all about conformity, but that's a different debate...

PS: I actually think rap music is all about conformity, but that's a different debate...

ooh Sibelius, what a fascinating remark, need it be a different debate? I'd love you to say more.

Elbow

A few god points being raised here. Although I think people were writing entertaining stories long before there was a formalised process to teach them how to do so, as well with art and music.

Indeed, I look at 'college art' these days, and any one piece is practically indiscernible from any other. A barrage of homogenous garbage with artistic messages lost in the translation from the artists eye to that of the layman viewing it. I also could never agree that modern music is any the better for people being taught it the way they are today. This could be more down to taste, though?

I'm not even going to get started on rap. That really does need a debate of it's own!

Sadly I feel really out of my depth here. Looking through the different threads on the forums, makes me feel a bit 'lost'.

Most of you either have degrees, or are journalists, professional musicians and artists, making me feel a bit inadequate for this site.

I am just your average woman from a working class background, no degree or anything, and I dont read the same sort of reading matter that you all seem to either.

Due to this, unfortunately, I dont feel that I am going to be able to contribute much to this site. Who is going to want to listen to the opinion of someone like me, when they could read the comments of journalist or somebody who has a post-grad degree!

I genuinely feel quite inadequate and out of my depth.

Kat

Don't feel that way. I've never taken any kind of writing course (yet still somehow feel qualified to criticise them...), don't write professionally, have no degrees or anything, and work for a pittance.

My opinion shouldn't be any less valid because my writing style isn't polished and refined to sombody else's standard.

Kat, please don't feel like that. I for one have been very interested in your contributions and I do hope you go on making them! Looking back over it I can honestly say that this thread isn't very typical (in some ways no thread is typical, though there are some hardy perennials which come up again in different forms), any more than there's a 'typical' WW member. The only thing the threads have in common is that they are by people who take writing seriously - even if the thread itself isn't.

One of the strengths of online writing forums is that they can bring together people who might not otherwise bump into one another; that's not only fun, but good for everyone's writing. So please do go on contributing, and posting work, and know that we want you here and value your presence.

Emma