Of late, I have been watching university-level lectures of creative writing instruction, remembering my own first experiences with this when I was in my 20s. I have not had high expectations as I've gone along... from the beginning of my education, I've always felt a disconnect in how creativity of any kind is taught. The approach always seems to be that of providing a recipe: so much of this, so many of that, obtain the very best quality, mix it together well and bake at the necessary temperature.
With writing, this tends to be an approach that supposes that a book or a story are made up of excellent characters, a solid plot and a vivid setting — and that if you wish to write something, you should work upon giving each of these as much verve as possible, to evoke a visceral, immersive reaction. If your characters are "good," then the reader is more likely to enjoy the story you're writing, perhaps because they identify with the character, because he or she seems authentic... or because the character is just so darned interesting and unique. The same can then be applied to the plot and the setting, to produce a satisfying mix of all three.
This is often described as focusing upon writing as a craft... as though a book or a narrative were a structured chair, in which we build the legs, the seat, the back support and so on as separate entities that are ultimately joined together to provide a satisfying, comfortable whole.
Now, I don't believe that this is how a chair is made — rather, the crafting of the chair demands that it be conceived as a cohesive whole, with each part shaped in relation to the others, so that a single beautiful stress-bearing artifact is the result. If we try to build a chair as a set of independent pieces, what we will have is a modern, industrialised apparatus that will support our weight for a couple of years, until it becomes wobbly. or the cushioning gives out. Such a chair is never comfortable. It is utilitarian... but it is not the chair we buy when we want something that's crafted to last the rest of our life.
We can write a book in this same industrialised sense; we can sawmill the components and assemble the pieces according to the instructions... and the book may hold our attention the first time that it's read. But as we age, and read other things, and become grow more familiar with all the emotional states of a long-lived life, we will pick that book up again ten years from now and wonder why we ever considered it to be worth our time.
In our youth, our teens and twenties, we have experienced so little. Some may have been raised in a household of pain, while others were closely acquainted with elders, parents or siblings that were harried by various illnesses, conditions or emotional troubles that gave us insight into a world that is less than savoury. I was moderately struck as a boy, lightly more than most, and tormented by my schoolmates, considerably more than most. Outside my immediate family, I experienced the ravages of alcoholism upon my grandfather, my uncle and others. I had an accident that left me bedridden for three months. I felt love too keenly and once, nearly committed suicide. These all came before I reached the age of 22; but by the age of 30, I did not consider my understanding of life at that age to be well developed. In fact, at every age, I have looked on my past and wondered how I could be so stupid, so easily misled, to ridiculously gormless, compared to now. It all felt so intensely reflective and aware at the time, yet so shallow and misguided when later viewed through an older lens.
Of course, when I was a young fool, I adored many books that I cannot imagine cracking the spine of today. These books made millions for their authors; they appeared on best seller's lists, they were all the rage in the 1960s and 70s... yet today many are bland and forgotten, the author's names lost to all who are not old enough to remember when they were so important. For some, the names are remembered... but how few are those I meet who have actually read the book, who know it well enough that I can make a reference to a plot point and they can answer at once, "Oh yes, that's the point upon which the whole book turns." More often than not the answer is, though I am told they have read the book, "Hm. I don't remember that part."
It is here that we can draw a distinction between books that are enjoyed in the moment and those that remain in our consciousness. The students in these creative writing courses, when they raise their hands to ask questions, are obsessed with success; each imagines the day when they shall turn out a book that produces a trend, that captures the present social mood, that demands the shared curiousity of ten million or more readers... but when they propose ideas of what this book would be, they merely repeat those ideas with which we are all too familiar. Where is the recipe, they demand, that will enable them to produce a new Batman, Firefly, Star Wars, Game of Thrones and so on, as though the culture we live in can never tire of these narratives being repeated forever henceforth.
This view of creativity isn't "contemporary." It has established itself in every age since the beginning of prose. Every popular book spawns ten thousand cooks with the recipe in their hands, so that editors find themselves awash in whatever is popular right now. If we, as writers, cannot innovate, we can at least use a competent understanding of language to repeat a formula that's been proven by others. After all, some mimics succeed also; when the odour of sweet magnolia blows from a given quarter, often, for a brief span of time, one can never smell enough of it. Let there be more and more, cries the mob, until the odour of magnolia becomes so rich and cloying that none can stand to ever sniff or even see a magnolia ever again. One innovative artist ignites a flame; replication fuels the bonfire... and in time, any pleasantness the original had is obliterated beneath the scorched, charred earth that effort has produced.
Is this the art we should be teaching? All too often, the teacher is part of the present-day burning. He or she has been obtained by the university because of their fame, for it draws students like moths to surrender their parents wealth to sit at the feet of this year's Aristotle. And of course the philosopher, whose success has proved the method, preaches the same to all and sundry who come to listen. Hands are raised and voices speak dozens of versions of the question, "How can I someday be just like you?" And the answer comes: "Heed my words, child, and do as I do."
How frustrating it is when their words so obviously indicate how little they know of anything except the most popular of cultural touchstones... when obvious references to Gilbert and Sullivan are not made, when philosophies of Ibsen or Chekhov are reworded and presented — in badly worded idiom — as though the author has thought up this paradigm and no one else. How frustrating it is when Swift's, Dickens' or Fitzgerald's names are mentioned in passing — and never Hemingway's — but their works are never discussed or deconstructed... and yet we are granted twenty minute dissections of Star Wars and Dune. How odd it is that nothing before this particular Aristotle reached the age of 12 seems to have any resonance. It is as though the vast inheritance of literature and thought — it's complexities, it's challenges, it's rewards — are too heavy to carry into the modern classroom... so instead we are handed scraps of the familiar, reheated and served as though they are timeless.
There is a safety in this approach, of course. To dissect Star Wars or Dune requires far less intellectual rigour than it would be to review the centuries of literature that Lucas robbed from to build his tale, or the myths, philosophies or social contrivances that shaped Herbert's thinking. A class of 20-somethings are unlikely to appreciate Swift's biting satire, Chekhov's tragic subtlety or Fitzgerald’s lyrical disillusionment. Forced to read and then listen to long discussions of such unfamiliar and alien works would engender far less fascinating listening as the nostalgic you tube fodder that drives millions of views from those recapturing something lost in the face of a rigorous, unrelenting, unsatisfying daily grind.
Ultimately, what I would seek from creative instruction differs greatly from what I am seeing. I do not want fancy. I am not interested in works filled with imagination and new ideas, that ultimately provide no mirror for real, actual, everyday human behaviour. I am not interested in packaging. I want something of substance inside the box when I open it.
I do not know how I would teach such a class. Certainly not like this.
