Introduction
There has long been a debate within the writer’s community about the subject of teaching Creative Writing. On one side, we have the still, small, yet proud voice of inner Talent, standing on his pedestal against the harsh winds of correction. On the other side, we have the bold, demanding Instruction. He leans on his withered cane and demands to be heeded and obeyed. The conflict? Can creative writing be taught? Prideful Talent screams that it can’t. Wizened Instruction replies that it can and should be. I believe that there are some things that even Talent, boastful though he is, must learn from his wise elder. What does Instruction possibly have to offer Talent? Well, think about formatting, a beautifully crafted plot and living, breathing characters. What about mere skill with a pen, can that be conjured from some will within? You may say it can. I say it can’t. These are things that talent may paint a mere shadow of, but that careful guidance can hone into brilliance and beauty, igniting our imaginations into living color. Perhaps writing creatively is not the easiest thing to teach in the classroom, but I believe that it is a skill that’s learned, not a whim that is governed by talent alone. In essence, Creative Writing, one way or another, is always taught.
Let me explain to you what I mean by the word ‘taught’. By ‘taught’ I don’t necessarily mean a professor at the head of a classroom pointing out grammatical errors, symbolism, and plot structure. I do, however, mean that a writer does not simply pull out good writing from the depths of some magical pool of talent. Good creative writing inherently involves time and effort which lead to a sort of learning process. Creative writing is taught. Certain aspects of it are taught differently. Some, more solid aspects are taught by a professor or from a book. With other, more abstract parts, it’s taught mostly by experience.
Consider for a moment formatting. Now, formatting, punctuation, and grammar, are necessary, basic, and fundamental aspects of good writing, and they are tools in the creative writer’s arsenel. To some it may seem a mere trifle. But formatting is just as important as the protagonist, and the creative writer must pay attention to it. Writers write to be read. At least, most of the time they do. And if they write to be read, then they write to communicate something. If they are to communicate something, they must be able to be understood, and formatting and punctuation is one of the ways by which we are understood by our audience. It is all well and good to write with abandon in the pre-writing stages. Those will probably never see the light of day (at least I hope not). However, in the final stages, the rules of grammar and punctuation and formatting - however tiresome - must be followed. These are some of the tools in a writer’s arsenal, and to forget them would be outrageous. Things such as the proper rules of your country on how to punctuate dialogue, or where commas go, and how many exclamation marks are appropriate - these are not things that come naturally. A child, no matter how much potential he has for writing, will not sit down and write a grammatically perfect story. This is something learned, whether by being well-read, or by going to classes and learning them from a teacher or professor, or by looking them up in a book.
To Elaborate Further
That is an easy enough argument, and people may argue that I haven’t touched on ‘creative’ writing, yet, but think about how it relates to writing. How can I know that Erin is angry and shouting unless I put an exclamation mark at the end of her exclamation? How can I convey that she is saying it, if not by the proper use of quotation marks? How can I know if I’ve begun a new chapter, if not by a chapter heading? How can I understand something when every other word is misspelled? While these nuts and bolts may not be thought of as inherently ‘creative’, they are every bit as important to creative writers as they are to other writers.
If you were to ask me about the more abstract parts of creative writing, such as characterization and plot structure, I would still say that these aspects are taught. What about a beautifully crafted novel? Could a writer simply come up with one, without any instruction on how to? I would argue that he can’t. Leonardo Da Vinci had a great potential to be a great painter - but no matter how hard he tried, as a child he couldn’t have painted the Mona Lisa. It’s inconceivable to us to even think that he could. He had to learn, by careful instruction, how to be a great painter. He had to learn color theory and which brushes to use and the strokes with which to use them. It amazes me that people don’t apply the same logic to writers. A novel, or any other work of creative writing for that matter, is a masterpiece the same as a painting. So, in the same fashion, an uneducated, untrained writer cannot come up with plots with the same depth and complexity as a seasoned writer. Talent, whether through practice or by direct teaching, is honed and sharpened.
Even simple, old fashioned, beautiful, coherent writing isn’t something that writers are born with. Again, to use the example of other such artists - a violinist, when they pick up the violin for the first time, do not play a beautiful sonata or a trilling reel with perfect tone and pitch. They struggle through their practices, burning their ears and the ears of those around them. Usually, they even cause those ears to bleed and their housemates will want to cut their ears off and throw them into the shredder. However, as they learn to use the bow properly, as they learn to place their fingers in the perfect places to draw out a sweet tone, as they learn to trill their notes and to add vibrato, slowly their dying cat of a song turns into a beautiful tune that delights their listeners. If a violinist must learn to play beautiful music, why do we expect a writer not to learn to write beautiful prose? A writer too must struggle through his or her work, learning from others and reading widely to expand her vocabulary and develop her voice. She must exercise her mind, making sure that her writing is coherent. She must search for new metaphors and throw out the stale ones, ever perfecting her prose until it rings in her ears. That isn’t talent - that’s years and years of hard work. Perhaps it wasn’t directly taught, but it was learned.
Looking at my own work over the years, it’s obvious that there was some kind of learning process. My characters started out being flat cliches, my plots were filled with tropes and riddled with holes. My poetry was boring and choppy. However, the point was, I loved to do it and I had a passion for it. I was inherintly good at it for my age. But as time wore on, my writing did something. It matured. Now, that didn’t happen from me just sitting there and fishing into a murky pool of talent. It happened from me doing exactly what I’m doing now - typing. Not just typing, but reading, and not just reading, but watching, and not just watching - but learning as well. And if there is learning, there is teaching of some kind. Whether it was from a professor (some of it was) or from reading books or blogs on how to write better (much of that was) or from simply imitating and hammering out my own voice and learning what worked and what didn’t (most of it), I was taught, and I learned.
In Conclusion
You see, some may argue that you can’t teach someone to write creatively. Maybe that’s true. You can’t really teach someone to be creative. But you can take the affinity that’s already there and hone it, and that honing comes with a learning process. A learning process is the product of careful teaching, self-taught or otherwise. Therefore, yes, creative writing, just like any other art - be it painting or music or drawing, or any other craft - be it architecture, crochet, or fashion design can be, and is taught, whether we realize it or not. So, it’s not a question of if it creative writing can be taught - it’s the simple truth that creative writing comes from a talent, but good creative writing comes from years of careful, deliberate learning.
