Stupid Fiction Class
Inspiration does not appear out of thin air. At least not good inspiration.
So why do writing professors always insist upon drilling their students with ridiculous numbers of random writing exercises? Do they honestly believe that good writing comes forth from prompts like “Describe a friend’s haircut using imagery”? Do they think that their students will be able to come up with an intelligent idea for a short story every 3-5 days for 10 weeks? Do they honestly believe that a piece of writing can be done after only one edit? Or are they trying to con every student they have into mindless boring writing so as to eliminate their competition? …Okay, so the last question in that ranting list may be a bit overzealous. My professor does not have the brains to think up such a dim-witted scheme.
Can you tell that I am a bit angry over the state of my fiction writing class? See, the first week of this winter quarter, I began a story which I truly believed in. I had come up with the idea for this story a few days before the quarter began, and with the first assignment being a simple “write an introduction to a story.” I worked for an entire week on this introduction, finding the right words, the perfect style and finding my purpose for writing this story. By the end of the week, I was excited about the story, and continued writing well past the required word count.
However, since the first week of class, I have only been able to work on this story for my own personal pleasure. See, every week, we need to write a different introduction to a different story. I well understand the purpose of doing a few of these, but not to the extent which we have been in this class. Shouldn’t we receive instruction, not only on how to begin a story, but also on how to end one? Shouldn’t we be taught how to edit what we write, and how to question ourselves on the importance of our writing? Or does a writer only need to begin stories in this world of trilogies and remakes? Do stories never have an end these days? Should students be expected to think of creative, original and new topics to write about every few days? Or will this simply create literary scum?
In better news...the cute hat guy who I thought had dropped out of my Global Economic Development class was actually just skipping for a week. And, he's really cute!
So why do writing professors always insist upon drilling their students with ridiculous numbers of random writing exercises? Do they honestly believe that good writing comes forth from prompts like “Describe a friend’s haircut using imagery”? Do they think that their students will be able to come up with an intelligent idea for a short story every 3-5 days for 10 weeks? Do they honestly believe that a piece of writing can be done after only one edit? Or are they trying to con every student they have into mindless boring writing so as to eliminate their competition? …Okay, so the last question in that ranting list may be a bit overzealous. My professor does not have the brains to think up such a dim-witted scheme.
Can you tell that I am a bit angry over the state of my fiction writing class? See, the first week of this winter quarter, I began a story which I truly believed in. I had come up with the idea for this story a few days before the quarter began, and with the first assignment being a simple “write an introduction to a story.” I worked for an entire week on this introduction, finding the right words, the perfect style and finding my purpose for writing this story. By the end of the week, I was excited about the story, and continued writing well past the required word count.
However, since the first week of class, I have only been able to work on this story for my own personal pleasure. See, every week, we need to write a different introduction to a different story. I well understand the purpose of doing a few of these, but not to the extent which we have been in this class. Shouldn’t we receive instruction, not only on how to begin a story, but also on how to end one? Shouldn’t we be taught how to edit what we write, and how to question ourselves on the importance of our writing? Or does a writer only need to begin stories in this world of trilogies and remakes? Do stories never have an end these days? Should students be expected to think of creative, original and new topics to write about every few days? Or will this simply create literary scum?
In better news...the cute hat guy who I thought had dropped out of my Global Economic Development class was actually just skipping for a week. And, he's really cute!