Interesting article on creative writing...
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... which is all fanfic is, right?
Now, she's talking about creative writing in the classroom, but a great deal seems applicable to other efforts. In Toward Changing the Language of Creative Writing Classrooms, Helen Betya Rubinstein says, I am convinced that we can teach creative writing without the language of failure or success, criticism or praise.
and
“Write the story (or essay, or poem) you want to read in the world.” My courses begin with this invitation for students to create their own goals: for the student who loves being entertained to figure out how to entertain; for the student who loves difficult prose to examine how such work engages him.
and
“But I want to know if people liked what I wrote,” students might plead. I’ll ask what they mean by “like.” “If they wanted to keep reading,” one says. “If they feel moved,” says another. These are qualities we can discuss without risking that the writer’s objectives are obscured. “You don’t believe that Faulkner is good and Danielle Steele bad?” is another question I’ve heard. I point out that different people - or the same person, on different days - might choose to read one author instead of the next. Their bodies of literature fulfill different needs.
It reminded me of long-ago complaints that used to circulate occasionally in fandom, that not enough fanfic authors were doing it "right". (Or maybe not so long ago; since I never became comfortable with Tumblr and Twitter, maybe they just occurred out of my sight.) Such complaints used to make me seethe; I even made a long post about it once: My Semi-Annual (?) Fandom Rant, in which I argued (at length!) that people could write what and how they damn well want to write.
In other words -- nothing new to see, here. I just liked reading "official" (ha!) confirmation of my beliefs, and thought others might be interested in the same article.
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Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -
... which is all fanfic is, right?
Now, she's talking about creative writing in the classroom, but a great deal seems applicable to other efforts. In Toward Changing the Language of Creative Writing Classrooms, Helen Betya Rubinstein says, I am convinced that we can teach creative writing without the language of failure or success, criticism or praise.
and
“Write the story (or essay, or poem) you want to read in the world.” My courses begin with this invitation for students to create their own goals: for the student who loves being entertained to figure out how to entertain; for the student who loves difficult prose to examine how such work engages him.
and
“But I want to know if people liked what I wrote,” students might plead. I’ll ask what they mean by “like.” “If they wanted to keep reading,” one says. “If they feel moved,” says another. These are qualities we can discuss without risking that the writer’s objectives are obscured. “You don’t believe that Faulkner is good and Danielle Steele bad?” is another question I’ve heard. I point out that different people - or the same person, on different days - might choose to read one author instead of the next. Their bodies of literature fulfill different needs.
It reminded me of long-ago complaints that used to circulate occasionally in fandom, that not enough fanfic authors were doing it "right". (Or maybe not so long ago; since I never became comfortable with Tumblr and Twitter, maybe they just occurred out of my sight.) Such complaints used to make me seethe; I even made a long post about it once: My Semi-Annual (?) Fandom Rant, in which I argued (at length!) that people could write what and how they damn well want to write.
In other words -- nothing new to see, here. I just liked reading "official" (ha!) confirmation of my beliefs, and thought others might be interested in the same article.
.
Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -