Well, it depends on the particular teacher, of course. Not to mention the particular students. But my writing workshops are essentially reading classes, though we're reading in a particular way. We read as writers, with a mind to determining how the writer has achieved the effects she's achieved, so that we can then imitate what we admire and eschew what we don't admire. For me, a writing class (whether we're discussing a student story or published work) is a prolonged act of hyper-self-conscious reading. We learn how to recognize consciously what we previously experienced only subconsciously. We become self-conscious about language, about punctuation, about everything, to the point sometimes of near-paralysis--all in the name of learning how to do it ourselves as writers, at becoming so adept at it that we are able to take that subconscious matter made conscious and place it back into the subconscious again. That way, we proceed intuitively, but only once we've rewired our intuitions.
Take Tim O'Brien, who strikes me as among the best of contemporary writers at varying his sentence cadences and at using the sound of language and the architecture of his sentences to evoke a particular mood. I talked about this some last year in my first guest-post go around with respect to Jayne Anne Phillips's story "Fast Lanes." Take a look now at this passage from early in O'Brien's story "The Things They Carried." Jimmy Cross, leading his battalion in Vietnam, thinks of Martha, a college junior back in New Jersey, who writes Jimmy letters but who doesn't reciprocate his love for her:
"A dark theater, he remembered, and the movie was Bonnie and Clyde, and Martha wore a tweed skirt, and during the final scene, when he touched her knee, she turned and looked at him in a sad, sober way that made him pull his hand back, but he would always remember the feel of the tweed skirt and the knee beneath it, and the sound of gunfire that killed Bonnie and Clyde, how embarrassing it was, how slow and oppressive."
Try reading that sentence aloud. I believe all writers should read their work aloud; it enables them to hear things. It's a long sentence, certainly, but more important, it's breathless: all those "ands," those short, choppy clauses followed by a much longer clause, before the clip gets more restrictive again. It's this breathlessness that's essential, because it mimics and evokes Jimmy Cross's own breathlessness as he places his hand on Martha's knee--mimics, too, what's happening on the screen, the gunfire, the staccato rhythm of that. Reading this sentence, I'm reminded of what a writing professor of mine once said: "Given the choice between the word with the right meaning and the word with the right sound, you should choose the word with the right sound."
Well observed post. I think any serious writing program must begin with reading. And I agree that reading aloud is one of the best things a writer can do for his/her own work.
Posted by: Paul Lamb | September 04, 2008 at 03:24 PM
I know what got taught in my creative writing class. There's only two kinds of stories (my professor told me); a stranger comes to town, and a man goes on a long journey. Which are really both the same story.
Posted by: Oliver | September 04, 2008 at 03:40 PM
John Gardner told us that when I took a class with him at Bread Loaf over 30 years ago.
Posted by: Richard Grayson | September 04, 2008 at 04:41 PM
John Gardner told us that when I took a class with him at Bread Loaf over 30 years ago.
Posted by: Richard Grayson | September 04, 2008 at 04:42 PM
WHAT HAPPENS AT A MARK SARVAS WRITING CLASS?
Some good information was picked up during my recent foray into the world of the Melbourne Writers Festival.
Tutor and first time novelist, Mark Sarvas, was particularly good value. This author of 'Harry, Revised' ran a workshop about getting started for would-be writers. It was a very practical class which I think is crucial when you’ve shelled out AUS$200 and are not just there to hear someone’s life story. If you want that you go to a panel discussion or a reading but sometimes people don’t really seem to ‘get’ that.
Although he did work in LA as a scriptwriter in the past I think novels were Mark's real passion and he’s attended a lot of workshops and classes himself, making it easier for him to distil what’s required to actually make them useful.
A newcomer to the festival scene, I think he also enjoyed meeting other authors and slipping into that world. I took it as a sign of how social and engaging he is that he was able to tempt a few other authors to drop by our 10am to 4pm session to share a few pearls of their wisdom with us too.
Nam Le (www.namleonline.com), from Melbourne, stopped by and his is a name on a lot of lips currently. The hosts were raving about him and his short story collection – The Boat – on 3RRR’s Aural Text programme (Wednesdays 12pm - 2pm) this week. By the sounds of things this Vietnam born Australian chap has an international career ahead of him. Funny to hear the 3RRR gals mention that he was good looking too. I am thinking launching a new magazine – don’t tell anyone – called Literary Hotties.
Hannah Tinti from the USA also visited us. Her new (first) novel is called The Good Thief. She was on The Book Show on Radio National this week. I purchased her book at the Festival bookstore at Fed Square (I also picked up Harry, Revised which is burning a hole next to the bed but, unfortunately, the library emailed to say Fay Weldon’s Spa Decameron had arrived so I just HAD to swoop on that first. Eeeek and I still haven’t finished Salman’s Enchantress of Florence. Ah the reading joy of it all!). She’s particularly interesting because she’s one of the founders of the US literary magazine called One-Story. Every three weeks one short story is published in this tiny, lovely publication. I won’t go into details. Check out www.one-story.com if you’re interested. Suffice to say a) I think they have around 8000 submissions a year and can publish only 18 stories and b) the mag is getting some serious attention from editors around the world looking for new writers.
Anyway, I digress in a monumental way … great advice picked up from Mr Sarvas included reading like a writer. This involves being aware, as one reads novels day in day out, of the mechanics being employed by the author … the construction of the book and the way the story is being moved along and so forth. Part of me always thinks such examination or analysis takes the fun out of activities such as this but, committed to a home made Masters of Creative Writing for the remainder of this year, I am going to knuckle down and give this a bash.
And, in the spirit of “thinking like a writer” as was also discussed in class, I am going to buy a specific tiny notebook to record all manner of intriguing dialogue I hear between airports and luggage carousels between my hometown of Melbourne and Nashville, New Orleans and Austin where I will be in October. I will probably end up using it to write lists of perfumes and booze that I want to purchase but, hell, it’ll come in handy either way. Maybe when Mr Underhill’s not looking I can get down a few cowboy’s phone numbers too.
Posted by: MrsUnderhilldotcom | September 04, 2008 at 04:42 PM
I've taught at the MFA program at Columbia, along with The Writer's Voice of the West Side Y, and Gotham Writers' Workshop: all in New York City, all right -- but does the plague that is workshopping really have to be inflicted on Australians?
Posted by: Rick Rofihe | September 05, 2008 at 09:32 AM