After I mentioned in my blog yesterday that a friend had suggested that I consider taking a writing course, my friend and brother-in-law Tom wrote me a long email in which he related his experience with a writing course and mused about whether writing is something than can actually be taught. I spent a long time composing my reply (ever since I started blogging I seem to have lost any inclination to just dash off an email) and then realized that much of what I’d written might be worth posting here, so I’m cannibalizing my email to Tom for today’s post.
I suspect that writing can be taught in the same way that painting or sculpture can be taught, which is to say, some aspects of it can be and others can’t. In particular, there are fundamentals that can definitely be taught, but a mastery of those fundamentals, while helpful, is not sufficient for enabling artists to produce great art, or maybe even just art. It surprised me to discover that most great painters went to art school and spent years studying the techniques of their forebears. But no one who ever produced anything great, in any artistic arena, did so by just doing what he or she was taught to do. Perhaps it’s creativity that can’t be taught.
Years ago when I was working at a radio station, I happened across a piece of news copy that someone had marked up with a red pencil, crossing out some things, adding others, modifying punctuation and reordering sentences. I never learned who wrote the original copy and who did the editing, but reading the annotated copy was a revelation. The original copy was something I might have written; it was reasonably clear and entirely grammatical. But the edited version was so much better. That was the moment I realized that even at the level of craftsmanship — leaving art and creativity out of it — there was a significant difference between serviceable writing and good writing, and that someone who understood the difference would have something to teach me.
If it were possible to find a writing course in which a teacher who really understood how to make the written word sing gave me assignments and then explained how whatever I’d written could be made even better, I’d sign up in a minute. But the writing courses I hear about center around the horrifying, pedagogically deranged practice of peer review. Can you imagine taking piano lessons, and instead of an accomplished musician advising you about how to improve, a group of other amateurs kibitzed about your playing and piled on with their opinions about how you should do it differently? Is there any other area of mastery where peer review by other neophytes is considered sound pedagogical practice? How about surgery? How about architecture? The very idea makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. And that’s even before considering the potential for a budding writer’s being so ego-bruised that she abandons writing entirely.
As one of those thin-skinned individuals who I expect would be particularly inclined to be disempowered by the practice of peer review, I’ve long resolved that I simply wouldn’t share my writing with anyone until it was a finished product.
But recently I’ve read interviews with a couple of writers who say that an important part of their process is sharing their writing, pre-publication, with a “panel” of trusted advisers and taking their input into account when finalizing their work. Most of them say this practice can be bruising but is essential to their success. Reading those interviews, combined with the fact that my ego may not be as fragile as it once was, has led me to make a distinction between peer review as it’s sometimes practiced in writing classes — subjecting yourself to being assailed by the opinions of a bunch of wannabe writers — and taking input from people whose judgement you trust and who have the emotional intelligence not to crush your spirit in the process of providing feedback.
One thing I’m clear about: if I ever write a book I’m going to want a really good editor. And I might even seek input from others, as those aforementioned writers do. I could always try it and then decide whether it’s just too painful, or even unhelpful.