Basically.

cancerously:

jumpingjacktrash:

let me just start by putting this on the table so we can all see it:

the way literature and creative writing are taught in schools is completely and totally wrong.

it is. it’s fucked up. it’s backwards. now, to be fair, i don’t have an alternate suggestion for schools….

that’s how my teacher right now for writing is teaching us and I couldn’t be happier.

I can’t help but feel that you’re selling the craft of writing short. Stuff like word selection, grammar placement and theme can be key in demonstrating what you’re trying to say when you sit down to write. 

I mean, yeah, telling the story is important, but a writer should put just as much care and love into putting the pieces together as getting from point A to point B. Stuff like imagery and the meaning behind the words is important, and it’s something one should keep in mind when they write. Not on the first draft of course, but as you write, you should eventually come up on things that would be a great demonstration of what you’re trying to say. Because you are saying something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have felt the need to write in the first place.

A story without a theme is an anecdote. Maybe it’s entertaining, but it doesn’t stick with you. A reader can tell when the author’s just “telling the fucking story” because it tends to be dry. If you don’t even consider your craft or your style, it’s hard to get the reader to care. And that’s what really matters: getting your reader to care. If you didn’t bother thinking about your story, why should the reader? Why should the reader even keep reading your story at all?

I can’t help but feel that just saying “it’s written like that cause it’s awesome” is actually insulting the writer, though you don’t mean it. Writers spend months and countless drafts to get the story absolutely perfect (even those we consider hacks), to get an idea across with that story, and you not only didn’t see it, you just wrote it off.  You didn’t even bother giving even a second of thought to a passage that might have taken upwards of ten drafts to get right. You may as well have spit in the author’s eye.

There’s nothing wrong with just letting the story through you, and getting it all down. But eventually, you do have to sit down and think, “What am I trying to say here?”

Also, a lot of that so called analysis tends to be little more than masturbation. I mean that exactly as I say it: stuff like plot speculation is fun, it makes you feel good, and it ultimately leaves a lot of nothing splattered all over live journal comments and tumblr dashboards. That’s not to say that stuff like Homestuck, The Wire, or Doctor Who haven’t gotten great analysis, but it’s closer to the “Academic” than you think.

The teacher analyzes analysis, because it’s the only way that a student can apply that analysis for themselves.

To sum it all up, craft is just as important as storytelling. Claiming otherwise is not only terrible advice to a burgeoning writer, it’s insulting. It’s damning someone to mediocrity in the guise of giving hope. Writing is an art, and we’ve got to remember that.