Can Writing Be Taught?

Writers often ask me if writing can be taught. While I don’t believe the desire and dedication to write can be taught, I’m convinced that writing can be strengthened, nourished and deepened by an awareness of craft. This is true of any art form. Great dancers, for instance, train with merciless rigor, making multiple pirouettes, leaps and leg extensions look light and effortless. Writing is no different. Becoming a great writer requires consistent practice.

Many argue that you either have talent or you don’t. But I think there’s a misconception here, that talent makes writing easy. It doesn’t. Take my word on this: every piece of literature you admire has been written over and over and over — over a long period of time — and with tremendous confusion and doubt.

Some go so far as to belittle craft, proposing that it restricts a writer’s authentic voice. Yet, as a writer and teacher, experience has shown me time and again that when writers practice their craft, their work soars. Knowledge of craft doesn’t restrict a writer’s voice. It liberates it.

The writing impulse wants to spin out. It doesn’t want to be contained. So there is a necessary anarchy to the writing process. But after the initial rush of an early draft, the words on the page need to be shaped into something the reader understands and will want to read. Craft can help crystallize and navigate that inchoate fog of ideas, associations, memories, emotions and images — the infinite possibilities that language presents to us.

By craft, I don’t mean familiar mantras such as ‘show don’t tell,’ or ‘write what you know.’ Sometimes it’s better to show and sometimes it’s better to tell; you don’t limit yourself arbitrarily to doing one or the other. As for ‘write what you know,’ this often shackles the imagination. I think it’s far more fascinating to write towards what you don’t know.

Aside from the act of writing itself, perhaps the best way to learn to write great prose is to read great stories by great authors. To open yourself up to the wide range of narrative choices available to you. I believe that at least forty-percent of learning to write comes from reading like a writer, that is, with a concentrated focus on elements such as language, characterization, subtext, the use of dialogue to slip exposition sideways, and the various ways of conveying the passage of time.

I’ve found that when writers gain awareness of such craft elements, they’re grateful. They discover the freedom that comes with form.

Tags: can writing be taught, teaching writing form

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.