Chekhov’s Mistess

On Creative Writing Workshops

Reading Sam Sacks’ “The Fiction Machine” in the New York Press (link via the Literary Saloon), I feel like sharing my own story. Let’s hold hands and listen to this excerpt first:

Writing workshops, for their ubiquity, are currently the most significant phenomenon influencing American literature. Enrollment into them has become de rigueur for people with a calling to write, and is assumed by increasing numbers (including publishers) to be as necessary a first step toward a writing life as college would be toward a professional life. But because the self-styled “best” of these workshops comprise such a poor lot of dull, mechanical stories, it becomes necessary to ask: What goes on in these programs, and how do they influence today’s writers, for ill or for good?

I don’t think Sacks is saying much new here, but I think it is certainly a valid question, what with the ongoing discussion of the death of the novel and famous writers saying they’ve all but given up on reading new fiction.

Now, I don’t have an MFA and my ambitions toward living the Papaesque writing life are more approaching-middle-age type of fantasy than anything. But I took a writing workshop once and I was appalled at the experience.

The workshop was at the 92nd St. Y here in New York City and consisted of a small table full of would-be authors; one destined to be an Upper East Side chick-lit maven, a couple of housewives, a guy who writes press releases (and, we found out, should be confined to such), a heavy smoking woman with more stories to tell than talent to tell them and a few other thoughtful people of indeterminate talent, including this writer.

My first gaff was to joke about the plethora of writing-craft books, saying something about how writers churn these things out with the same obligation that pop singers make Christmas albums. I didn’t need to be told our teacher was writing one of her own, her glare said so.

My second gaff was my response to the teacher’s request (sent to us in a letter beforehand) to bring in our favorite book to discuss in our first class. I couldn’t decide, so I brought in Stendhal’s The Charterhouse of Parma, Proust’s Swann’s Way and Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. I was one of the first to discuss my choice. Panicked over which to talk about in front of these people I didn’t know, I pulled the Stendhal from my bag, and like Ralphie’s plea to Santa in the movie A Christmas Story (“I want a Daisy Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action BB Gun”) I blurted out some nonsense about the adventures of Fabrizio Del Dongo. This was immediately dismissed as being 19th century and irrelevant to the discussion (she said it nicer than that, but her point was clear).

I’ll admit that I’m a terrible workshop participant. I was never truly interested in other people’s work. Most of the writing here was weak and I refused to say nice things about those and the ones that were good I was too envious to try and help improve on. But the reality was I only had interest in my own writing and went to class to have people to read it to and make some attempt at improvement and validation. Following the old 80/20 rule, a portion of the work produced in this class had a glimmer of potential. The breakdown also segmented class participants on their level of avidity. I was one of the avid ones.

I was also one of the controversial ones. Half the class liked my work, which was some sort of Joyce meets Balzac induced excuse for sentences, and the other half was clearly alarmed that I was among them. The teacher smiled (she found something good to say about everyone’s work) and usually marveled at the fact that they were complete stories – something that wasn’t necessarily required in this workshop. She blushed over the chick-lit gal (who also wrote complete stories) and my depressing expletive filled work didn’t move her, it seemed.

But the thing about the class was this: [As an aside, I’ll admit that what I have to say is hardly relevant to the discussion mentioned above because in terms of writers, we in this class were, as Michael Lewis said in Liar’s Poker, “lower than whale shit on the bottom of the ocean.”] The so-called “workshop” operated on the bifurcated principle of constructive criticism: polite smiles or destroy the writer. Neither served the craft of writing.

Where I was specifically shooting for difficulty at the risk of alienating my reader (admittedly something one should probably do after they’ve mastered the basics, not before), the class wanted me to explain myself, to make the writing more clear when I was shooting for discomfort with the only connecting element being what I perceived as rhythm. My fellow writer’s comments were typically aimed at making my work easy to read and understand – to make it more like theirs. I’m not saying my work was good and under-appreciated (I wouldn’t claim it today), I’m saying they wanted to make me like them – including the leader of the class, who clearly saw her role as an unoffending facilitator rather than teacher.

I felt as though the latent aim of the class was to make publishable writing, not to aspire toward any kind of literature. If this workshop aimed toward being anything like that found in today’s MFA classes, then how can we not be faced with a state of oxymoronic insipidity in today’s establishment of creative writers.

comments

Luckily I had a much better and more productive week at the Wesleyan Writers Conference this past June.  Yeah, lotta housewives and lots more self-centered wannabes who think they’re this () close to publication, but many more serious and talented folk, and excellent classes by published professors and constant readings and discussions in the evenings.  Unfortunately, I held back a bit too much and didn’t truly get some personal use out of it that was directly applicable to my own writing.

    – susan (12/06  at  03:46 PM)

On the workshop and masters programs in creative writing: having earned an MFA, ‘earned’ being an operative term, I will say that the few stories I have had published were written outside the program. Meaning, the stories I’d shopped never flew or perched even to take flight. I do not disparage the program itself, the truly constructive feedback from dybek, or the helpful prodding of fellow students. The process was terribly helpful, even though it tarnished some good ideas I’d painted.

I received the MFA at age 37, and I probably had the texture of backbone akin to an alligator walking into the program. Yes, a scripted form of the story--plot driven or image driven--was the norm. I remain convinced, tho, that by learning the form I was opened to the craft and subsequently to my confidence to write and submit work independent from the coddled forum and its teachings.

    – GinaB (12/06  at  08:46 PM)

“My first gaff was to joke about the plethora of writing-craft books, saying something about how writers churn these things out with the same obligation that pop singers make Christmas albums. I didn’t need to be told our teacher was writing one of her own, her glare said so”.

Yup and then tell the class on a lunch break that the only thing these teachers ever publish is “how to” books and that they “Probably couldn’t write a novel if their life depended on it” without noticing that the teacher who was out of the room is now standing behind you....smirk

    – Sand Storm (12/07  at  11:51 AM)

Gosh.  I wish I had said that.  It’s exactly why I haven’t attended those classes.  I’m neither fish nor fowl.  Why is it that the focus always seems to be on something other than:  is this a good book?  A good book can be many things, it can be funny (in the case of what I like to read, which consists in large part of P.G. Wodehouse novels and H.H. Munroe/Saki short stories), or it can be serious, or it can just be fluff for the mind, but in all cases, why can’t it just be good?  Why does everything try to squash it into preconceived, rigid categories? 

On the other hand (to play Devil’s Advocate) maybe they really were trying to help each other write, but they are obsessed about categories so that they have rules they can apply when writing and/or critiquing written material.  Rules can be good, or restrictive, depending upon if you fit or feel strangled (choked/gagged/throttled) by them.

Personally, while I understand the rules, I don’t have any problems with books that flout the rules.  I wish I had been in your class.  I would have liked to read what you wrote.  I like experimental writing as it often leads to interesting perspectives or ideas. 

Have you read the short story:  “Thug: Signification and the (De) Construction of Self” by Tyler Dilts?  I LOVE that story and it’s a prime example of the kind of work that a workshop would be completely unable to deal with, and yet it IS published, and is even included in an anthology (’The Best American Mystery Stories/2003’) as one of the best of breed.

Does it follow the rules?  No.  Does it follow any rules?  Probably not.  And yet it works.

That seems to be the one thing a class can’t teach you.  That you have to write what works.  You can do anything you want, as long as it works.

The trick is, learning what works and what doesn’t.

Thanks for letting me ramble, and good luck with the writing thing.  I’m still working on it myself, having learned the trick but not precisely how to apply it yet.

AGP

    – AGP (12/07  at  01:27 PM)

I could probably write my own post about this, but here goes.  I’ve had good and bad experiences with writing workshops.  The first creative writing workshop I took was in college, and required an application process (I got rejected from Bharati Mukherjee’s class, but accepted into Tom Farber’s).  I think this selection process was probably the reason why the quality of the class’s writing was so high. Also, the subjects they wrote about were very diverse.  It motivated me to improve my own writing, and also, by seeing how and what other people wrote about, it exposed me to many other possibilities that I could take on in my writing. 

My subsequent fiction writing workshops in graduate school, unfortunately, were not so rewarding.  The quality of the writing was not as high, and perhaps because of this, I wasn’t really motivated to improve my writing or make my stories especially stellar.  (Really I’m just lazy at heart.  I need motivation.) I knew that whatever I wrote would not be the worst story in the class.  I especially had a hard time in my memoir class (didn’t really want to write a memoir, but the fiction class conflicted with a Victorian lit class that I wanted to take).  I was trying to do something experimental with my memoir, and most of the class didn’t take to it.  Instead, they wanted to make me write like them (much like your experience!).  Their criticisms weren’t really helpful to my work, but rather just showed what they wanted to hear.  One woman was especially catty: she even had the audacity to tell me that I was “insecure” about opening up in memoir.  Anyway, my grad school experiences turned me off on workshops (and on writing) for a while.  But now that I’ve had some time away, I do think that they are beneficial, especially when you’re first starting to write.  And, at the very least, the workshop format does encourage you to finish your stories (a goal that often slips out of my reach!).

    – Michelle (12/07  at  02:36 PM)

Interesting post, Bud.

A few things Sack may have overlooked:  Could the common tones have something to do with the writers’ lack of life experience?  Early stories by young writers are often written in fairly common settings with similar conflicts—the usual sort of twentysomething nangst.  Is “The Best New American Voices 2005” really the best guide to determine what today’s new writers are like?  And could Francine Prose (this year’s BANV guest editor and curiously unmentioned in Sack’s article) have had a hand in the rather similar tone of the stories?

    – ed (12/07  at  04:47 PM)

Interesting post and I’m sure your experiences are shared by most, if not all writers.  I have had good and bad experiences with workshops and conferences.  Overall, I think the key to finding a good workshop is experimenting.  The most difficult thing to do is find like-minded writers who are good at reading/critiquing as well.  I’ve had someone read my work and say that it needed another draft but gave no other feedback. When I prodded for more details, he didn’t know what to say.  This type of critique is not productive. 

Hopefully, you will find a group or an individual who writes in a similar way and can provide the kind of criticism that will help you grow as a writer.  And remember that many people aspire to be writers but few actually accomplish their goals.  When you sit in a workshop, keep that in mind.

In terms of polarizing a group - that’s normal.  I have never been in a workshop in which everyone in the room loved the piece.  I think that’s an unrealistic goal.  No matter what, there will always be a reader who is going to dislike what is on the page.  Writing is subjective and although we would love to say that everyone enjoys reading (fill in the blank author), there isn’t a single author in existence who is read by all.

    – Lisa (12/08  at  10:39 AM)

If I had known people were going to read this I might not have been so snobbish as to say I wasn’t interested in other people’s writing!

Ed, you’re right on both your points, but I don’t think it changes Sack’s argument in the least.

    – Bud Parr (12/08  at  11:28 AM)

All in all, I’d rather trust myself, for better or worse, and stay home and work on my own stuff rather than going to a conference where folks talk about working on their stuff instead of actually working on their stuff. Figuratively speaking, my muse talks to me and I’m the only one who can clean up the mess. And that won’t happen if I’m listening to another boring presentation on gerunds or being asked to buy into an agent’s list of words s/he doesn’t ever want to see in a manuscript again.

--Malcolm

    – Malcolm Campbell (12/08  at  11:59 AM)

Just a flash on conferences and, naturally, the hallways and parties and places where budding and seasoned writers can be found: the greatest curse for any writer at any level is to talk about their work (what they’re working on). It’s a jinx, muy taboo. Detroys the story. Kills the muse. (Malcom?).

    – GinaB (12/08  at  09:44 PM)

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• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: December 06, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

• Comments:10
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