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March 28, 2024, 12:16:59 PM

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The Life-Crushing Beige Misery Of the Creative Writing Industrial Complex

Started by ZoyzaSorris, October 28, 2019, 11:35:14 AM

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ZoyzaSorris

Sorry in advance for the  tl;dr.

My tale is a familiar one, I'm sure.

Advancing years have recently upgraded my vain life-long dreams of someday writing a book from 'just putting it off until that perfect time when procrastination is miraculously liquidated by a visit from the mysterious muse I have been waiting for' to 'shit, I'm hurtling to oblivion, better just give it a bloody go, no matter how certainly it will end in utter devastating failure.'

So I finally got down to it last year and started taking it a lot more seriously, and as a result have something approaching a third draft of a novel (just writing those words makes me cringe with the presumptuousness and vanity of it all, but then as someone was saying to me yesterday, perhaps you shouldn't look at it as 'why me?' but 'why not me?')

Along the way I've swallowed every primer and treatise on the craft that I can find, both online and in print. That's what I'm like once I get into something. 

Whilst I have definitely found lots of useful pointers along the way, I have developed the sense that there is a great bulk of a 'creative writing teaching industrial complex' hidden behind grey curtains, crushing and homogenising everything good or bad in the world, squashing everything to sludge.

The most egregious example I have recently read, one that maybe tipped me into this rant, is 'How Not to Write a Novel' by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. It is not unique in that sense, but does make for a good summary of all of my problems with this invisible beige beast-god.

This tract treats you, the hapless writer-in-training, to a long list of schoolboy writing errors and invites you to imagine a long-suffering agent chomping on their knuckles or rolling their eyes at the sheer naivety of these dumb hapless chumps daring to send in their baby if it hasn't been flattened into some middlebrow generic slop (is this partly because I have willfully made some of the 'mistakes' they claim as mind-blowingly non-U? Yes of course. I'm only human.)

They illustrate all of these gauche rookie mistakes with 'funny' bad examples that are so poor that you can't believe that anyone would ever write them. It just leaves, for me, the impression that the only useful thing you'll learn is the simple message 'don't write really badly.' That didn't really need to be a book length concept.

The simple fact is that I can think of a dozen places in every favourite novel of mine where it has smashed the inviolable commandments repeated a million times across the creative writing industrial complex and carefully collated in this book.

Also, there have been many possibly badly written but nonetheless commercially massively successful novels that fall foul of most of these rules too. So their last redoubt, the simple idea these gatekeepers are just trying to protect you from not selling your book, the most basic of their given tasks, falls to pieces.

If you followed all these rules to the letter it seems to me you would make a boring, characterless, generic, middlebrow potboiler that would get polite murmurings in a creative writing night class but that's about it. Neither entertaining trash or a genuinely artistic work of literature.

Basically I think it comes down to this; you can do just about anything if you do it well. Even the hackneyed and clichéd can be given a fresh lick of paint with a bit of imagination and skill. But the simple maxim 'whatever you do just do it well and/or make it entertaining to read' isn't going to sustain a whole massive industry based on selling people's own dreams back to themselves.

The one aspect of the 'how to' industry that is genuinely positive is in explorations of the creative process in general, sharing ways to improve to clear the pathways to your subconscious, to ignite the flow state with a little more reliability. Ways to get the creative juices flowing, basically. That is the real key stuff.

For the absolute beginner some of the guidance, when presented in a helpful way, not in snarky nonsense like this, can definitely be of use. I have certainly learnt things from the more down-to-earth tutorials. No point in trying to reinvent the wheel. Worth knowing some of the rules before you decide when and where to break them, and so on. You don't want to, in isolation, think your opening scene is amazing when your target agent will have seen something identical twenty times that week. A mixture of familiarity with your own unique flavor and tone-of-voice is what you need.

Books on writing by very successful writers (the likes of your 'On Writing' by Stephen King and your 'Why Will No-One Publish my Novel' by Fay Weldon) are generally a lot less on the 'received wisdom' side and a lot more inspirational and actually useful. Don't make you want to give up from the sheer beige soul-suck of the thing.

Sometimes feel like there are more people writing about writing than actually just writing. Shit, now I'm one of them.

tl;dr – fucking annoying and depressing when all these self-appointed gatekeepers try to tell everyone how to write middlebrow sludge, especially when they haven't written much of note themselves, isn't it? Or maybe I've just realised that I still need to do a fair bit of work on my novel before I send it anywhere and am lashing out. Not sure which.

ZoyzaSorris

^ U OK hun?

Basically this should have just been a short review of 'How Not to Write a Novel' (which I read last night and found quite irritating) but tiredness and existential anger turned it into an incoherent rant. I guess now I have woken up properly, what I am interested in discussing is the usefulness of teaching creative pursuits (clearly there is a massive place for this done right) but also the limits of this usefulness. And about where the memes of such education become spread as received wisdom and misinterpreted and miscommunication and held onto beyond their useful application.

(Realise this is primarily a forum about reading not writing but there are clearly quite a few here who like to do both!)

iamcoop

I think I understand what you're talking about.

My only experience of this was when I was in my early 20's, and flirting with a bit of music journalism. I'd had some pieces published in a now defunct magazine and finally felt like I was getting somewhere, at least in terms of "finding my voice."

My girlfriend at the time had a bit of contact with the editor of a well known music magazine, who had graciously offered to read some of my work and offer some tips.

I spent a long time writing a piece that I thought captured what I could bring to the table as writer, whilst also conveying my opinion on it (it was a record review) in a clear and concise way. I thought I'd nailed the balance of being individual enough whilst towing the editorial line in terms of what might actually get published.

I sent the piece off to the aforementioned editor, and received a curt reply saying "Read this" with a link to an article written by Lester Bangs. I can't really remember it exactly but the article was something like "Ten things that all good music reviews should contain", and just basically, at least to my young mind, may as well have said "here's a list of things you should do to make your writing read like every other music journalist's does."

I remember being really upset by that reply and pretty much stopped writing there and then.

Was I a young, arrogant fool that couldn't handle criticism at all? Most definitely.

Was I right to be at least a bit annoyed by that response? Probably.

The main lesson it taught me is that in reality I didn't actually want to be a music journalist enough. It's hardly a major setback. The fact I stopped writing suggests I didn't love it enough and was waiting for the perfect excuse to stop doing it and move onto something else.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than the writing should be the pleasure itself (which I'm sure you know) and the more you focus on the potential 'End game" the more that will detract from the work you produce.

Good luck anyway

Famous Mortimer

As Lester Bangs was pretty unique, it appears almost no journalists read that list, or paid any attention to it (I've been trying to find the article you referenced and am drawing a blank). Maybe the criticism he was going to give you was similar enough to what Bangs wrote that he decided not to bother writing it out again?

iamcoop

I probably still have the email somewhere, I will try to find it.

iamcoop

Alas I can't find it, which makes me think I either deleted the email chain in a fit of pique, or more likely my partner sent it through her email. I've also tried to find that article and can't. Maybe the link was to another generic journalism list article and the sender had mentioned Lester Bangs in their reply. I would be happy to go into more detail but I'd rather not mention the publication here as I'm still friends with the editor on Facebook, and I'm sure they only had good intentions at the time.

iamcoop

I found it.

"As Lester Bangs, patron saint of music journalists once famously worked out, there's a formula to writing music reviews and very few people deviate from it well."

They then linked me to a wordpress article which appears to no longer work.

So not as bad as I recollect, and they did have some faint praise for what I'd written.

Anyway, follies of youth aside I'm slowly trying to write a novel and I'm determined to enjoy the experience as much as I can without thinking about any possibility of it being published. I'm trying to look at it as an enjoyable, albeit lengthy writing exercise.

ZoyzaSorris

That's the healthiest approach I think. Though personally I need to have that lofty aim, however hard to achieve, to actually give me the impetus to do it at all, and certainly to do it to the best of my ability.

Your music journalism stuff is along the lines of what I am talking about. Guy sounds like a bit of a dickhead tbh.

Though I am not even getting worked up about any feedback on my actual writing - I like to think I'd force myself to be pretty objective about that as it would at least hopefully be specific (and any interest, even hideously critical, rather than utter indifference from the universe would be a welcome start once I do pluck up the courage to get it out there).

I just found myself getting irritated by these hucksters having the brass spuds to tell everyone that they are awful writers for doing stuff I've read examples of in a lot of novels I really like (and other books that might not be my cup of tea but have sold a fuckton). Then illustrated these points with a whole bunch of straw men. I just felt like it was a depressing and small-minded account of the craft, really.

And it ignited more generalised thoughts about how much advice out there is perpetuated because it has been learnt and repeated by rote rather than actually properly understood and applied judiciously.

As I say, this isn't really personal (though I spotted one or two things I may have touched on in amongst the hundreds of 'don't do's - I think I was able to justify these to myself though which I guess is the point) but I just have a real bad habit of getting irrationally annoyed by people in positions of self-proclaimed authority getting things WRONG - the bloody shits. On the other hand everyone has to make a living. And most professional writers have to diversify into education etc to make ends meet as it is not exactly a road to riches for all but a few. So I forgive them.

I guess if I was trying to get any debate going it was about the boundaries between useful advice, the stuff to take with a pinch of salt and the stuff to ignore, and how to tell the difference. I guess you have to go with your intuition to a certain extent. And this can only really be honed by the confidence of experience. So you've just got to get on with it.

6005 Camino de la Costa
La Jolla, California
Jan. 18th, 1947

Dear Mr. Weeks:

I'm afraid you've thrown me for a loss. I thought "Juju Worship in Hollywood" was a perfectly good title. I don't see why it has to be linked up with crime and mystery. But you're the Boss. When I wrote about writers this did not occur to you. I've thought of various titles such as Bank Night in Hollywood, Sutter's Last Stand, The Golden Peepshow, All it Needs is Elephants, The Hot Shop Handicap, Where Vaudeville Went it Died, and rot like that. But nothing that smacks you in the kisser. By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have. I think your proofreader is kindly attempting to steady me on my feet, but much as I appreciate the solicitude, I am really able to steer a fairly clear course, provided I get both sidewalks and the street between.

If I think of anything, I'll wire you.

Kindest Regards,

Raymond Chandler

QDRPHNC

I think you can become more creative, and I think you can learn the craft of writing, but I don't think you can learn creative writing.

mr. logic

"As Lester Bangs, patron saint of music journalists once famously worked out, there's a formula to writing music reviews and very few people deviate from it well."

What a fucking awful example of writing this sentence is. Guy needs a wordpress article.

Urinal Cake

I think your aim should be to get published rather than how you write a good novel. Then let the public or zeitgeist make that their judgement. I mean Harry Potter got rejected more than 10 times, Heller of course 22 times and Toole only really got published because of his tragic end and his guilt-ridden mother. Of course Harry Potter is really overrated but as Super Hans you can't trust people but you (or your mother) can really use their money and adoration.

touchingcloth

I'm trying to either find it or recall the specifics, but in Adam Buxton's podcast with Chris Morris, Chris talked about how the best piece of screenwriting advice he had would fit on a Post-it, and was basically "work hard until its finished", rendering the kind of How to Write treatises and experts that exist kind of redundant.

I'll try and dig out the snippet from the show if no one can remind me more exactly what the hell I'm gabbling about.

ZoyzaSorris

Thanks for all the input peoples! Knew there'd be some interesting perspectives on these issues amongst all the tortured creatives here. Love the Chandler letter.

QuoteI think you can become more creative, and I think you can learn the craft of writing, but I don't think you can learn creative writing.

Yes. Love this. Sums up a lot of what I was meanderingly grasping for pretty pithily for me. Damn you. I have definitely got better at the craft of writing and also becoming more creative over the last couple of years through practice and learning from educational sources but I think I have learnt these from different sources.

touchingcloth - will check that out, thanks for the tip.

Urinal Cake - to some extent I agree! I'd rather sell loads than be a starving artist with critical acclaim. Though either would be great from where I'm currently standing with neither. I think to write a popular novel you'd have to disregard quite a lot of these truisms knocking about though.

Though I'm going to have a trademark change of heart to a certain extent. I read more of 'How Not to Write a Novel' last night after having slated it on the basis of only getting a third of the way through and I'm quite enjoying it for what it is now.

It is silly and often stating the obvious and one can think of successful novels in which practically every crime related within is committed. I stand by that.

Really the book is a mixture of basic craft - which can be learnt and improved, but most of the examples are fairly obvious to anyone who has spent some time writing - and comments on the abuse of various tropes (which they present in an extreme and exaggerated fashion). This latter aspect reminds me of my feelings about TV Tropes - quite fun for a bit when I first discovered it years ago then a bit depressing as you realise that they have basically turned literally everything that can possibly happen in a work of fiction into a supposed trope (even the subversion of tropes).

Their (TV Tropes) counter to this would be that they aren't calling out tropes as a bad thing, but essential tools of storytelling that can be used or misused (or overused). I can see where they are coming from but they do seem to have turned it from a catalogue of tropes into just an encyclopedia of anything that has happened in at least one creative work.

Almost everything popular is packed full of tropes. A lot of themes, actions and characters crop up repeatedly for a reason. They reflect reality and the human condition, which are both also repetitive and limited in scope. I mean Harry Potter and Game of Thrones are practically an encyclopedia of tropes of their genres, but that hasn't affected their success. But then familiarity can make people switch off. I guess it just has to have a heart, a hook, that ineffable trigger in the readers brain. Unoriginal shit can be regurgitated in an original way. As long as you are doing it in a considered way, deliberately to your own ends and not accidentally because you think you've come up with this amazing idea that people have already read a million times.

Just cook up some good, entertaining shit isn't that helpful a message though I suppose.

I guess having your viewpoint challenged isn't a bad thing though - it has made me think about a couple of things that may have been a bit lazy and also forced me to justify a couple of other decisions to myself.

So in the end I give the book three stars. This has just ended up as 'How Not to Write a Review of How Not to Write a Novel'.

gloria

I was halfway through writing my first children's book and I read a similar article called something like "The 14 Commonest Mistakes Aspiring Writers Make". Looking at what I'd written I realised and I'd made most of them. So I got discouraged and gave up. Six months later I read through the book again and thought, "Sod it. It's not that bad. At least worth finishing." So I finished it and sent it off. That led to me getting an agent and my first deal. So A) keep at it and B) you can assess what you've written much more objectively if you put it away for a couple of months.

From time to time I run creative writing workshops in schools. I try to offer tips and techniques rather than laying down rules. One thing I've learned is that all bets are off if you're trying to write something funny. You can disregard sacred writing rules like show don't tell and cut out the adverbs in the service of a laugh.

ZoyzaSorris

I was hoping you might pipe up gloria. Sounds like such reactions from the budding author in the face of reductive didacticism* are not unusual then... Yes, creative writing workshops should definitely about offering creative jumping off points, not laying down rules.

I think you are right about the humour aspect and that may be why I am disagreeing quite so vehemently with this stuff as I definitely have a comedy aspect to my writing (where perhaps the supposed 'rules' do apply less). this is the thing, a lot of it seems to be based on a very narrow idea of what a story is.

*Just been listening to the Chris Morris / Adam Buxton podcast where he uses these terms to basically agree with the gist of what I'm clawing at here. Really happy to hear the doyen of this site basically backing me up on this, interesting to hear :)

Bennett Brauer

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on October 28, 2019, 11:35:14 AMfucking annoying and depressing when all these self-appointed gatekeepers try to tell everyone how to write middlebrow sludge, especially when they haven't written much of note themselves, isn't it?

It's obviously useful to learn the basic mechanics of composing fiction but I sometimes wonder whether some of these writing primers are written by people who are themselves blocked or just not successful in the first place. Sara Maitland's 'The Writer's Way' has practical exercises to pick and choose from, or ignore altogether, because she at least has some interesting things to say about creativity as a successful author.

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on October 28, 2019, 11:35:14 AM
The one aspect of the 'how to' industry that is genuinely positive is in explorations of the creative process in general, sharing ways to improve to clear the pathways to your subconscious, to ignite the flow state with a little more reliability. Ways to get the creative juices flowing, basically. That is the real key stuff.

You're probably already familiar with them, but along those lines I'd recommend Dorothea Brande's 'Becoming a Writer', Ray Bradbury's 'Zen in the Art of Writing', and Anne Lamott's 'Bird by Bird'.

Twit 2

A really good tip I got from James Campbell (children's author of the Boyface series - got pipped to the post by Andy Stanton for his kind of thing, but he's a lovely bloke and very funny in person) is:

When you finish writing for the day, start a sentence and leave it intentionally unfinished. Then, the next day you have to start off by finishing it, which will naturally flow into more stuff.

Really good way to avoid procrastination and staring at the blank page.

the midnight watch baboon

Reading the stuff you love and realising that what you want to write/say is to be in an expression of language rather than a calculated repose of it is more important than being told why your protagonist needs to have certain physical features and use certain buzzwords.

Also anyone struggling to be published should be encouraged to debark any do-gooding bastard who trots out the ole, "Well, Harry Potter got rejected loadsa times..." with a corned beef key.

Urinal Cake

Quote from: the midnight watch baboon on October 29, 2019, 06:23:39 PM
Also anyone struggling to be published should be encouraged to debark any do-gooding bastard who trots out the ole, "Well, Harry Potter got rejected loadsa times..." with a corned beef key.
Hey the other option was to tell them to self-publish- which was only really viable when Amazon was pushing it.

ZoyzaSorris

Quote from: Bennett Brauer on October 29, 2019, 11:16:41 AM
It's obviously useful to learn the basic mechanics of composing fiction but I sometimes wonder whether some of these writing primers are written by people who are themselves blocked or just not successful in the first place. Sara Maitland's 'The Writer's Way' has practical exercises to pick and choose from, or ignore altogether, because she at least has some interesting things to say about creativity as a successful author.

You're probably already familiar with them, but along those lines I'd recommend Dorothea Brande's 'Becoming a Writer', Ray Bradbury's 'Zen in the Art of Writing', and Anne Lamott's 'Bird by Bird'.

Yes I wouldn't be surprised on the blocking. Yes, I've read 'Becoming a Writer' and 'Bird by bird', which are definitely more down the right alley - the process of becoming a creative writer, rather than over didactic. Will have to check out 'The Writer's Way' and 'Zen in the Art of Writing'.

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 29, 2019, 06:09:37 PM
A really good tip I got from James Campbell (children's author of the Boyface series - got pipped to the post by Andy Stanton for his kind of thing, but he's a lovely bloke and very funny in person) is:

When you finish writing for the day, start a sentence and leave it intentionally unfinished. Then, the next day you have to start off by finishing it, which will naturally flow into more stuff.

Really good way to avoid procrastination and staring at the blank page.

That's the kind of great advice that is worth sharing.

Quote from: the midnight watch baboon on October 29, 2019, 06:23:39 PM
Reading the stuff you love and realising that what you want to write/say is to be in an expression of language rather than a calculated repose of it is more important than being told why your protagonist needs to have certain physical features and use certain buzzwords.

Also anyone struggling to be published should be encouraged to debark any do-gooding bastard who trots out the ole, "Well, Harry Potter got rejected loadsa times..." with a corned beef key.

I know what you mean but I guess I'm the soppy sort that gains some kind of mild heartening effect from this kind of thing, and I have to look for solace where I can in this blood-curdlingly daunting world!