CAN CREATIVE WRITING BE TAUGHT?

I have to say I am quite irritated by the number of articles I read which go over the same ground, asking this same question over and over again. There is an implicit assumption that Real Writers are born, not made, and that teaching creative writing as a degree is an attempt to legitimise mediocrity. If creative writing can be learnt, which clearly it can, then it can be taught. Therefore the issue isn’t whether it should be taught, which clearly it should, but how.

Even if William Shakespeare himself stood at the front of a lecture theatre with a power point, his words of wisdom would only help the students who went away and tried to put his suggestions into practice. The same is true of people attending Robert McKee’s 'Story’ screenwriting seminars. Any student of creative writing will only learn how to write better, and what good writing means, if they read a lot and write a lot. In other words, via experiential learning.

Lecturers and ‘experts’ can share their own experience and talk about  tactics, and they can talk about the components of poetry and prose – theme, plot, characterisation, style, language, genre and so on. But - in the immortal phrase of Captain Hector Barbossa - creative writing programmes provide ‘more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules’.

 As in The Pirates of the Caribbean however, the guidelines are rather important. If you want to 'break the rules', or subvert the guidelines, you need to know what they are. Picasso's early work shows a complete mastery of draughtsmanship and conventional portraiture - his experimentation came later. Just as art schools help students develop their own style by working in different media and thinking laterally, so should creative writing programmes.

Writing tutors don’t set out to produce homogeneous wannabes, but to help each student learn about their field, establish a continuing working practice and find their own voice. Or at least, that’s what good ones should do. In my opinion.  And that is what the debate should be about.