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What can be taught?

May9

Just finished up an online workshop — it’s like teaching with a paper bag over your head.  You want to see your student’s eyes, to see if they’re getting it, but you have to go by emails (always a tricky medium to use).  There are times I feel as if I’m too harsh, but then it’s compressed teaching (lots over info over 8 posts), and that’s always harsh.

And workshops always lead me back to wondering if there are some things about writing, about story telling, that can’t be taught.

I’ve heard some writers say there’s a certain something that a writer has or does not have–a talent–and if this lacking that person is never going to write a book that will sell.

On the other hand, I’m a great believer in technique and structure, and that if you have those two things, well, you may never hit the best seller list (that also requires not just talent, but luck), you can at least write a decent story that could sell.

But is there a certain something beyond technique, something that perhaps stirs a writer to write in the first place?  A quirk of mind perhaps that goes beyond the talent of putting words together?  Is there an innate skill with words that hits one person, but skips another?  An inner-ear perhaps for the rhythm in words, so that someone might well be language-deaf the same way that someone can be tone-deaf, so that while structure and technique can be taught, that inner-ear will always be missing?

Years ago, I had the luck to take a riding clinic from George Morris who went on to coach the Olympic team.  Brilliant rider–a classical rider.  Harsh teacher.  He never gave praise unless it was more than earned, and often could reduce someone to tears–but he was right. And you came out of his clinics a better rider.

He said that he’d rather have a solid technical rider over a brilliant natural rider. Because the technical rider always has those skills to fall back on–technique will never fail you.  But the brilliant rider will be brilliant one day, and then, the next day that brilliance may not shine–and there’s nothing then to save that rider from crashing and burning.

That’s stuck with me, and seems applicable to writing.

A writer with solid techniques–an understanding of grammar, story structure, scene structures, and how to build a character, show that character in action, and craft emotion into a scene–will be a solid writer. That writer may never be more than solid–but those techniques will never fail that writer. There won’t be brilliance that shines one day, and is dull the next (and that’s got to be a kind of hell in its own unreliable fashion).

So I think that maybe technique is enough–along with the burning desire to keep telling stories.

And I refuse to think that there’s anyone in this world lacking in imagination–that’s got to be hard-wired in our heads.

So perhaps there is a certain something that cannot be taught. There’s a gift that some folks have and it makes that person more than an average writer.

But there’s a place, thank god, for craftsmen in this world–for capable writers who can produce a good product on demand and on schedules.  And it’s not a bad place to be if it leaves you still writing.

April Online Workshop

Mar21

I’m doing the Show & Tellworkshop online again for OCC–not sure it’s good that this seems to be a perennial favorite. However, I took a year off from giving this workshop, and that was good–time always gives perspective (and new things to say).

The interesting thing about this workshop is that most folks get how to “tell” a story, but don’t get that good “telling” takes as much work to craft beautiful prose as does good “showing” (or action).  In fact, I sometimes think a beautiful narrative passage is even more work.  This is a difficult concept to teach, because, it’s like music–you have an ear for it (language or music) or you don’t.  If you don’t there’s no teaching it.

It’s also interesting in that so many writers are hung up on having been told to show more that that’s all they want to focus on.  And the real trick to learn is not just to show, but to show the RIGHT things.  It’s not the details, the actions, that make a character–it’s the right actions.

The other interesting thing will be to see what mix is in the workshop.  There are always more than a few lurkers, which is cool, but it’s not like a classroom where you can look at the quiet ones and know which ones get it and which ones are struggling.  There are a few teacher’s pets who do every assignment and ask tons of questions but I sometimes have the feeling they’re too focused on doing it ‘right’ and that can defeat the point of learning.  There are the difficult ones, because email as a form of communication can leave much to be desired, and sometimes I wonder why these folks signed up for anything since they just seem to want to do things their ways. And then there are the surprises. That’s the best part of any workshop. We’ll see what this one brings.