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/lit/ - Literature

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418002 No.418002 [Reply] [Original]

What's with all those Creative Writing courses at Western universities? There's nothing of this sort here in my country and I'm just wondering what they're worth. Do all those students actually expect to make a living off writing poems and stories? What does one learn there? This sounds like utter bullshit to my Eastern ears but maybe these courses are actually useful... Looking forward to your opinions. Also, I study literature, so it's not like I'm trying to troll or start a discussion on god tier/shit tier degrees here. Just wondering.

>> No.418026

take a shot of your Kiwi Citrus Green Tea smoothie and calm down

>> No.418030

most of them aren't worth much that you couldn't get in a non-university course.
The constant push to write and the reviewing is the most important part about them. In university you should focus on writing good non-fiction anyway. And let me tell you, its just as good as an art to write good non-fiction as it is to write fiction. Because most scientific books and articles I read (and review in some cases) is so badly written it borders on the incomprehensible.

>> No.418135

>>418030
That's kind of what I figured... Any creative writing students here?

>> No.418220

>>418002

a single creative writing course might be fun, simply for the forced revision/rewriting and so on. however, creative writing degrees are all scams. really, what do they teach you that reading and writing a lot wouldn't teach you? why should you pay money or take out loans just to get people to critique your work? oh, you have an MFA in creative writing. who cares? publishers sure don't. i'd be interested in hearing someone defend the idea of majoring in creative writing.

>> No.418233

I agree. It's bad enough we get shit like "sequential art". I have a bad feeling about any sort of class that tries to "teach creativity", as opposed to simply developing a skill.

On the other hand, it's an exaggeration to say literature majors are a gateway to a job at Starbucks.

>> No.418261

Yeah, I'd like to experience them a bit to see if they're fun for a while, but I doubt anyone takes them seriously to the point of trying to start their careers of them.

The feedback of some people here on /lit/ tends to be negative, though. Full of hypocrisy as the teachers keep talking about creativity but reject anything that wasn't of their taste, regardless of actual quality.

>> No.418273 [DELETED] 

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Moses, Man of the Mountain
Dust Tracks on the Road
Mules and Men
Seraph on the Suwanee

>> No.418297 [DELETED] 

I don't think there is about one creative writing course at my University & it's really hard to get into (you need to do an interview, be recommended by a prof or something, and all this other crap). I never understood Creative Writing Studies, as in something you could major in. I'm Canadian by the way.

>> No.418303

I think there is about one creative writing course at my University & it's really hard to get into (you need to do an interview, be recommended by a prof or something, and all this other crap). I never understood Creative Writing Studies, as in something you could major in. I'm Canadian by the way.

>> No.418318

>>418261
yeah, there's a certain "style" of writing that they mold you into in these classes....it's hard to define, but basically they want you to churn out low key stories about events in your past while maintaining a slightly ironic pose towards everything. everything has to be a "memoir" about growing up, learning to love, believing in yourself.......basically endless navel-gazing written in the most flat, non descript style possible....if it isn't doesn't resemble a story your uncle told you about working on a farm, or a story about some starbucks employee's weekend, they don't want to hear it. possible exceptions are made for lame pseudo magic realist bullshit where anything unrealistic (which is always going to be a very obvious metaphor for some problem in the protagonists personal relationships) is handled calmly and ironically by everyone involved.

angry....so angry at the current state of writing.

>> No.418335

>>418261
I have one friend at NYU who is taking all of it seriously.

All his stories fucking suck shit, and haven't seemed to really improve much than when he first started, but he's seemed to wise up and contemplate another major for next semester.

Creative Writing classes are good for critique I suppose, but goddamn, make it a minor or something.

>> No.418345

I'd certainly like to take a course like that just to see what it's like... or even a non-uni course, for that matter. Nothing seems available where I live.

>> No.418354

>>418345
find some acquaintances who also write. read each others stories and critique them. bam...that is literally a creative writing course for free.

>> No.418387

>>418354
We're doing that already :) But thanks.

>> No.418390
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418390

I've only attended one creative writing course, and I doubt they're all like this, but my understanding is that they essentially teach you two things: (1) read lots and lots of books that aren't shit like Harry Potter, (2) write as often as you can. If you do those two things constantly you'll get better at writing. Everything else we did were just writing exercises, word games, reading published work and student work, and we'd learn about author's writing process. The teacher would give us some critique, but we rarely ever did student critiquing (thank god), instead we would do something called a recall exercise, where we would just say what we remembered from what was just read or what was read the previous week, usually students only tend to remember the well written stuff.

Helpful? Yes, but you can only take away so much from it and then you're off just as well on your own. And there are some students who take the classes for two years and don't improve at all just because they're stubborn dumb asses.

>> No.418405

It's like a degree in art, if you need it to succeed then you aren't going to