I have been told that two types of fiction writers exist, and in general, I believe it: the struggle between pantsers and planners. Those who flick out words like firecracker sparks, illuminating, heated, glorious, and come back to the ashes later to see what can be salvaged. And those who sift once the embers of imagination have settled, plucking the finest pieces finally gleaming from the kiln of intention. Both can write with equal skill and usually with equal speed, in the end. Someone who flies by the seat of her pants will just spend far more time editing than writing, and for the planner, vise versa.
As a mentor for Baton Rouge's creative writing non-profit, New South Story Lab, this dichotomy is often the most difficult barrier to understanding the written thoughts and talents of a student completely, at least when part of the day's class involves a writing exercise designed to be completed—or at least delved into—in maybe one hour or less. When presented with a prompt like "An owl lands on your windowsill in the dead of night. It holds a piece of paper in its mouth. What does the paper say?" one student will know immediately where to begin—at the beginning, of course, with a character sleeping soundly until the prompted owl appears with the letter, etc., etc. Their story starts with circumstance. But another student won't touch pen to paper for a while longer, their mind drifting all the way to the end of their story or poem before knowing how to hint it, before knowing which words they want to use. Does the owl rap or does it tap, or brush? How has the character been feeling before the owl appears? What does it mean, in the long-run, for an owl to appear at a window with a mysterious letter? Their story starts with themes. Both methods can churn out a great story, poem, play, or screenplay. But the student who thrives as a planner, and who produces his or her best work that way, is disadvantaged in this rapid-fire workshop situation. I find that planners also tend to be the most serious of the workshop writers (though there are exceptions), but the length of time they take to complete their work nearest its full potential often prevents them from sharing with the class. Or perhaps, because they plan so carefully, always on the lookout for positive changes and edits, they feel that their work will never be share-able, and thus choose to withhold it. I suppose one way around this would be to have the kids complete work at home to share with the class, but since older high school students are usually preparing for college exams and graduating with good grades, even this can be a difficult addition to many students' lives, especially if they're involved in other activities like sports or piano, as I was. It's a hard bridge to balance on! I anyone has any new ideas for a free-flowing workshop that benefits all kinds of writers, please let a poor soul know!
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During my senior year in college, I signed up for a class I needed to complete my English credits, one of those classes with rotating themes and teachers. A necessary evil, I thought, especially once I discovered that the topic-of-the-semester would be Postcolonial Literature, a subject I had rarely heard of before and not one that particularly stirred the book nerd within.
What resulted was one of the most life-changing courses I had ever undertaken as student, with class discussions filled with nuance and healthy argument, a professor who seemed to be able to see an issue from every angle possible, and an introduction to at least one of my favorite young writers, Téa Obreht, through her book, The Tiger's Wife. Now that I've graduated, it's a bit more difficult to find that same caliber of discussion using only the Internet and a few bookish friends who remain in the city. But the previous experience—discussing post-colonial themes in literature and film with an amazingly invested group of young students and teachers—has absolutely made my mind a little bit richer, something I've especially noticed in the midst of trying to handle this country's particularly divisive election cycle. Even now, re-reading Wide Sargasso Sea, a re-telling of sorts of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre from the perspective of that "madwoman in the attic," I've found myself searching JSTOR for further reading—more essays, more commentary, more ironies and paradoxes, more praise and criticism. And it doesn't just improve my reading and writing—it improves the way I live my life. I realize that this is the essence of nerddom, and that most people would rather catch the next episode of The Walking Dead than read an academic article (for the record, I love The Walking Dead and watch it every Sunday...I am, in fact, a little bit normal). But it's also a good thing that too many people fail to do, I think—explore the world beyond the one given to them in school. Reach just a little bit further on their own. A tiny bit of solitude. A tiny bit of study. For just a tiny bit of the week...can maybe result in just a tiny bit of retribution for all of us. |
Christina
23. Reader. Writer. Teacher. Traveler. ArchivesCategories |