The Problem with Teaching Creative Writing

"Only a true author will realize the sheer terror of the slight pause that follows the words: 'So I read your book . . .' " -Neil D'Silva

Disclaimer: based on my own personal experience, duh. 

So, I'm taking my very first creative writing class - shocker, huh? Well, this was the first opportunity I've had to take it in high school. 

As someone who's been writing essentially my whole life, I've been through the writing process multiple times. I spend most of my waking time either reading, writing, researching writing, or thinking about writing. 

Granted, this is only a high school level creative writing class, and the teacher is teaching from the ground up. However, as we're closing out our first unit - on poetry, unfortunately - I've realized something about the way many people view and teach writing. 

The writing process begins with brainstorming, then writing, then time away, then editing, and then finalizing and submitting your work. However, in this creative writing class, the ratio of brainstorming and writing to editing is about 9:1. And that's bad when writing and editing should be a ratio of 1:1, or even 2:3.

 Regardless of your skill level, the teacher should be stressing that no piece of writing is ever finished in its first draft. It is absolutely essential, and I'm under the impression that in this class, and especially in the world of newer writers, not enough emphasis is put on editing - editing your novel, a scene, a poem, anything. 

Editing is awful, but it's essential. And so is feedback. Feedback is grouped under the umbrella term of editing, and throughout the poetry unit, out of 8 poems, two people looked at two poems, one each. That's absolutely ridiculous!

Maybe I'm expecting too much out of pretty much a 101 class with a crunch for time, but I demand excellence, so that's what I will get out of myself. 

In other news, I hate poetry and I can't wait to move on. Except next we're doing memoirs and I hate writing about myself outside of my diary. 

Yes, I keep a diary. It's a good writing habit. 

~The WordShaker