How Would You Teach Writing?

[NOIRTRASH]

How would you teach 'how to write" to others?

From what I see most experts are clueless to teach what they do.

 

[KindofHere]

......

 

[RetroFan]

1. Make your characters and plotlines interesting. Think about how your characters and their storylines will attract the attention of and engage the interest of potential readers. Ask yourself, "Why would I invest my time reading this work?"

2. Be aware that far-out, unrealistic stories set in far distant futures and fantasy worlds are much harder to make interesting, funny or erotic. There is of course is nothing wrong with writing stories that involve time travel, the supernatural or science fiction (I have written these works myself), but it is far easier to produce a work of this kind that has its roots in the real world. For example, a story about bigfoot monsters terrorizing campers in the woods, a family moving into a haunted house or UFOs wreaking havoc in a small Midwest town has real world factors that readers can identify and engage with. A sci-fi story set in a fantasy world a million years in the future, not so much.

3. Don't suddenly include unrealistic things in a real world story. For example, in a story set completely in reality don't have a character without warning using magic to resolve problems if there is no hint of magic or the supernatural before this.

4. Beware the 'Big Twist' ending. Sure, plot twists can be very good such as a character who seemed like a really nice guy being revealed as the murderer in a murder mystery, but others such as the dreaded 'It Was All A Dream Ending' or finding out a character did not exist but was a figment of another character's imagination are no good, as these betray your readers.

 

[sunandshadow]

I did teach a survey of writing theory course once, and got to write my own curriculum for it. It was a historical approach, starting with Aristotle's Poetics and the concept of mimesis, proceeding through Freytag's triangle and the basics of act theory, the concept of having "a muse", that guy whose name I've forgotten who had a formula for the perfect play, a side trip into myth analysis with Claude Levi-Strauss and Vladamir Propp, Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing and the concept of premise... I think I missed Chekov's Gun and foreshadowing in there somewhere... A comparison of plot to grammar as exemplified by Georges Polti and Plotto... And then all the "modern" stuff from the 70s to the present, like the hero monomyth, archetypes and personal mythology, stuff like inciting incident, hook character arc, mind mapping, note card method, snowflake method, and flow/zen approaches.

Rather than me teaching "how", I wanted to make the students aware of all the existing theories about how and also why.

 

[KindofHere]

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[SamScribble]

Many years ago (everything is many years ago), I taught a class on writing for senior business managers. The biggest challenge was getting them to write the way they spoke (on a good day), and not in the way that they thought important people wrote.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I haven't looked for it, but someone teaches cops how to write better than most writing teachers cam do it. Cops write reports about everything, and the reports make sense and are easy to read. Cops pay attention and observed a lot. They know what matters, and what to ignore.

Lemme see if there are any books for how to teach cops to write.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

https://www.amazon.com/Criminal-Jus...rd_wg=5jPvz&psc=1&refRID=V9348XXGE0D4NG44NB2F

Not an endorsement.

There are plenty of police report writing manuals. Above is one of them.

 

[SusanJillParker]

How would you teach 'how to write" to others?

From what I see most experts are clueless to teach what they do.

It depends on what is being written.

You can easily teach business writing or technical writing by just taking all the good stuff out of it and write boring shit.

Screenwriting is different from magazine writing just as newswriting is different from expository writing. Now, if you're trying to teach someone creative writing...forget about it. That's a horse of a different color.

Ain't no one can teach creative writing to anyone, not Stephen King and not JK Rowling.

Either you have it or you don't. You either can creatively write or you can't. Unfortunately, you can't teach someone to have a creative imagination. I even took a course in creativity, just to see. Working with different forms, wood, metal, clay, crayon, paint, and colored pencil while scribbling on a page. It can't be done.

The best writers, just as the best painters, piano players, et al, are those who never had a lesson and those who just wake up one day and write, paint, and/or play.

This isn't math or rocket science, it's writing creatively. If you want to be a great writer, you must be a great reader. My advice is to read first. Read everything. Then, much like eating lots of prunes, the words will come pouring out of you.

"What's she doing up there? Why is she on the toilet for so long?"

"She's, um, writing."

There's so much more to creative writing then just having the talent. You need the discipline to lock yourself away for hours at a time. You need the discipline to stay to yourself and within yourself so that not only will your characters speak to you but also you won't have the static interference and distortion not to hear them.

For sure, you can't write creatively if you're going bowling, working 8 hours a day, dating, raising a family, catering to someone, or even going to school for English. Moreover, you can't write if you're reading. Do all your reading first. Get the reading out of the way and then write, write, and write.

Write, just write. Develop your characters. Let them help you write whatever it is you need to put to paper.

Good luck in writing your best seller.

 

[SusanJillParker]

Much in the way of Sean Connery playing William Forrester in the movie, Finding Forrester, a true artist of the art of writing, music, and whatever other form of personal creativity and freedom of expression, would never prostitute themselves by selling their art.

As if a Joker in servitude to entertain the King, they'd never publish what they wrote. As if a monkey on a leash, they'd never play their music in front of an audience for money. They'd never want to hear the voices of the public criticizing or even applauding what they've done. That's just noise, extraneous noise and distortion that takes them away from their art by reducing what they've done to rubbish. Something so personal is none of anyone's business. Something so valuable must be kept private.

A true artist writes and plays for no one but him or herself. Difficult to comprehend but unless you're a true artist, you'd never understand the concept of not profiting on your God given talent. A true artist would rather destroy what they've created than to share it with someone who'd never understand what they created and why they created it.

As if I wrote them in my personal journal which I don't have and have never kept, I have plenty of stories that I'd never post anywhere or share with anyone. Some of my best writings are those that I've written for myself.

No one, not even yourself, can teach you how to write creatively. Either you have it or you don't. Either you're born with it or you're not. Some of the greatest of published writers are just pretenders to the throne. They only write for the money. They're not true artists. They're prostitutes and they ruin the art by selling what they create. How dare they?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I looked at a police report manual. Then noticed Raymond Chandler wrote his books police report style. Chandler said cops learn to write from reading crime novels. There may be truth to it. And plenty of former cops are crime writers. That said, I've never anything by a social worker that makes any sense. Social workers are afraid to commit themselves to any fact or opinion.

 

[oggbashan]

There's writing and writing.

The techniques of writing - sentences, grammar, use of adjectives and adverbs, styles for different audiences - can be taught. Those techniques are essential for communication.

Non-Fiction

Writing reports, analyses, sales pitches? The techniques can be taught and formulas such as SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) can bring order to disconnected ideas.

Or for a presentation: Tell them what are going to tell them; tell them with examples and illustrations; and finish by telling then what you have told them.

Fiction

There is less opportunity to teach creative writing. The technical details such as how to construct a plot, how to build a character? Yes, they can be taught.

What can't be taught easily is "How to tell a story". Storytelling doesn't need to be written. If the person can tell about a recent incident in a way that people want to hear the outcome - they're a storyteller. If a person has that ability teaching them to write their stories down is possible. If they can't tell a story it is very difficult to teach them how to do it.

I have been on several creative writing courses for begineers. It is easy to tell at the first session who will be successful and who won't be. The likely to be successful ones can verbally tell of an incident, describe a situation, even tell an old fairy tale. All they need is the techniques to put their storytelling into recorded words on screen or paper. The ones who will fail are those that make everything that happens to them uninteresting and boring. They don't have a story to tell and it is very unlikely that will change.

 

[HeyAll]

Write what's in your imagination. Write how you visualize. Explain your thoughts.

 

[SusanJillParker]

Write what's in your imagination. Write how you visualize. Explain your thoughts.

That's not always easy to write what you imagine but can't see.

Too many beginner writers tell instead of show and lecture instead of write a story.

If it was that easy to write what we visualize, we'd all be best selling writers.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I spent lotsa time in court during my career. As the state's agent I wrote most of the legal stuff and attorneys from the Attorney Generals Office signed them. More or less I did all the paperwork from probable cause affidavit to disposition. Judges and lawyers love clear, concise, and to the point...no digressions or incoherence. It aint tangential, loose associated, incoherent unicorn farts so many writers love.

 

[Voboy]

Read your Tolkien. Once a year, starting in 3rd grade.

Boom. You'll know proper sentence construction and the right balance of adjectives to verbs.

Then, as you read more throughout your life, just compare everything to Tolkien and figure out when and why other writers use the techniques they use.

Profit.