Jauss, David. "Articles of Faith." Creative Writing in America.

This article starts out with a statement that might quite differentiate the teachings of creative and composition: "Teaching fiction writing is in at least one way like writing fiction, for both arts (and I do claim for teaching the honorific "art") require a willing suspension -- not of disbelief but of beliefs" (63). This shows one of the disparities between composition and creative writing. I've often found that composition professors believe that the writing process can be explained and analyzed in several ways. Creative writers, however, are willing to believe that there is no one process, but rather the writing can be an art, something that you believe in as much as you will to happen. If we push the process in just one way, "the danger is not that we'll impose our aesthetics on our students -- that's inevitable and even, to an extent, desirable -- but that we won't provide them room to develop their own ... The best students will sift through the advice I offer and take only what serves their aims; the worst will attempt to write what they falsely think I want" (63).

I do feel that I am more directive in my composition classes, especially the first-year composition and technical/professional writing classes, as there can be forms and techniques that are helpful to those genres. However, I find that in my creative and expository writing classes a light touch is best, as I don't want students to write for a specific academic or professional aim, but for their own enlightenment. It seems more OK for them to fail at creative writing, to be more experimental, as they are writing more to find voice and style as expression.

Also touched upon here is the creative writing teacher's dependence on books, not textbooks, but novels and short stories, to teach the process of creation. "To learn to write well, you must read widely and deeply. Occasionally, a student will say, 'I don't read because I don't want to be influenced.' My answer? 'You should try to be influenced by as many great writers as possible.' "

I find that, in composition classes, my students are thrilled to be given a few examples of the lessons we are trying to accomplsh, be they expressive, persuasive, or technical/professional documents. Apparently this is not always the case in their composition classes, as we depend more on "lessons" than showing a finished product. However, it does seem that creative writing classes constantly depend on examples of other writing to show craft. At Goddard, I'm required to read a novel a week and to analyze it for a craft element; after a year of this, I have to admit that the books I read always inspire me in some way, if not the style than a detail, at least. As Jauss states, "Reading won't help you much unless you learn how to read like a writer. You must look at a book the way a carpenter looks at a house someone else built, examining the details in order to see how it was made. A scholar reads the product; a writer, the process" (64). This is where the studies of literature and creative writing vary; too often I've been in a literature class where someone is trying to make too much of the symbolism of a tree, and I'm thinking, "Uh, that was just setting."

Another statement made here goes back to the Freud I read earlier: "To adapt a comment that Philip Dacey, who was speaking about poetry, once made, 'Fiction writing is too important to be taken seriously.' Let me clarify this paradox with another: as Friedrich Nietzsche said, 'Man's maturity' consists in recapturing 'the seriousness he had as a child at play' (footnote 1). This, I think, is especially true of a writer, for writing is not work but serious play" (64). Again, creative writers are allowed to look at their writing as more than a necessary evil, as students can in composition classes; we love the writing and want to do it, even fail at it, because we know we do not *have* to write; we just must. I liked this fact: "Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who tells of using up five hundred pieces of paper in the process of writing a fifteen-page story, is a good examle of a writer engaged in serious play" (footnote 2, 65).

Also, creative writers are given more leeway to doubt themselves, while in composition we seem to prioritize strategies to help the communication process (although revision is still emphasized). "The best attitude toward writing is what Keats described as 'negative capability' -- the ability to persis despite uncertainty and doubt' (footnote 3). You must make friends with doubt. It is the imagination's greatest ally, for it forces you to consider possibilities -- different word choices, rhythms, character traits, events, and so forth -- you would ne ver consider if you moved too abruptly to closure and certainly. Although we often associate genius with confidence and certainty, great writers are almost always those whose doubts about themselves and their art are extreme" (65).

Also, working with an outline is often discouraged in creative writing, while they seem essential to organization and focusing in composition. "Outlines are helpful only insofar as you consider them something as tentative as any o ther part of the creative process ... If you don't revise, or even abandon, your outline at some point in the composition, you're not really writing, and all you can hope for is the literary equivalent ofa connect-the-dots picture" (65).

Finally, Jauss names another differentiation between composition and creative writing: In composition, the focus, thesis, points, are stated clearly and succinctly, so that the reader can understand them. However, in creative writing "what you leave out of a story is as important tothe story's success as what you put in, for good fiction derives much of its e ffect from careful omission ... In Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants,' for example, what hte charactes don't say is more important than what they do say, and the story's drama arises out of the confict between their implied thoughts and their narrated words" (71).

Finally, too many composition classes emphasize putting the focus/thesis statement of the work close to the first paragraph of the work; I have always resisted this because if felt like I was getting bonked over the head with it. This might be due to my creative writing background: "Ernest Gaines once said in a speech that every story should begin with a man standing in the middle of a freeway during rush hour; that way, he either had to move or the story was over. All too often, students' stories begin passively, with a character remembering the events of recent days, weeks, or even years. This is a too-convenient way to introudce exposition and doesn't involve the reader sufficiently. Put your characters into a situation requiring action" (72). I can find myself at odds with other composition instructors over this, but I ask my composition students to ease into their thesis statements by showing a clear example of it, often from their own experience to show their authority and interest in it, and to snag the reader with a bit of storytelling.

1. Neitzsche, Friedrich. [1885] Beyong Good and Evil. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co, 1955.

2. Simons, Marlise. "Love and Age: A Talk with Garcia Marquez." New York Times Book Review, April 7, 1985: 1, 18-19.

3. Bush, Douglas, ed. Selected Poems and Letters, by John Keats. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959.