Murray, Donald M. Unlearning to Write. Creative Writing in America.

Ha! Here's another author whose book I've used in a class. Namely, Writing to Deadline, which I used with an advanced journalism student.

Anyway, "Unlearning to Write" is quite important to me, because it names many of the differences between composition and teaching writing. Murray states that students who sign up for a fiction class "are usually experienced writers -- too experienced. They have done well at introductory writing courses and literature courses. Many are skillful writers of nonfiction ... The problem is not motivation; the problem is that the students have learned to write. They bring with them knowledge which may be true for some of the writing they have done but which makes the writing of fiction difficult. The better educated the student, the harder it is to return to the natural, magical art of narrative -- the mtoehr of all forms of significant discourse" (103).

Well! Being a former journalist and marketing writer, and seeing firsthand how my fiction writing was both hindered and helped by learning other genres of writing first, I heartily agree. It was so difficult, for example, to learn to imply my message instead of stating it clearly in fiction, to create characters and plot to demonstrate my theme rather than making sure my reader knew it by "concluding" it at the end. In fact, I have a very talented writer that I'm doing an undergraduate independent study with myself who struggles with this.

What Murray states, that it's interesting for an old writer to deconstruct their work and see how it works in a new genre, but for students who are holding onto "truths" about writing composition or in another genre, creative writing can be frustrating and confusing. One concern is that "composition" writers "believe in the precdence of theme. They have the misconception that idea always precedes story" (104). For me, that means, that the focus of their work is emphasized over the narration of it.

Another anomaly is that fiction can have no real starting point, while composition, although it involves planning and focus and organization, usually has some clear direction before the actual work is begun. "Students have been taught to write thesis statements, sentences that contain the conclusion that will be reached afte the writing is done. (Creative) writers write to explore, to discover, to know. The (creative) writer has to keep the idea open so there is room for the story to happen" (105).

The emphasis of (creative) in this paragraph is added by me; yet, even as I consider this paragraph again, I have to say that even in my academic articles, sometimes I don't even know where I'm going. For instance, I wrote a chapter last year on Oprah's book club, and although I had emphases and research to get it going, I was surprised by how I chose to end it. So I don't know how true this point rings ... although perhaps I just wasn't prepared to write the article as I should have been, or was more comfortable, with my creative writing background, to just write the darn thing and see where it went.

Another point Murray makes is that creative writers might strive for surprise in their work, while compositionists know where they're headed and state it clearly ahead of time. He cites several successful writers who state that they write in order to find things out, and then states that "students who seek literary fame have often been taught literature in such a way that they do not understand that the writer was conducting an experiment in meaning; the writer usually finds the theme after reading with surprise what has been written" (106). Again I have to agree, Every time I start a work of fiction I might have some scenes in mind, but I have no idea where it's going; the journey is to discover where it's going. Sometimes I read my work and am surprised by it; I've forgotten the details that came to me when I was just "letting go." However, in my journalism I had a pretty good idea as to what shape the work would take before I started. Perhaps it was just because the works were shorter, for the most part, though.