Crybaby Lane

Workshop-bashing is common bloodsport.  In a recent HuffPo column, Ruth Fowler went on a tirade that linked Tea Obreht of recent-Orange-Prize-winning fame with–you got it–the proliferation of MFA programs.  You can read the essay here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruth-fowler/orange-prize-_b_874173.html?ref=fb&src=sp

Sure, Fowler’s essay is histrionic and over-the-top, and many of her claims are tangential and borderline incoherent–even personal, mean, and sometimes sexist (still with me?)–and yet, I’m always struck by the number of people who respond to critics like Fowler with complete dismissal, as if–heaven forbid–someone dares to critique a model that’s not even a century old, one that’s housed primarily in academic institutions no less. Gasp! (And don’t tell me that 15 students forced to sit in a circle–in a classroom with desks and a chalkboard–to critique each other’s work for a grade is the same as Hemingway agreeing beforehand to receive tutelage from Stein, because it’s not).

The truth is that there are too many critics of the workshop to completely ignore some of their concerns, even if those concerns are often tinged by bitterness.  One common complaint is that the workshop breeds safe, mediocre writing—writing that’s scared to offend, overly polished, neat, tidy, and “polite.” On this last point, I sometimes quote Alice LaPlante (Method and Madness) in my undergraduate classes–”creative writing is the last place in the world where you want to be ‘appropriate’–appropriate is for dinner parties.”

Yes.

Anyway, in Narrative Design, Madison Smartt Bell writes the following:

“…ninety-five percent of all workshops in academia are nothing if not craft-driven. Their general mission is to teach a repertory of techniques. Probably these techniques will not be taught in any specific programmatic order, but instead are more likely to be brought up apropos of a particular story. Thus a student who is ambitious to write many different kinds of stories will acquire a larger bag of technical skills than one who is not. But the talk is always technical. It’s all about the mechanics of plot, of characterization, setting, description, point of view, voice, tone, and so on. The attitude of the group toward the work is surgical…all this is much as it should be: you cannot really learn anatomy without dissection. But the risk is that the process will lead the student to forget that the story is supposed to be a living organism. Tilted too far in the direction of mechanics, the process will turn out monsters of mere technique” (8-9).

I love this, and I love how, throughout his book,  Bell never goes too far in either direction–he’s too experienced of a teacher to advocate a workshop devoid of craft and technique instruction, and he realizes that a workshop that tilts heavily in favor of writers’ psyches has numerous pitfalls, some of which are unethical roads for the teacher to venture down, so let’s get this out of the way right now before I’m accused of advocating classroom psychotherapy: fiction writers need to learn craft and technique–rigorously.  I don’t think anyone actually disagrees with this concept.

Nonetheless, Bell expresses concern over a model–one that often operates as a fault-finding mechanism and is always looking to “fix” things–that can sometimes emphasize craft and technique to the point of inducing writerly-paralysis and writing in ways that are safe (“safe” in terms of the writer’s craft and topics, though the common workshop-sanctioning of what topics are off-limits to some or even all writers–despite the need for good writing to always be honest–is a different post for another day).

Anyway, “where is the heart in this story?” is a question I often ask myself when reading some contemporary fiction, as if the writer just memorized all of the famous “craft” books yet forgot along the way about the wildness, irreverence, quirkiness, engagement with the world (as opposed to navel-gazing) and brutal honesty that characterizes most fiction that stands the test of time. Fiction that is organic and comes from every fiber of the writer’s being–the soulful kind that ultimately destroys and rebuilds itself, the kind with suffering on each page and real, raw emotion, like the kick-in-the-gut when reading Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”–yes, the craft is superb, yes, his style is incredible and these things obviously contribute to his delivery, but what hits the chest is that blood on each page, it’s that emotion–goddamn that emotion–because the only test that matters in the end (to me, at least) is if it moves readers in an interesting way, and you just know that Baldwin couldn’t imagine his life without having written that story, one he knew only he could write, and needed to write.  Why should I waste time reading stories that feel “written to be written”? There are better things to do, like listening to Sam Cooke on vinyl, or eating Eastern North Carolina barbecue (a noun, Yankees, not a verb–you can’t barbecue a damn hamburger or hotdog, for God’s sake, just stop it already) that was cooked over wood coals for eight hours, starting at 2 or 3 AM by men and women who live for making barbecue so much, they’re willing to wake up before the crack of dawn so it’s ready by lunchtime.

And how often are these things–wildness, irreverence, quirkiness, and brutal honesty–often shunned in workshops? Often, I’d say–and often way too early in the process.  Sure, we can say, “it’s up to the writer to take care of those things on his or her own,” but is it really that simple, when many writing students are still searching–sometimes desperately, and with little support from friends and family–for their own unique voices? This, I think, is the issue at the heart of many critiques of the workshop, critiques that may be over-the-top and misapplied (as in the case of Fowler) yet still manage to get at some kernel of truth beneath the rubble, which is: in the arts, mere competency is boring.

I don’t have any easy answers, and I don’t advocate a workshop model that eschews craft and technique, but I do wonder how we can find a better way to balance craft and technique with these less tangible matters that often distinguish “competent” fiction from fiction that has the potential to transcend itself and stand the test of time. If we can acknowledge that a workshop shouldn’t exist without craft and technique instruction, then we can acknowledge the same for matters of “inspiration” and look for ways to improve the balance, since it’s obviously easier to focus on craft and technique.  Yet, in an ideal workshop, shouldn’t the two go hand-in-hand? What do you all think? What are your experiences?

Here are two somewhat related videos to riff off the above:

First, here’s Chuck D talking about rap/hip hop and the need for rap artists–and all artists–to embrace “daring-ness” and to never sacrifice honesty and their most authentic selves when creating music (and art).  I love how so many of his points apply to writing:

And here’s Sandra Cisneros on her miserable workshop experience, one that highlights the potential relationship between class and gender and a sometimes rigid model: