Fiction Formula
September 26, 2007 by haziamyperspective
Two weeks ago, I pretty much have made up mind to attend a 3-month advance creative writing course, although I was still too busy to drop by and register.
The staff emailed me 2 questions to work on (it was basically to get me on the same page as the other students because I didn’t attend their basic writing course). She even gave me specific deadlines, Q1 within a week and Q2 within 2 weeks. I asked a few questions to clarify. The instructor replied my email without copying her staff and vice versa. The whole exercise was a big mistake.
1) Their answers were different, opposite even. The staff didn’t even know what she was talking about.
2) I rushed out my answers way before the deadline. The instructor asked me to work on 1 point at a time instead and let her response before working on the next point (Q1 only). However, it took her 3 days to reply my email each time, so why did she give me a 1-week deadline in the first place?
3) I also noticed that she was too caught up in semantics/terms, too rigid. She couldn’t even explain clearly / give example of the difference between an Outline and a Summary through email. So, what’s with the 2-week deadline anyway.
Such unprofessionalism really put me off. So, because of these few interactions, in 2 weeks, I went from having second thoughts to deciding not to join the course at all. It’s not so much the RM2700, it’s the (23 days x 3.5 hours) + (4 Saturdays x 6 hours) sessions that bother me. That is a lot of hours (if you’re not happy).
Coincidentally, this morning, I found the comments below on their course. Sam Dacks (http://thebookaholic.blogspot.com/2006/01/coming-to-terms.html) even said that some writing schools, especially in the US, were teaching writing formula. In the long run, it resulted in homogeneity of style; producing mechanical writers. It kills talent, spontanity and not to mention the joy of writing.
I have to say that I was lucky to have joined the right creative writing course last year. The approach was more common sense that anything else. And you don’t come across all these fancy terms. And my instructor has promised guidance and training for as long as I need it:)
Excerpts:
‘They all did pretty well with their presentations, though I felt that in every case they were trying to be terribly over-ambitious, with plots that were just way way too complex and not enough understanding that good stories must be primarily character driven.
The potential novelist had a good idea basic plot but I am not sure that she will be able to make her character’s change of heart (on which the whole novel turns) convincing to the reader. I told her afterwards to fastwrite the whole thing and let the characters take charge of the story, because they would know better than her where to go with it.’
~ Sharon Bakar on a students’ presentation that she attended, http://thebookaholic.blogspot.com/2005/06/pitching-in.html ~
‘But more than that, I felt uneasy with the whole concept that they were marketing; the Dale Carnegie meets story writing course was a bit too hokey for me. Just like the global corporate training enterprise, the company had an approach that employed the ability to write as a means to market oneself better and I feared that this end could diminish the pleasure and fulfillment of writing in itself.
… I could see myself feeling shortchanged if I were coached by a person to write not to bring out the little voice within me, but to bring myself to fit the mold of ideal employee when I start job-hunting. I don’t want my writing, something I consider very genuine and honest, to be bundled together with how I can appear more attractive as a job candidate …’
~Adriana on her writing course research, http://www.malaysiakini.com/rentakini/36500 ~
