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Creative Writing:Are you taking it?
Hey people, I was wondering how many of us are taking Creative Writing at Uni,if we're doing it as a major, minor or combined and why we chose it rather than English?
I'm taking it combined with Psychology.
I decided to take it over English because I like to write outside of college and it's my dream to become a professional author, so I thought some proper tutelage in the subject might help.
How about everyone else?
<33
I'm taking it combined with Psychology.
I decided to take it over English because I like to write outside of college and it's my dream to become a professional author, so I thought some proper tutelage in the subject might help.
How about everyone else?
<33
Scroll to see replies
I'm doing it, woo! I'm doing it combined with English, starting in sept.
As to why...I'm not sure. I've always written, I don't even really enjoy it. It's like an irritating compulsion, but hey, feels great when you've finished something. Until I look at it again and pretty much want to change all of it, but those few minutes of bliss are worth it.
As to why...I'm not sure. I've always written, I don't even really enjoy it. It's like an irritating compulsion, but hey, feels great when you've finished something. Until I look at it again and pretty much want to change all of it, but those few minutes of bliss are worth it.
I'm doing straight English. But, at my uni, we pretty much get free reign with our module choices in second and third year, so I've chosen the creative writing modules that were available this year, and at the moment I'm planning to take the modules next year, too. When I applied for uni, I decided against applying for a creative writing course for various reasons, so I'm glad I have the opportunity to do it.
silvernatasha
I'm doing straight English. But, at my uni, we pretty much get free reign with our module choices in second and third year, so I've chosen the creative writing modules that were available this year, and at the moment I'm planning to take the modules next year, too. When I applied for uni, I decided against applying for a creative writing course for various reasons, so I'm glad I have the opportunity to do it.
Hey, what reasons are those?
<33
Wackywitchwillow
Hey people, I was wondering how many of us are taking Creative Writing at Uni,if we're doing it as a major, minor or combined and why we chose it rather than English?
I'm taking it combined with Psychology.
I decided to take it over English because I like to write outside of college and it's my dream to become a professional author, so I thought some proper tutelage in the subject might help.
How about everyone else?
<33
I'm taking it combined with Psychology.
I decided to take it over English because I like to write outside of college and it's my dream to become a professional author, so I thought some proper tutelage in the subject might help.
How about everyone else?
<33
where are you doing your course by the way?
I'm in my second year of studying English Lit with Creative Writing. I chose the subject in the hope that I would gain skill and determination. However, I've become disillusioned with writing classes (I find them too rigid, which doesn't suit the subject) and I now plan to drop the CW modules and concentrate on learning the craft alone. It's not an arrogant decision, rest assured; I just believe that I should have free reign over my education as a writer. So many writes have made it known - both implicitly and explicitly - that the best way to learn the craft is to suffer on your own! 
My partner teaches on a Creative Writing BA and MA, and the problem he finds with students is that many of them are reluctant to read anything that isn't either their own work or directly connected to it. It is important to realise that to be better writers, students need to read as widely as possible, to have a good knowledge of the techniques available to them and to understand about the nature of influence, as well as satire and pastiche. So many Creative Writing students show total reluctance to read other writers, and so what they write is very limited. Some even complained on the BA that they were 'made to read books'.
Can people try and explain to me a little bit more why they do Creative Writing?
I ask because as someone who enjoys creative writing (and as part of that who has run the creative writing society at Exeter for a year), I don't think that anyone can definitively and quantifiably tell you how to write. They can make suggestions structurally - but what makes one person a better writer than another? Who decides? Surely it's purely subjective and on that subjective basis, what makes someone so qualified to teach a creative writing course? Is it number of books published? If so that seems shallow and not a reliable measure of how good a creative writer someone is.
I just find the idea of someone telling you how to write a bit sinister, like they're trying to mould you in their own image. Plus, while I understand completely that sharing your work with others is beneficial to one's development as a writer, surely this can be just as easily achieved through a creative writing circle rather than doing a degree in it? While most of the creative writers I meet are very clever individuals (not including myself ), I wouldn't class creative writing as something academic, as to me it stands outside that.
Plus, I don't know how favourably employers look on a creative writing degree or a creative writing dissertation - surely demonstrating that you can write critically is more highly regarded and more easily transferable to employment than creative writing is?
Someone please tell me, based on this, why you would do a creative writing degree (aside from enjoyment - I mean in terms of practicalities and how it develops you as a writer). I've been trying to figure it out and I just don't get it.
I ask because as someone who enjoys creative writing (and as part of that who has run the creative writing society at Exeter for a year), I don't think that anyone can definitively and quantifiably tell you how to write. They can make suggestions structurally - but what makes one person a better writer than another? Who decides? Surely it's purely subjective and on that subjective basis, what makes someone so qualified to teach a creative writing course? Is it number of books published? If so that seems shallow and not a reliable measure of how good a creative writer someone is.
I just find the idea of someone telling you how to write a bit sinister, like they're trying to mould you in their own image. Plus, while I understand completely that sharing your work with others is beneficial to one's development as a writer, surely this can be just as easily achieved through a creative writing circle rather than doing a degree in it? While most of the creative writers I meet are very clever individuals (not including myself
), I wouldn't class creative writing as something academic, as to me it stands outside that.Plus, I don't know how favourably employers look on a creative writing degree or a creative writing dissertation - surely demonstrating that you can write critically is more highly regarded and more easily transferable to employment than creative writing is?
Someone please tell me, based on this, why you would do a creative writing degree (aside from enjoyment - I mean in terms of practicalities and how it develops you as a writer). I've been trying to figure it out and I just don't get it.
Some people find Creative Writing degrees extremely rewarding, but I find that simply the study of English Literature can stimulate that skill and interest.
Angelil
what makes one person a better writer than another? Who decides? Surely it's purely subjective and on that subjective basis, what makes someone so qualified to teach a creative writing course? Is it number of books published? If so that seems shallow and not a reliable measure of how good a creative writer someone is.
Well, as an English literature student you must concede that some writers simply ARE better than others. Critics and readers are able to judge quality, sophistication and talent in a person's writing. Most people can't and don't write brilliantly, but there is a lot of competence floating around (Flannery O'Connor once wrote that the short story is dying of competence). My partner has published four poetry books and one critical book. He's an academic really, but because of his status as a writer he's roped in to teach on the Creative Writing degrees. They don't judge on his number of books published, but the kind of writing and its quality. It's not so shallow really.
Most people who teach creative writing hate teaching it. They are writers, but to put money on the table many are obligated to teach it, often to people who can't write very well and will never be able to, no matter how much coaching they receive. Some students, who have talent, can be helped and taught - but nothing they wouldn't have been able to teach themselves eventually. Other students just want to plug away at the same things, not read anything, be told they are great, and become best-sellers. This is why most writers dislike teaching most writing students. There are exceptions though, and when my partner finds a really good student he does get very excited about this new talent he's come across and can help. Technique can be taught, but not talent, and the worst thing about Creative Writing students is that many believe themselves to be very gifted, when few actually are.
Sadly though, the one thing a degree in the subject actually helps with is that murky business of getting contacts - with agents, publishers, and journals. Many writers who get to be successful in today's intense publishing climate have done so on the back of Creative Writing tutors putting their names about. I think most really excellent writers do not need a Creative Writing degree to make them good; and for writers who aren't talented, a Creative Writing degree will never make them good. It's just a sad thing that without contacts, it's hard for any writer, no matter how brilliant, to come to the attention of publishers (there are exceptions though, obviously). That is what such degrees provide. To employers these degrees are indeed worth very little, and too many students take them just for the opportunity to be able to talk about their own 'work' for three years, instead of having to read difficult books. I'm not saying all students are like this - some are genuinely good - but many are. My partner much prefers teaching Beckett and Joyce and Yeats on the English degree to teaching Jason's next terrible fantasy epic to Jason, or Sarah's next awful sub-Plathian poem to Sarah, on the creative writing degree, Jason and Sarah both being infused with a sense of their own importance and entitlement. Who wouldn't?
the_alba
Well, as an English literature student you must concede that some writers simply ARE better than others. Critics and readers are able to judge quality, sophistication and talent in a person's writing. Most people can't and don't write brilliantly, but there is a lot of competence floating around (Flannery O'Connor once wrote that the short story is dying of competence). My partner has published four poetry books and one critical book. He's an academic really, but because of his status as a writer he's roped in to teach on the Creative Writing degrees. They don't judge on his number of books published, but the kind of writing and its quality. It's not so shallow really.
Most people who teach creative writing hate teaching it. They are writers, but to put money on the table many are obligated to teach it, often to people who can't write very well and will never be able to, no matter how much coaching they receive. Some students, who have talent, can be helped and taught - but nothing they wouldn't have been able to teach themselves eventually. Other students just want to plug away at the same things, not read anything, be told they are great, and become best-sellers. This is why most writers dislike teaching most writing students. There are exceptions though, and when my partner finds a really good student he does get very excited about this new talent he's come across and can help. Technique can be taught, but not talent, and the worst thing about Creative Writing students is that many believe themselves to be very gifted, when few actually are.
Sadly though, the one thing a degree in the subject actually helps with is that murky business of getting contacts - with agents, publishers, and journals. Many writers who get to be successful in today's intense publishing climate have done so on the back of Creative Writing tutors putting their names about. I think most really excellent writers do not need a Creative Writing degree to make them good; and for writers who aren't talented, a Creative Writing degree will never make them good. It's just a sad thing that without contacts, it's hard for any writer, no matter how brilliant, to come to the attention of publishers (there are exceptions though, obviously). That is what such degrees provide. To employers these degrees are indeed worth very little, and too many students take them just for the opportunity to be able to talk about their own 'work' for three years, instead of having to read difficult books. I'm not saying all students are like this - some are genuinely good - but many are. My partner much prefers teaching Beckett and Joyce and Yeats on the English degree to teaching Jason's next terrible fantasy epic to Jason, or Sarah's next awful sub-Plathian poem to Sarah, on the creative writing degree, Jason and Sarah both being infused with a sense of their own importance and entitlement. Who wouldn't?
Most people who teach creative writing hate teaching it. They are writers, but to put money on the table many are obligated to teach it, often to people who can't write very well and will never be able to, no matter how much coaching they receive. Some students, who have talent, can be helped and taught - but nothing they wouldn't have been able to teach themselves eventually. Other students just want to plug away at the same things, not read anything, be told they are great, and become best-sellers. This is why most writers dislike teaching most writing students. There are exceptions though, and when my partner finds a really good student he does get very excited about this new talent he's come across and can help. Technique can be taught, but not talent, and the worst thing about Creative Writing students is that many believe themselves to be very gifted, when few actually are.
Sadly though, the one thing a degree in the subject actually helps with is that murky business of getting contacts - with agents, publishers, and journals. Many writers who get to be successful in today's intense publishing climate have done so on the back of Creative Writing tutors putting their names about. I think most really excellent writers do not need a Creative Writing degree to make them good; and for writers who aren't talented, a Creative Writing degree will never make them good. It's just a sad thing that without contacts, it's hard for any writer, no matter how brilliant, to come to the attention of publishers (there are exceptions though, obviously). That is what such degrees provide. To employers these degrees are indeed worth very little, and too many students take them just for the opportunity to be able to talk about their own 'work' for three years, instead of having to read difficult books. I'm not saying all students are like this - some are genuinely good - but many are. My partner much prefers teaching Beckett and Joyce and Yeats on the English degree to teaching Jason's next terrible fantasy epic to Jason, or Sarah's next awful sub-Plathian poem to Sarah, on the creative writing degree, Jason and Sarah both being infused with a sense of their own importance and entitlement. Who wouldn't?
Of course what you say in your first paragraph is correct, and some writers are better than others. What I meant was that within the bracket of 'good writers' it's very difficult to define how one is better than another (as I'm sure you know). Saying how or why one writer is better than another is frequently subjective: one person might dub Philip Larkin better than Sylvia Plath while another person might put them the other way round. Who's to say? However, my question of what gives someone a right to teach creative writing is better answered by what you say about some academics having creative writing teaching forced upon them as it seems to make a bit more sense.
The bit I've highlighted is yet another reason why I don't understand why people take creative writing courses. Do some people believe that talent can be taught if they don't think they have any? Or do a lot of people (as you say) enter these courses with false delusions of grandeur?
Thanks for your reply to my questions, I found it an interesting insight into what it's like to teach creative writing
This is a really interesting topic - I kept planning to do an MA in creative writing but various reasons have made me eventually decide on doing an english MA. I've met so many people on my undergraduate degree (in english) who bang on about how much they love creative writing, and then you read their stuff, and hear them speak about their plans for the future, and realise how little they know about the actual 'business' of creative writing. I think Angelil is correct about the majority of these students having delusions of grandeur. I think, if you want to write poetry or fiction, the very best preparation you can do is to do an English Literature degree, not a creative writing degree. I know lots of wanna-be-poets, but if I ask them what contemporary poets they read, they won't have a clue (and also won't care, being obsessed with their own poetry and ignorant to their contemporaries). A passion and interest in what other people are writing is something that a Creative Writing degree won't teach you, but what an English degree might. Also, although there are a few well-known fiction writers and poets who have MA's in Creative Writing, what writer do you know of who did an ungergraduate degree in Creative Writing? I can't think of any.
I can understand why some would choose to do an MA in creative writing. I think there are two types of creative writing students, as the_alba described - the majority are living on their own planet who haven't got a clue about anything else other than what dribbles out of their minds onto the page. But there are a small group who have talent AND an interest in their contemporaries work, and perhaps use an MA to get recognised and get their poetry or fiction 'out there'. I've given it serious thought (though am sticking to academia methinks!) - the opportunity to sit around for a year writing poetry in the presence of poets who you've read before and respect does sound like a pretty good way to spend your time. But I would argue that £4,000 plus about £8,000 living expenses is an awfully expensive way of buying yourself contacts. There are other ways of doing it.
I can understand why some would choose to do an MA in creative writing. I think there are two types of creative writing students, as the_alba described - the majority are living on their own planet who haven't got a clue about anything else other than what dribbles out of their minds onto the page. But there are a small group who have talent AND an interest in their contemporaries work, and perhaps use an MA to get recognised and get their poetry or fiction 'out there'. I've given it serious thought (though am sticking to academia methinks!) - the opportunity to sit around for a year writing poetry in the presence of poets who you've read before and respect does sound like a pretty good way to spend your time. But I would argue that £4,000 plus about £8,000 living expenses is an awfully expensive way of buying yourself contacts. There are other ways of doing it.
Just want to throw my piece in - I'm going to be applying for Warwick's English & Creative Writing BA, and I'm really interested in modern poetry. Like, obsessed - I read loads of it and I just can't really get enough of it. I think it can be a bit dangerous if people don't read enough (which is why I think it's important that it's combined with English Lit) but I really do, and the course there has a good mix. I just think that poetry workshops can be so valuable, and I would love to do them as part of my degree. I don't really understand why people look down on it- at Warwick it's incredibly competitive to get in, and the course sounds really rigorous. You get to study under leading poets and fiction writers, get to further your reading and critical thinking, while improving the ways in which you write also.
And, well, the whole Heaventree press lot came out of the Warwick writing programme. Not exactly a household name, but they've published some really great people. English & Creative Writing BAs are relatively new; give them time to grow before you say that they're no good because no-one famous came out of them.
And, well, the whole Heaventree press lot came out of the Warwick writing programme. Not exactly a household name, but they've published some really great people. English & Creative Writing BAs are relatively new; give them time to grow before you say that they're no good because no-one famous came out of them.
^ Actually, I've heard about Warwick's English & Creative Writing course and it does look very good. Perhaps doing it as a combined degree is the best way forward with creative writing.
Angelil
^^ Definitely agree with that.
If you must do a full-on creative writing BA, at least do it at UEA under Andrew Motion et al, as it's the only one that is really known and well-reputed country-wide for its creative writing.
If you must do a full-on creative writing BA, at least do it at UEA under Andrew Motion et al, as it's the only one that is really known and well-reputed country-wide for its creative writing.
Andrew Motion used to teach at UEA, but now teachers at Royal Holloway. I think George Szirtes does the poetry strand at UEA.
Angelil
If you must do a full-on creative writing BA, at least do it at UEA under Andrew Motion et al, as it's the only one that is really known and well-reputed country-wide for its creative writing.
UEA don't actually do a straight Creative Writing BA; only English Literature with Creative Writing (Q3W8). It's their MA which is the famous one. (Malcolm Bradbury, Andrew Motion, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, &c.)
George Szirtes (who's an amazing teacher, btw) used to teach a straight Creative Writing BA at the Norwich School of Art & Design, but I think he's just left. I know that Essex do a straight Creative Writing degree too, but those are the only two I'm aware of.
I won't be applying for either, as I think the English Literature side is really important. I'm sure a fair amount of lit is involved in both of these courses, though - I can't see how any creative writing course could manage to avoid involving the study of other works of literature!
I won't be applying for either, as I think the English Literature side is really important. I'm sure a fair amount of lit is involved in both of these courses, though - I can't see how any creative writing course could manage to avoid involving the study of other works of literature!
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