The students speak up

Over the last several days, I've been going over final folders turned in by my various creative writing classes at UCA.  The contents of the folders vary according to the class.  My novel writing students had to turn in reflective statements about the semester and about their peer review experiences.  It's been gratifying to see exactly how much the students got out of the semester, but also eye-opening to see what worked and what didn't (which varied from student to student of course); and thrilling to see some students offer really interesting ideas for future renditions of the class.  Not all the ideas are tenable, but many are intriguing.  One student suggested that instead of having two novels that the whole class reads, have one shared novel and then one novel that each peer review group picks--a book that models the kind of novels that group is working on.  That's a fantastic idea--and would have worked well with the peer group that student was in--but not every group included students who were writing the same kinds of novels.  A more workable version of this idea would be to have each student select a model novel for himself/herself and anayze that one.  Many students wanted more frequent contact with their peer groups, which I can certainly understand and may very well do next time, although I also think it's important too to have time away from those groups.  Many students also wished they could have had more contact with the novels of the students not in their peer groups.  But without instituting full class workshops I'm not sure how to put that into practice.  One student suggested switching up the peer groups in the middle of the semester, but I think it's crucial that your review group have followed your novel from the start.  Having to play catch up with a new group's novels might, I fear, overwhelm the students with work.

Almost every student complained about No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, our basic textbook.  Although it has some fine craft ideas embedded in it, it's essentially a motivational book.  While I think it's extremely entertaining, and it takes no time to read, some of the students didn't appreciate Baty's sense of humor; others they felt that what he was saying was too obvious.  One glaring issue with the book is that it's designed for people trying to complete NaNoWriMo, in which you draft a novel in a month; we were drafting a novel in a semester, so some of the urgency of his message didn't directly apply.  I guess I'll drop the book for next time, but I fear what will happen is that the students then will long for the kind of motivational speeches Baty can give, and in his rather unique style.   Most students really appeciated having so much writing time afforded in class each week; others felt that they didn't need it or want it.  (I have to say, though, that the differing opinions reflected how disciplined the students were or were not in making use of that time.)  One student thought we should read more novels; some thought two was plenty; some thought we should discuss the model novels differently (something I agree with and will have to change for next time); a couple thought we should not read any model novels at all.  Well, I can't accept that.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that if one gripes about having to read novels one should not be enrolled in a novel writing class.

Except for a single person, every student was seriously appreciative of the weekly word count deadlines and the fact that they were expected to finish a draft by the end of the semester.  Having taught this class another way--in which student started novels and workshopped chapters, but didn't even get halfway through--I can tell you I'm never doing it that way again.  Because 99% of them never worked a second more on their novels after the semester ended.  They never understood what it meant to follow a story all the way through.  That's a powerful experience; it's an educational experience.  One can learn some things from craft books; one can learn a great deal from reading other writers' novels.  But one learns the most about novel writing by actually writing a novel.  And then another one.  And then another one.  That's what my students have done, and I'm not denying them that experience the next time.  Here are some of their comments on what completing a full draft means:

What's important to accept is that I wrote over 55,000 words this semester. . .  Many of my friends are in shock and awe at what I've done.  Personally, I don't feel like I've actually done any work.  But I guess if you love what you're doing it doesn't really seem like labor.  Before this semester, I didn't truly define myself as a writer.  I was just a student doing writing assignments.  This class has made me realize that it's okay to be passionate about something, and it's okay to be confident in who you are.  I now say that I am a writer.  And I am damn good at what I do. --Colleen Hathaway, graduating senior

After printing out my novel, I'm honestly amazed.  I look at the huge stack of papers, and I can't believe that I wrote all of that--in a semester.  I keep showing all of my friends because I'm just so proud of myself.  Antoher thing that amazes me is how ready I am to write another novel.  During the process, I was quite honestly done with the whole novel writing idea.  I didn't want to do it again, and it seemed that my dreams of becoming an author were slowing being put on the backburner.  I can't explain it, but there's something so invigorating about actually finishing a draft.  Sure it needs work.  And sure, that work is going to take a while, but I'm just ready to feel that exhilaration again.-- Taylor Neal, graduating senior

I am grateful for many attributes of this class: that it was offered to the MFA students, that it was offered when it was, and this it was structured around a goal of completing a full draft of a novel.  I have started two other novels, but I have never gotten beyond 20 pages, so I thought of it as somehting I didn't know how to stick with.  This class changed how I think of myself and my abilities as a writer so much for the better, and for that I am so very grateful.--Stacey Margaret Jones, graduate student

Some changes are definitely in store for the next time I teach the course--assuming it's me that teaches it and not another professor--but the requirement to complete a draft is one thing I ain't changing!  Just like Taylor, I can't wait.

Novel class update #2

 It continues to be a nourishing semester in my Novel Writing Workshop at UCA.  We've been on Spring Break this past week, but I can tell from various Facebook posts my students have put up--early on, they established a Facebook page for the class--that many of them have been keeping their noses to the grindstone.  (They have to.  Two weeks worth of word count are due when next we meet.)  Some of them are still encountering plot and character breakthroughs; one student just realized her novel will have to be a trilogy (she seems excited rather than depressed); another student, Taylor Neal, warmed my heart with some philosophical musings the other day: a list of ten truths about novel writing which, for me, only reinforced why offering this class is so important.  (Are you listening, creative writing professors and curriculum committees?)  Of course, many of Taylor's "truths" deal with how hard novel writing can be--and who says it isn't?--but at the same time I was glad to see comments like this one: As frustrating as the lows are, the highs are 100 times more sweet. There's an exhilaration from writing a good scene, even a good sentence. It's like a peace that settles over you. It keeps you going, and reminds you that this can be done.  And this one: When you're writing, there are a million other things you would rather be doing. When you can't write, there's nothing you would rather be doing than writing.  And this one: Nothing is impossible (cheesy, but true. There were times when I was convinced I would never write a book, and look at me now, almost 40,000 words in). 

Perhaps her most important comment, given that the framework for Taylor's novel writing this semester has been our class, and a crucial component of the class is small peer review groups, is the following: Writing a novel is truly a group effort. There's a reason it never really worked out when I was going at it alone. Critique partners are indispensable when it comes to feedback, encouragement, and ranting about your novel.  You have no idea how good that made me feel to read.  Because it means the class is working precisely as, and why, it should.  I would never deny that writing a novel--or any book--is fundamentally a tussle with your own soul, your own knowledge, your own wisdom, your own discipline (or lack thereof), but it's an age-old truth that writers have always needed to share their work and receive feedback on that work.  In my very first semester of graduate school, the then-MFA director, Peter Klappert, who was also my poetry professor, preached this gospel non-stop, probably because of an anti-MFA sentiment that was already breeding in some writing circles and still abides today.  Workshop or no workshop, writers have always shared their work with someone; they've needed to; they've sought it out.  Pulitizer Prize winners have their beta readers, for heaven's sakes.  Some of them belong to writing groups.  (Just ask Jennifer Egan.) The image of the lonely writer in the candlelit garret really should be gone by now, and especially should be gone from the minds of young, budding novelists--that is, if they ever hope to accomplish anything.  What a novel writing class can provide for student authors is a place and a process.  It provides a classroom to bring questions to as well as new discoveries and bitchy, self-loathing complaints.  It provides regular fixed deadlines.  And, perhaps best of all, it provides (or should provide) intelligent, sympathetic, practiced readers.  (By sympathetic, I don't mean they are going to approve of everything that you do, but that they understand what it is you are attempting.  They are informed novel readers, at least more so than your boyfriend or the manager at your bank job.)  At least this was my hope when I established the outlines for Novel Writing Workshop, and, for some of the students at least, it appears to be working exactly as planned.  And I can only hope that the lessons my students learn about novel-writing from having to draft an entire book this semester will carry over to the next time they want to write a novel, but won't have a Novel Writing Workshop to join.  Hopefully, they'll be able to find their own workable substitute.

Last time I wrote about this class, I joked that, given how well many of them were doing, maybe I was being too easy on them this semester.  Maybe I should up the work count next time.  (55,000 words, after all, does make for a fairly short novel.)  When I mentioned this in class, several said No, No, No, this is about as much work as we can handle.  But the truth is, except for one student, everyone has kept up with word count and several are ahead.  A couple students informed me that they intended to finish their drafts over spring break and then edit for the rest of the semester.  I'm astonished and delighted at this continuing state of affairs.  So, why not encourage future classes to get closer to the 80-100K average for a published novel in this country?  (Closer, I'm saying, you realize.  I would never ask undergraduates to write 80K.)  Alternatively, I am considering assigning another model novel or two for them to read.  (Short novels.)  I find it very instructive to read a novel while thinking about how the writer handles the various elements of craft in the span of the book that you yourself are working through.  In other words, while developing the first third of your book, to look at what the author of the model novel establishes in the first third of hers.  And so on.  I've tried to do some of that with the two novels I've assigned this semester, but I would need to assign at least one more to create a perfect bridge for the arc of the students' drafts. 

In short, it's been a fun, productive semester in Novel Writing.  And it almost always works out that way.  (Note to self: There's probably a paper to be written on why that's true.)  My semester novel?  I kind of sort of finished my draft two days ago, although not surprisingly there are several serious matters that need to be tended to before I can really regard it as a done first draft.  My own word count is at 73,700.  (Even I'm writing more than I did last time I taught the class!)