Monday 15 September 2014
Why my Eng. Lit. degree hasn't made me a better writer.
I've wanted to be a writer since I was about 12 or so. I remember standing in my Grade 8 Drama, sorry Miss Jenkins..."Thee-ah-tah Ahts" class and being asked to create a character sketch and having the epiphany that "Hey, with acting or writing, I can pretend to be anything I want."
Fast forward twenty something years to me sitting outside the Continuing Education office at the University of Toronto and looking at the brochure for a program called "Pre-University", designed for people like me who were older (I was 34 at the time) who wanted to go to university but lacked the regular prerequisites.
Out of the four streams from which you could choose, I went with Pre-Literature, which, 13 years of part-time studies later, led to a degree in English Literature and Modern History.
Neither of which has made me a better writer. Ok, of fiction...I've certainly become pretty good at writing the shallow, sycophantic essays that pass for undergraduate scholarship these days.
I just never learned how to be a better fiction writer by reading Shakespeare, Austen or Dickens.
Most of the big I "Instruction" I had on writing was a delightful 10 week class taught in the 90s by Sarah Sheard.
The rest I learned by writing...and writing...and writing...
And reading WHILE I was writing something, which helped me because when I'm writing, I run into specific issues and reading the work of authors I admire gives me an insight into how THEY deal with the problems I have, like pacing and character revelation and building up suspense in a story.
If I were ever to, in another life, become an English Lit. Prof., I would teach the classics like a Writer, rather than a scholar. I would point out HOW Austen paces her novel and how we get to know the characters.
I think it would make for a better class and something the students would retain longer.
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I hear ya. Almost every day I regret dropping out of college just 18 credits short of a degree - I couldn't decide what degree I wanted - English? Creative Writing? Mass Communication? Which is really why I dropped out. But where would that degree really have led me in my writing life? Hard telling, because the fates led me into the medical field 27 years ago and here I sit in a job I only like some days and totally hate the rest of the days. Anyway, I will hang in there if you will.
ReplyDeleteI like you idea of teaching a literature class like a writer rather than a scholar. I know I would have gotten much more out of my English classes if we had done that. I also wish someone would figure out that kids would like Shakespeare a lot more if they were taught by actors rather than English scholars.
ReplyDeleteSomething about this strikes a chord with me. I have a BA in English and I agree. I only became a better writer by writing in the world, in the now. Stuff that I learned back then, only stuck after I started really writing, having a regular blog, writing for 24 Hour Theatre, NaPoWriMo, NaNo, etc.....
ReplyDeleteThanks! Something interesting to chew on. :-)