Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Do You Know Why?

A friend of mine from teaching recently sent me a student's piece of writing. The teacher was overly enthusiastic about the work and really felt like this might be worthy of publishing. OK, first of all, we see this all of the time. When a kid does something better than average, teachers and parents immediately go into "TIGER MOM" mode. In any case, I did take a look.

The writing was not bad. It was OK and certainly utilized a lot of techniques that would normally be taught in a creative writing class. The student also had a good command on a particular sub-genre. The story lacked serious depth of character and plot development. There was an excessive amount of telling and very little showing. Still I read on, but as I did, I had a lingering gut instinct. Did this student really know what he was doing, or was he someone who could just copy (not plagiarize) a pattern and style? Did he really understand why he was doing what he was doing, or how this was really working in the story.

A lot of new authors face this same problem. This is why, being a serious writer, takes time and education. For most new authors, they can "copy a pattern." They can take workshops, learn a new technique and put it in the story. But that is as far as that skill goes.

I have referred to this in the past but review Bloom's Taxonomy


 Where most authors, such as this student fall, is the third level of Applying. The key is to move beyond this level and to do so requires analyzing the writing of other authors as well as your own writing. When an author does something in a story that works or doesn't can you figure out what was occurring? Now, to take it to a new level, if something is not working with a story, can you figure out what needs to get done?

I want to stress this again. If you are at this lower level as an author, it is fine. Learning any skill takes time and effort. Writers will not be amazing with their first manuscripts. Like this student, he has a good start, but a long way to go.

No comments:

Post a Comment