Naomi Gonzales

December 9, 2009

The Long and Winding Road

            Upon entering this class, my notion of creative writers revolved around the idea of a bunch of artsy and eccentric characters sitting in a hip café smoking cloves and drinking quad shot cappuccinos. This, however, is a grave misconception. As discussed in a previous essay, I have always held writers on a pedestal, especially the creators of poetry and fiction. Through professor instruction, handouts, and some wonderful dialogue, my conception of creative writers has been proven wrong and a new one has been established. This being my first creative writing class, the material has also taught me quite a bit about genres and the conventions that belong to each one. In addition, by being required to share a part of my short story in a class workshop, I have realized the importance of peer evaluation and critique.

            Even though I have always considered myself a writer, my skills significantly lacked real knowledge of the finer points of creative writing. In another essay, it is mentioned that the works and authors of the science fiction/fantasy genre have been particularly influential in my writing. The handout for chapter thirteen, “Where Stories Come From”, discusses the main points of genre writing. The author writes,

Familiar plot patterns and stock characters are clichés on a big scale. When commercial writers of fiction and scriptwriters adopt these conventions purposely, it is politely called formula writing (155).

Unbeknownst to myself, by adopting the genre style of writing, I had also adopted its conventions. Even though I knew that each genre had a different style as well as different ways to execute a plot, I had always just sort of assumed that a big conflict was required of stories in the fantasy/science fiction genre. The author of the chapter, however, goes on to write that formula writing is uninteresting and should be used as least often as possible. My task then, became to figure out how to make my genre writing more interesting and less conventional. In the same chapter, the author writes that by taking personal experience and reshaping it “you will have discovered the essence of writing fiction” (160). The chapter regarding tension also helped me realize that there is no one formula driven conflict that is required for genre writing. Even though a piece is fantasy, my primary conflict could be a struggle with self-identity in the protagonists rather than the clichéd use of  some opposing realm’s forces storming the castle. By doing this, the works created—in any genre—will not be predictable and uninteresting.

Another habit of mine, previous to this class, involved writing my stories my stories in a mad rush and then, when looking them over later, I would edit out the parts that I did not care for. This process never involved showing my work to someone else; in fact, even though I considered myself a fiction author, I never asked any of my peers for constructive criticism. The workshop discussions in the class have easily been the most valuable part of this course. Before my own workshop, I did not give much thought to the process even though one chapter of our poetry texts discussed the importance of peer support groups (Ch 11).  After my workshop, however, I realized that the feedback provided by my peers and my professor proved invaluable. After staring at the story for so long, I became convinced that nothing else could be changed and that the story was fine they way it was. During the workshop, my peers brought up points and scenes that had already dismissed. Things that I could no longer notice were the first to be brought up. Many liked the story but had suggestions to solve pacing issues. I was also given an incredible amount of help in expanding my story as well as polishing it. The advice given has made me realize that no matter what type of story I write, it is important to receive constructive criticism if I ever want to grow as an author.

            When starting this final, I was a little apprehensive. Past finals have always been to gauge how much I had learned and retained during the semester. I’ve often heard this referred to as the “Gerber method”, as in being spoon fed the information and then vomiting the words back onto a page. This final seemed to be less of that and more of what I found to be valuable. The things I learned, from conventions to the importance of peer reviews, will be something that I can use for myself, as long as I think of my stories as valuable. This final has made me think critically about the past 15 weeks, and similar to the rest of the class, I have found myself thankful for the task.