Veronica Nadalin

Learning through the Objectives

( One hour five minutes)

To be completely honest I was a bit nervous signing up for this class. I had previously taken a creative writing style course my freshman year of college and had a terrible experience.  The students in the class were not very helpful and played favorites when it came to critiquing fellow classmates work; unfortunately I was not one of the so-called favorites.  In addition, the professor of the course told me that I could not write, which I found to be devastating since writing is one of my passions. Three years later, however, I saw this course being offered and decided to try to put my past behind me and see if this time around, I had a better experience in a creative writing class.  I was able to share my poem to the class without passing out, and was not embarrassed to do draft exchanges for my piece of fiction.

            Unlike the previous creative writing course I took, this one actually had objectives and an overall focus, which made the class much more interesting because I actually learned something new about the fiction genre every class meeting.  The readings were always interesting and informative explaining the rules of grammar and dialogue, for example, in a way where I finally understood why and how those rules are used.   Some of the material discussed in the articles included things that I instinctively knew through pervious literature courses, but seeing the ideas in text helped seal together those concepts and general practices.  One writing that helped me the most with my fiction assignment was the article that discussed dialogue.  I assumed that it was better to try to use other words other than “said,” but after I read that using other words like “replied” is a mark of inexperience, I went back through my writing and changed many of those words by adding an action before or after that implied tone.  I also found the chapter “Where Stories Come From” to be helpful in generating ideas and avoiding pitfalls, which is described in the section “The “Seven Deadly Sins” of fiction.

            First off, like objective one describes, the atmosphere of the class was “friendly, but rigorous.”  In the workshops each week, every classmate expressed his or her opinion on the author’s work, but no favoritism was at play.  Also, all suggestions were expressed in a friendly manner so no feelings were hurt.  Going along with that idea, objective three, which set out “to unlearn the popular image of a writer as an isolated genius producing masterpieces overnight” personally helped me gain the confidence that I had lost in my writing ability and my work.  I always thought there was something wrong with me when I could not just come up with a complete work and be able to sit down and write it.  Now I know that the works of a writer can only be enhanced if the writer seeks out guidance and opinions from the people around the writer, which the professor stressed this point time and time again, especially when learning new concepts, ideas, or styles.

            Looking back at the class as a whole, I am very glad that I decided to enroll in this class.  My confidence in my writing is much higher than it was at the beginning of the semester, just as J.T. O’Neal mentioned in his 2006 essay, and I have learned how to make my writing better, which will only increase my confidence.