What have you learned since you started writing stories for Literotica?

[MelissaBaby]

But where I came into this conversation, I thought we were talking about formal training in English writing - the kind of stuff you'd get from, say, enrolling in a class titled "English Composition 101" - and there was none of that in my time at university.

That was my assumption as well. As for my experience, this was basically it:

 

[Zootonius]

The biggest thing I learned since starting writing stories here is using more complex sentences. Reading my first works make me cringe. Reminds me of Dragnet, "just the facts, 'mam."

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

Main thing I learned is that there's like, 10 freaks out there who like what I do, which is way more than I expected.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

No, it's not you or this at all.
I'm at a spot where I sort of feel like a musician who learned to play by ear in my bedroom, and suddenly found myself in an orchestra full of Juilliard graduates.
I think I can contribute to AH from a reader's perspective, but not as a writer.

When I entered university, half of us were classically trained musicians since childhood. The other half were people who learned to play by ear in their bedrooms. Both of us had experience in the field. While we knew how to read, how to play our instruments, and perform all the pieces, they knew better than us how to jump between keys on the go, improvise, and jam, and I kid you not, they had more fun than us the classically trained.

Neither of them is better; we took different paths in art. However, there's one thing that I'll stand by as a teacher: art schools of all levels do not teach creativity, which is a more important skill for art than technique. They are designed to fail you on that regard. That's why highbrows still fail to get to the power of the pulpsters. Like us classically trained musicians they don't understand that art is born in the dark, not proper technique.

You do have some value. You just haven't found it yet.

 

[Erozetta]

TLDR nothing resembling an English composition class.

Undergrad: no essays. Mathematical proofs for the maths-y subjects. Written lab reports for science-y subjects, which were basically filling out a standard template (Aim, Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusion). I think we got a little guidance in what was expected to go into those reports, but precious little of it would've been relevant to fiction writing.

Honours year: writing a thesis (basically a short book about a specific topic, summarising knowledge on that topic). From memory we had a little bit of training on specific academic-technical stuff like how to do a literature search and how to format references, and a rough template to follow (abstract, acknowledgements, introduction, main body by chapters, appendices, bibliography) but beyond that we were just expected to know how to write, or to learn by doing.

Doctorate: couple of coursework subjects (pretty much the same as for undergrad), thesis (similar to honours thesis but bigger, and based primarily on original research rather than just summarising other people's work). Again, a little bit of training on academic-technical aspects but I don't think there was anything on, e.g., "how to write so your readers can understand you". In fact, some of the folk I worked with were quite hostile to that idea - they felt that trying to make the writing accessible was not "academic" enough in tone :-/



Definitely not trying to downplay it. Just about any interaction with other human beings can teach skills that are useful for writing, especially interaction that requires communication. Writing my PhD thesis almost certainly helped develop skills that I use in fiction writing now, because it got me thinking about how ways to get concepts from my head into other people's heads.

But where I came into this conversation, I thought we were talking about formal training in English writing - the kind of stuff you'd get from, say, enrolling in a class titled "English Composition 101" - and there was none of that in my time at university.

Outside of that, I agree with just about everything you're saying here.

I only brought up classes because other people were listing writers with non-English/writing specific degrees as though no writing education or knowledge was required to complete those degrees. Lawyers in particular, but at least one other was listed with a PhD. There's about zero chance a lawyer or someone with a PhD accomplished that with no writing involved at all. As you mentioned, a thesis is required for such an accomplishment and is essentially a book on a particular subject matter. Someone who hasn't learned how to write to a proficient degree, to first get accepted into the course, and to then write their thesis is never going to accomplish getting a PhD. All of which involves continued learning on the subject of writing.

To even be admitted into these programs requires proving a certain amount of proficiency in writing, and students coming from areas with better high school level education are going to have an advantage there to start with. Many of them are *starting* with a college level education in English.

In the US, the guidelines for graduation in Alabama in 2001 were at a 10th grade level, which was really a 7th grade level, which compared internationally is probably about a fifth grade level. The education here outside of majorly affluent areas is kinda fucked and has been for at least 30 years. Particularly in rural areas. It has only gotten worse with my experience of family members in schools currently.

That was what I was trying to establish. *Any* higher education than middle school is going to develop significantly more writing skills than most people coming out of rural American high schools from about 2000 onward. The people with that education have an opportunity to share their knowledge with those just starting out, but those without that education have an opportunity to share how life has formed their skill in writing, both approaches to writing are valid and helpful information to other writers.

I thank you and the others who have engaged with this without that dismissive air to your comments. I don't think such comments are intentional or malicious in any way, I just think we can do better to make asking genuine questions here be more accessible to those who are new, and part of that is accepting that differences in education, experience, and ability, and sharing those differences is fine, expected, and valuable even to well established writers.

There's a lot of really good information here that sometimes gets lost in snarky and snobby behavior, which, again, I don't think is intentional or malicious, more a result of jadedness over seeing the same questions over and over getting the same answers over and over simply because people don't make it comfortable for people with different answers or experiences to chime in.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

None of the courses any of y'all took required written reports or essays in order to pass them? There were no points in your degree where written work had an impact on your ability to get that degree? (I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious. I can't fathom getting a degree without writing playing some element in the process.)

Of course I had to write stuff in college and university and grad school.

I've written even more in my post-educational career.

That wasn't the topic, which was "taught to write," not "practice writing."

I've got a BA. I chose my major so I could avoid having to take English 101 (English isn't my native language, I suck at spelling and I heard horror stories about the class from friends).

Your spelling is perfect here, and you can't totally explain that with spell check.

 

[Erozetta]

Of course I had to write stuff in college and university and grad school.

I've written even more in my post-educational career.

That wasn't the topic, which was "taught to write," not "practice writing."

No, the topic was cherry picked from me laying out my situation where I said I had "zero experience with education involving writing, not even a creative writing class in high school" which then evolved to people commenting on formal education with writing as though "education involving writing" can only mean a degree in English/Writing/Literature. And listing out various writers with non-writing degrees as though that proved they had no education involving writing.

I then stated that I didn't realize those degrees required no English Composition classes to complete, as I assumed a PhD or becoming a Lawyer or Engineer, or chemist would require at least one basic English course to accomplish as those things typically involve a lot of writing.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

No, the topic was cherry picked from me laying out my situation where I said I had "zero experience with education involving writing, not even a creative writing class in high school" which then evolved to people commenting on formal education with writing as though "education involving writing" can only mean a degree in English/Writing/Literature. And listing out various writers with non-writing degrees as though that proved they had no education involving writing.

I'm sorry if you felt called out. That was not my intent.

Your comment just made me think about how few writers that I like have formal training in writing fiction. I wasn't really replying directly to you.

 

[Erozetta]

I'm sorry if you felt called out. That was not my intent.

Your comment just made me think about how few writers that I like have formal training in writing fiction. I wasn't really replying directly to you.

Didn't feel called out so much as confused about how degrees that typically involve a lot of writing didn't count as "education involving writing" lol.

Knowing that they weren't meant to be a direct path from one to the other makes a lot more sense.