Yesterday, as I was watching TV, my son stepped into my room with his homework in hand. "Mom, can you help me," he asked as he handed out this green piece of paper with "happy" writing across the top. "I have to write a story that has a circular plot."
Cringing, I took the paper and read over the directions that the teacher had given him, remembering our conversation at my son's conference several weeks ago. Ms.XXXX told me that my son's ideas were disorganized and too complex. She didn't care if Huck Finn could spell better than him, or that my cat knows more about a comma and period. His ideas were too rough. His stories had no structure.
This, of course, confused me. Shouldn't the premisis of writing begin with where to properly capitalize and where you put your periods? No wonder he's doing below average in his writing. At home, he has me scolding him like a relentless banshee about commas, periods, and capital letters. Oh, let's not forget he spelling either (yes, my spelling in this blog sucks. If I had a spell checker, I'd use it). At school, he's being told that doesn't matter...right now...but your stories and ideas are all over the place. You need to make them a tight, neat bundle with a header sentance and three supporting sentences. All your sentances must start with First, Secondly, Thirdly, and/or Finally. Every paragraph needs to be the same. Got it?
So, he writes his first draft, with his autrocious punctuation, spelling, no capital letters then brings it to me...and I start bleeding from my eyes. But I'm not looking at the latter, I'm looking at several paragraphs, exact copies of one another with words the only difference between them. "Hunter, what is this?" I ask him.
"That's how paragraphs are suppose to go," he tells me. He gets this worried frown on his face as I stare at him.
That's when I go storming into the family room, where my mom is reading or sewing, and start shouting, "How the hell is he suppose to write a story like this? What are they teaching my kid!?" She's used to this. She works for the school as a teachers assisstaint and knows all to well how crappy our educational system is. She also knows how I feel about their educational methods. Oh, and I'm her daughter, she's had twenty eight years to accustom herself to my temperment (she says I take after my dad...).
"Just do it the way they want it done," she says with a shrug.
Okay, there are rules to be followed when writing. My son is only ten. I don't expect him to be elaborate. I don't expect him to be perfect. He's just learning the rules of the english language, and that's fine. That's important. All I really expect of him is to be creative; because he is one of the most imaginative young boys I've ever met.
I understand that schools need to teach "tight writing" to our kids. What I disagree with is asking them to be creative and THEN write a tight, neat story cemented to the rules of some dusty text book. That sort of teaching hinders our children's creativity. It teaches them that creativiness and structure are one in the same.
It's not.
Creativity is free. Yeah, you got to make things make sense, but rules are bendable; workable. If schools want kids to write tight paragraphs, make them do reports. Don't ask them to write made up pieces of fiction, then force them to write paragraphs that are built of mortar and I-beams. You can't write decent stories like that. You can't write INTERESTING stories like that. Stories won't make any sense written like that.
Hunter writes me entire sagas on his own time. He comes up with multiple characters, active and passive scenes, character emotion, humor and drama, etc. For his age, I'm amazed. Sure, his stuff is juvenile, but I don't care. He's writing in his own voice, with his own ideas. I read them, correct his errors, talk about different ideas when he's stuck, etc. I always praise him for his accomplishment, for his effort. I'm proud of him, even when the story has more plot holes than swiss cheese. Stuff like that comes with time and practice.
However, I worry about his love for writing and his natural talent becoming tarnished within our educational system. Think back to your English classes in high-school, some of us, even college. Do you remember the foundations of all those essays, reports, speeches, short stories that you had to write? I sure as hell do. My English classes from 7th grade through highschool were college prep. It was beaten into my head that we were to write one specific way and that was it. There was no room for "coloring outside the lines," even within a short story. College for me wasn't much different. I passed all my English and Lit classes with 3.6-4.0s (depending on how often I went to class). Why? Because they kept teaching me the same, boring drivel over and over again.
A few months ago, I was sitting in front of my computer, wondering what the hell my writing was missing. I'm just an amature, so there's lots of stuff wrong, but there was something nagging at me, something big. I picked up a few books on writing and began to read. One of them mentioned writing in "your own voice". The author of this book talked about how our school system is designed to teach structure and doesn't cater to creativity. In the end, writers lose thier "natural" voice somewhere inside all those I-beams and mortar. We become "bland" writers. We lose our voice.
I'm not talking about voice in the sense of "first person", "second person", "multiple perspective". No, I'm talking about the author's voice. MY voice.
What your reading right now is "my voice". It's how I write when I'm not fretting over I-beams and mortar. Yeah, there's a lot of spelling and grammar errors, but that's stuff I would fix later if I planned on submitting this anywhere important.
My stories have too many I-beams. Too much mortar.
That's what I've been doing wrong.
I'm trying to change that. I was so happy when someone reviewed a piece of my work and told me my writing was "raw" and "real". Granted, it's just a fanfic peice, but I consider ff to be a drawing board to practice new stuff. I want my readers to hear my voice, not some stuffy english essay from my highschool days. I want them to understand and see what I'm seeing. I want them to enjoy what I've written and feel comfortable reading.
I'm still working on it. I slip up all the time; diving back into the old habit of writing for Mr. XXXX in my junior high college prep class. It's hard not to when for over fourteen years that was all you were taught.
My son is going down the same road. I'm not helping his grades any. Kids need structure and consistancy, and the poor guy is torn between what school tells him and what mom tells him. So, we've settled on a compromise. He writes me his own stories however he wants. They can be seven pages or twenty. He creates them in his own voice, using his own ideas. School stuff, well, we still come up with crazy stories and we laugh about all the wonderful possibilities, but in the end, we play by their rules. He writes a drab, dull piece of work which isn't his fault, but the system's he's been thrust into. How can a story be "tight" when paragraphs have to be four sentances? It's a no win situation. It will be until he leaves school and hopefully finds a college professor who will encourage him to "be himself" when he writes.
Hell, he might not even care by then.
NOTE:
If you want to see some authors that have a great "voice", I suggest reading the works by:
Sanda Hill (Viking sagas)<---I'm not a big fan of romance novels, but these are an exception. Hysterical, real, very raw. Great stuff!
Janet Evanovitch (Stephanie Plum series) <---this is probably the best example of an author who writes with a great voice. I cannot recommend this series enough. If you like a good mystery with a barrel of belly laughs, read these! NOW! (mystery with a tad romance)
Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake/Meredith Gentry series)<--- I have some issues with her repitious nature, but she writes with such personality, I can forgive her. Both series are excellent!
Jeffery Deavers (Licoln Ryme series)<---Everyone remember the movie "The Bone Collector"? Well, he wrote the book. The guy is amazing and writes such compelling mysteries. I've read a few of his books on one sitting.
J.K Rowling (Harry Potter) <---Need I say more about this authors voice, not to mention her imagination?
Peirs Anthony (Xanthe Novels) <---I've been reading his stuff since I was a kid. I've always loved fantasy stories, and this guy's writing is just amazing. His imagination, much like J.K Rowling's is INCREDIBLE.
Billie Letts (Where the Heart Is) <---I'll admit, I've only read one of her books, but it was amazing. This story is a classic, a few of you might have seen the movie, but read the book. Ms. Letts has a very powerful voice.
Anne Rice (Vampire Chronicals/Blackwood Farm) <---She's a tad wordy, but that doesn't hinder her story telling. A rare talent, great writer.
Stephen King (The Green Mile/On Writing)<---I've read other stories as well, but I'm choosy, since he scares the hell out of me. I do recommend that all aspiring authors pick up his book "On Writing" and read it...several times. You'll see just how well he uses his voice in this help manual (which reads like a story instead of some boring text book).
Kim Harrison (The Good, the Bad, the Undead) <---a cross between Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake. Funny, suspensful, with characters that move all on their own.
That's just a few authors that I can think of off the top of my head that write using their own wonderful voices. Read them. Study them. Learn from them. But whatever you do, find your own voice and make it happen!
As I was once told by an author, "The worst thing a writer can do is procastinate. Just sit down and write the damn book. Worry about the other stuff later."
How true.
Posted by Zoso at March 30, 2005 09:25 AM