Is Gaming Bad for Fiction Writers?

Is Gaming Bad for Fiction Writers?

Teaching Writing

The other day, I was reading an undergraduate student’s novel in progress, and a thought occurred to me. As I often do, I shared that thought on Facebook:

I’ve never played a video game, but I recognize that it’s a narrative experience that lots and lots of people value. No judgement. But in my fiction-writing classes, I often read stories and novels that read as if I’m watching someone else play a video game. There’s plot, action, scene, all great, but virtually no interiority, which for me is *absolutely necessary* in fiction. My students have always used films and TV shows to talk about fiction, but now they also reference video games. “This is like Bioshock,” for example, and I have no idea what that even means. I wonder if other creative writing teachers have noticed this quality in student fiction or these references? I wonder if people who play video games could give me some tips about how to help my students make the transition from gaming to writing narrative. P.S. Over the last few years, I’ve read lot more genre fiction (George R.R. Martin, Suzanne Collins, etc.) so that I could at least be familiar with the kinds of stories students borrow from, but I really don’t want to start playing games.

I made the comment public and a great conversation ensued. As of right now, there are 80 comments–from gamers and non-gamers, from creative writing professors and students, from friends and strangers. The conversation was passionate. I invite you to read the comments here. Continue reading

What I Learned from Tim O’Brien

Teaching
Summer 2001 at Sewanee. I started smoking again that summer just so that I could hang out with O'Brien a little more. I was young and foolish.
Summer 2001 at Sewanee. I started smoking again that summer just so that I could hang out with O’Brien a little more. I was young and foolish.

Every Tuesday, I talk about teaching, and this is the third in a series of posts on what I’ve learned from the writers I’ve studied with.

For the last two weeks, I talked about Michael Martone. This week, Tim O’Brien. During the summer of 2001, I attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and spent two weeks in his workshop. Here’s some of his advice I brought back with me. Continue reading

Teaching Tuesday: Michael Martone’s Hypoxic Workshop

Teaching

cg2The Opposite of the Hypoxic Workshop

I’ve always been a firm believer in the power of critiques. Lately however, I’ve started calling them “Critique Essays.”

“Don’t treat these like off-the-cuff responses,” I tell my undergraduates. “You’re writing a paper about a work of fiction–only it’s still in progress.”

As much as I hate the word “paper,” it’s a word that students understand. It means they have to analyze. They have to say what they mean as clearly as possible, back up their points, refer directly to the text, etc.

I give them a rubric, a template that describes in detail how critiques should look, what I want them to include. Here is my assignment sheet for writing critiques. Day, Critique Essay Directions

And then I grade them. I give out a lot more C’s and D’s on these than on any other assignment in the course. Continue reading

What I’ve Learned from Michael Martone

Teaching

Screenshot 2013-10-27 15.43.25For the next few weeks, I’m going to devote my “Teaching Tuesday” posts to some of my teachers (in and out of the classroom) and what I learned from them.

Lesson 1: Advocate For Your Homestate

Simply put, art is beholden to the kiln in which the artist was fired.

–August Wilson

On Saturday night, I went to the Indiana Author’s Award, which is also a fundraiser and swanky dinner. The event is intended to raise awareness of Indiana authors, encourage reading throughout the state, and raise the profile of the Library Foundation and its many good programs.

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The MA in Creative Writing

CW Programs Teaching

sketch-280x374On October 15, the awesome human being who is Dinty Moore said the following on Facebook. He shared it with his network of friends (a small legion!) and in a few groups to which he belongs.

It’s really great advice for undergrads and their writing mentors who are in the midst of MFA Admissions Season.

I’ve reproduced it here with his permission.

An Open Letter to My Many Friends Who Teach Creative Writing to Undergraduates: 

Many writing teachers still advise their undergraduate students that they “may as well go for an MFA because an MA doesn’t qualify you for anything.” Well, that makes sense for some students, but not all of them, especially now with the growth in the degree. So, we’d like to offer:

Five Good Reasons to Suggest an MA (Yes, an MA) to Your Students Continue reading

Teaching Tuesday: Setting

Teaching Tuesday: Setting

Teaching

This week in my novel-writing class, we’re talking about setting. This is the lecture I’ve developed over the years to talk about this subject, which is near and dear to my heart. Midwesterners especially leave setting out of their stories, but we very much need them not to.

Let’s begin

“You have to have somewhere to start from: then you begin to learn,” [Sherwood Anderson] told me. “It don’t matter where it was, just so you remember it and ain’t ashamed of it. Because one place to start from is just as important as any other. You’re a country boy; all you know is that little patch up there in Mississippi where you started from.”

–William Faulkner

Illustration #1

Many apprentice writers write what I call the “Nowhere and Everywhere Story.” Their stories occur in a temporal and cultural vacuum. The setting could just as easily be a small town in Pennsylvania as a small town in Florida, a suburb of Los Angeles as a suburb of New York City, a farm in Oregon as a farm in Ohio.

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Teaching Tuesday: Requiring Students to Blog about the Class

Teaching Tuesday: Requiring Students to Blog about the Class

Teaching

This semester, I’m teaching a grad course on the linked stories form and an undergraduate course on the novel form.

These past two weeks, in both classes, we’ve been talking about subplots, layers, and throughlines.

My students have been doing an excellent job of sharing their notes on our course blogs.

Each week, I select one student to be our class “scribe.” They turn their notes from class (lecture + discussion + personal anecdotes/flavor) into a class “report.”

And I grade it.

Here are a few samples.

What I’ve learned

Continue reading

BSU + MWW: or “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”

BSU + MWW: or “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”

Teaching

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again:

Did you know there’s a writers’ conference in Muncie, Indiana?

Did you know that Veronica Roth, author of the best-selling dystopian YA novel Divergent found her agent at this conference in 2009?

Well, now you do.

This conference is called the Midwest Writers Workshop, a yearly gathering of agents, editors, and publishing professionals whose mission is to help people become published authors.

Basically, MWW brings New York publishing to Muncie, Indiana, and this year, the conference celebrated its 40th year with 238 people in attendance from 20 states.

Watch this video and see for yourself how awesome it is.

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Teaching Tuesday: Learn their Names

Teaching Tuesday: Learn their Names

Teaching

On the first day of any class I teach, I learn all their names.

First, I call roll. I request that they tell me:

  1. what they prefer to be called
  2. the name and location of their hometown

I learned a lot about the states of Alabama, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania this way, and now that I’m teaching back home again in Indiana, I’m familiar with most of the towns they name.

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Teaching Tuesday: Mentor (and Be Mentored) Wisely

Teaching Tuesday: Mentor (and Be Mentored) Wisely

CW Programs Teaching

I take my job as a mentor pretty seriously. This blog–my whole social media presence, really–is an expression of my desire to mentor as many writers as possible.

Some of you are here because you’re writing students, and some of you are here as writing teachers.

These “Teaching Tuesdays” features are geared towards the writing teachers, although I’m sure the students will be interested, too.

Mentoring via New Media

Continue reading