How a 12th-grade English assignment convinced me I couldn’t write fiction
A long, long time ago1, in a galaxy far, far away2, a 12th-grade English assignment convinced me I couldn’t write fiction. Two disclaimers before I tell that story:
- I’m not here to bash teachers. A long, long time ago, I taught high school English. It’s the toughest job I’ve ever had, and I escaped to graduate school and librarianship as quickly as I could. Good teachers deserve way more money and respect than we give them.
- The ultimate responsibility for my choices rests with me. The fact that I chose to let one bad experience convince me I couldn’t do something is my problem.
And one more thing before we get to the story:
For anyone who’s new here, this post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of every month, we IWSG-ers share our doubts, fears, struggles, and triumphs. Our awesome co-hosts this month are Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca, and PJ Colando. Click those links and leave them some comment love.
Each month our fearless leader (Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh) gives us an optional question to answer. This month’s question: Since it’s back to school time, let’s talk English class. What’s a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?
The high school English assignment that convinced me I couldn’t write fiction
OK, still with me? Great! This story isn’t about a writing rule I learned in school. The writing rules I learned mostly had to do with grammar and punctuation and have mostly served me very well. This story is about an assignment that messed me up as a writer. What was that assignment: Write a short story.
Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? Well, yeah, I suppose it was, except for one small detail:
The teacher never taught us anything about writing stories.
Nothing about plotting, creating characters, writing dialogue… nothing.
Zilch. Zip. Nada.
She just said, Go forth and write a story3.
And so I wrote what was probably the worst short story in the history of American literature. It stunk so bad that, 40 years later, remnants of its stench probably still circle above my hometown, blending with the scents of manure and sewage treatment to form a piquant bouquet of variegated shit.
It was that bad.
I have no idea what grade I got on the assignment–I tried to blot the entire experience out of my mind from the moment I wrote The End on the bottom of the paper–but fortunately the rest of my academic performance was good enough to keep my A average. The real damage was to my self-perception. I assumed after that experience that I lacked any talent for fiction writing and didn’t attempt to write another short story for over 30 years.
As I said at the beginning, responsibility for that assumption rests with me. At any point in those 30 years, I could have recognized that a single high school assignment says exactly nothing about my abilities. But I didn’t. “Lack of talent for fiction” slipped into my skull, burrowed in my brain, and became part of my identity.
For 30 years.
How did I extract that particular brain worm? To be honest, I really don’t know. Not entirely, anyway. A few people suggested I should write. One gave me a copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I read Diana Gabaldon’s account of how she came to write Outlander (tl;dr: she decided that the best way to learn to write a novel was to write one). I had a conversation with a co-worker one afternoon about writing, and after that conversation, I Googled, “How to write a novel.” I found the site for Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method4, the approach sounded do-able, and I decided to give it a try. Ten years later, I’m still writing.
So, what can we learn from this story?
- If you teach writing, make sure you teach techniques before you expect students to use them. Seriously. You wouldn’t expect a kid to solve quadratic equations without teaching them how to solve quadratic equations. Writing fiction is no different. It consists of a series of skills just like math does, and those skills deserve to be treated just as seriously.
- If you really want to do something, don’t let one bad experience discourage you. Try it!
- Most of what we call “talent” is mostly hard work and practice seasoned with a bit of luck. Most “talents” can be learned, at least to some degree. Some people are naturally gifted, yes, but most of us have to put in the effort to learn from others and then work our butts off to get better.
- 1984
- About 2 hours north of where I currently live.
- OK, OK, she probably didn’t actually say, “Go forth.” Sheesh, you people are sticklers for accuracy.
- Randy also wrote an excellent book called The Snowflake Method. I link to it and other great resources for writers in Books to Help You Write Better: A Writer’s Reading List.
A few updates
- In my last IWSG post, I said I was ready to start writing again. I’m happy to report that I have started writing again! I’m back at work on Delta Dawn, my domestic suspense novel about an estate attorney who returns to her hometown for a final meeting with her abusive father and ends up in the crosshairs of a serial killer. I feel like I’ll be revising that sucker till I die, but at least I’m back at it and making (slow) progress.
- Still no news on the Best of Deathlehem anthology.
- And on a personal note – Long-Suffering Husband and I bought a house! Our next 523 weekends shall be taken up with house projects.
The memery
I’ve been slacking on my meme-gathering, so I did a little Googling and discovered a subreddit called r/WritingMemes. RIP to my productivity for the rest of the morning. Here’s a sampling of what I found there:
You mean I can’t just think my story into being? Damn.
When you’re 57 and still haven’t written your masterpiece…
This was me querying my first novel, which includes some on-the-page sexual assault and domestic violence. I don’t glorify those things or write about them in a sensationalistic way, but I don’t sugarcoat women’s suffering. I also don’t have an agent.
And finally:
Me while drafting: This is the worst thing anyone ever wrote in the history of western civilization. Why am I wasting my time when I could be doing something useful, like cataloging my spice cabinet?
Me coming back to those same words a few months later: Well, it ain’t Hemingway, but… yeah, I like it.
And on that note, I’m outta here. Time to get back to the house projects. Those spices won’t catalog themselves.
How about you? What was your high school assignment from hell? Or did you have an assignment that taught you something valuable or set you on the path your life would take?
24 Comments
alexjcavanaugh
Glad you’re writing again!
That is rather crappy to expect students to produce something that they weren’t taught. Like being told to solve a geometry problem without teaching it first.
Janet Alcorn
Exactly. And IMHO it reflects a damaging view of writing, that it doesn’t require skill or isn’t worthy of instruction.
Kim Elliott
Glad you eventually overcame that falsehood that you couldn’t do it! Have fun getting settled in your new home!
Janet Alcorn
Thanks! Better late than never, for sure.
We love our new home! I’ll love it even more when I’m not surrounded by boxes.
Loni Townsend
I think those writing assignments were among those that I didn’t turn in. I don’t recall if my teacher taught us to write short stories. The last time I remember English was when I was in 8th grade. The rest, I’ve blocked from memory.
I’m glad you’re back to writing. Woot!
Janet Alcorn
I wasn’t the kind of kid who would skip assignments–I was a good little rule-follower. I just wish we’d had some instruction in the craft of writing. My life path might have looked really different.
Yvonne V
Sorry that was such a negative writing experience! More instruction definitely would’ve helped.
Love the memes!
Janet Alcorn
Thanks! I figure we can always use a laugh.
deniz
I love your lessons learned list, now *that* is good advice!
Love your footnotes <3
Janet Alcorn
I love funny footnotes! I can’t remember where I first saw them done, but I’ve been doing them for awhile. Chuck Wendig is the master of the hilarious footnote. Read his book Gentle Writing Advice. It’s full of them.
emaginette
We all have a writing path with bumps and dips. The ones that kept going are here today. 🙂
Janet Alcorn
Yep. Wish I’d known then what I know now.
J.Q. Rose
Love your sense of humor. You MUST keep writing to make folks smile. You helped me today! Thank you.
Janet Alcorn
Aw, thank you so much! Your comment made my day!
lissa
Everyone’s very, very first writing is supposed to be bad anyway but it’s an experience too. Did you try rewriting it to see if you have improve later on? That might help change your perspective. I’m glad you got to writing even if it took some years to start.
Thanks for dropping by blog. Have a lovely day
Janet Alcorn
I knew nothing about the practice of writing fiction, so I just gave up. My bad, I know.
Jennifer Lane
Hooray for writing again! Sounds like an interesting plot. I agree how laborious writing can feel! I want to learn more about the snowflake method. That’s also great you were an English teacher, which helps you give balanced advice about writing assignments. And how awesome about the house! I bought a new house about a year ago, and I love it.
Janet Alcorn
Congrats on your house!
Elizabeth Seckman
I’m glad to hear you have a home and are writing again. Those are two very important things in life.
We were told to write short stories, but my English teacher praised them all as amazing. Looking back, I know she was lying. My story was also trash.
Janet Alcorn
I wish teachers wouldn’t teach things they know nothing about. It’s so damaging. Teach even a little of the craft before having students try to do it themselves.
joylenebutler
I think teachers forget how influential they can be. My grade 11 English teacher couldn’t do enough to encourage me. My first year college professor suggested I go home and have babies. No, I didn’t respond but I suspect he could tell what I was thinking by the look on my face. LOL. I’m thrilled for you, Janet. A published short story is a wonderful thing.
Janet Alcorn
Ugh, sorry you had such a sexist teacher. I’m always impressed by women from previous generations who accomplished great things, because they had to do it in spite of everyone telling them they were nothing more than walking wombs. Like you, I encountered plenty of sexism, but most adults in my life were encouraging and supportive.
A.B. Murrow
This is eerily relatable. Coming out of college and high school I was convinced I couldn’t write anything. The culprit? All of my precious writing was done under huge amounts of academic stress! First, I thought I had to he stressed to write well, then I thought I needed to give myself writing assignments. Now I realize that I never felt good about my writing because I was writing in inherently distressing situations and it showed.
Janet Alcorn
Oh, good point. Homework and other academic stress is rarely fun. Though I will admit, I do seem to need deadlines to really buckle down and work.