Writer's Chronicle

Just got the AWP rag in the mail and I have to say I'm disappointed. There's not much to it, and what there is...

I read "Odds on Ends," an article about "How to Stop Writing," by which the author means how to end a short story. Here she is being offensively dismissive of other writer's work:

The end of Ian McEwan's novels are all dreadful...Michael Ondaatje's endings leave readers hanging. No Country For Old Men felt like the first part of a two-part serial, and as for the last paragraph of The Road? Ridiculous.

Yikes. How can she get published, saying things like that? Maybe the endings are bad, I don't know, but to dismiss the work of authors without any discussion of the work, without any explanation at all...jeez.

And then there's this:

Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary soldier on long after their heroines have disappeared, to their detriment I might add.

It just strikes me as odd that the professional journal of writing programs would publish a paper that is so flagrantly dismissive of other writers. Without any analysis or argument even. Maybe she has a good point to make. We might even benefit if she explained herself. But she doesn't. And she doesn't have to. Apparently.

As for the last line of Joyce's "The Dead":

We would tear that apart in a workshop—too many adverbs, too much alliteration.

And it's honestly hard to say if there is any self-aware irony to that statement. Maybe just a glimmer. If so, she doesn't bother to stop and reflect on workshop practices that work against lyrical endings by imposing restrictive aesthetic standards on student work. There is nowhere in the article any pedagogical reflection whatsoever.

Her article, when not dismissing (or sometimes praising) novels in passing, consists mostly of "suggestions," which are supposed to help...who? Any other writer, apparently, although it's hard to imagine that the author really intends such advice for her peers.

Be careful not to end with a dream...readers tend to skip them.

We want our evil characters to be punished before they go and our good guys to be redeemed before they go.

Mirror-image your scenes.

Think circularly.

Aim for a beautiful ending.

Then, slipping from "craft" suggestions to "process" suggestions without apparently recognizing the distinction:

Meditate.

Keep a dream journal.

Be attentive to any ideas that come to you in the shower.

Find a stick and write in the sand.

Etc.

Missing from the paper entirely is any survey of critical literature that might help illuminate the question of what an "ending" is and what qualities make a "good" one. There's plenty she could draw from. But she doesn't mention any of it. Hasn't read it by all appearances. Her "lit review" covers only "how to" manuals. And these she quotes without even citing them or providing references. It's just not even remotely academic. I guess that's what's so shocking to me. Maybe I just have to get over it.

But I can't let this one go without comment:

This, by the way, is why I think we say that writing can't be taught. So much of it is based on the body's physical response. If you don't feel that sick twitch of shame, even when the sentimental or manipulative is pointed out to you, no one can teach it to you. This doesn't mean your work won't sell or be popular. I just means it won't be any good. If you don't hear that little "click" when the end snaps into place no one can teach that to you either...there is no other way for me to describe it—you hear "click" and the treasure box opens.

The passage assumes a special intuition belonging only to great writers (like the author of course) that can't be taught (even though the author makes her living teaching CW). It also sets the author up as arbiter of "good," which strikes me as the foundation of really bad workshop pedagogy. Writing instructor as guru of goodness. I don't think I want to look inside that "treasure box."

Her article does shed light on the state of the current conversation in CW. It suddenly makes sense to me that so many folks who actually are writing academically about CW pedagogy and theory argue for the value of formalist criticism. Judging by the AWP's publication, the scholarly conversation is at square one and will have to be moved forward one step at a time.

No wonder there is so much negative feeling toward Theory. People are working toward tenure without having to be academic, and any push in the direction of scholarly discourse must feel like a threat. Much safer to publish "advice" in the Writer's Chronicle and call it a day.

This means to participate in the conversation, I have to be really, really careful about how I make my points. I'm going to have to keep reading this thing and thinking about ways to make a bridge between the unconsidered stance of writers like the one I quoted above, and the hyper-considered work in Theory.

How do you convince these folks that Theory matters? That there actually are things you can teach beyond "suggestions"?