Are creative writing classes a meme ?

>learning to be creative
Honestly, if you want to become a novelist, your best bet is foregoing college and using the money you save to travel and experience the world.

>>8859946
When I took one I wasn't even interested in literature, I was a history major who wanted to get a new perspective on hiw to write better, so keep this in mind. But I got a lot out of the class honestly, weekly workshops and reading tons of mainstream and obscure lit+poetry. The class won't teach you how to be creative obviously, or help you clarify notions about the human condition. But it will teach you formal techniques and obvious shit that should be avoided. We didn't read one sentence if critical theory either. What the class is best for though is that it lights a fire under your ass to write, you need to write each week and you better make sure that that it won't embarrass you in front of the whole class. If I took one thing away from the class is that if you want to be a writer you best damn write. I just wish that I was as passionate about lit then as I am now.

i once talked to a professor about studying philosophy on my own. he said that if i read, say, heidegger, and then told a real philosophy prof what i thought of him i would get laughed at.

>>8859994
>i would get laughed at
You know why though, right?

>>8859994
I take it with that line of argumentation you never took up a self study of philosophy.

>>8859994
That is because most philosophy professors don't actually read Heidegger, besides those that actually specialize on him. They read 3rd hand accounts at best or learn him through professors that similarly never read him.

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>>8860007
>how could our eyes be real if a mirror aren't

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>>8860027
has nothing to do with being right or wrong or jaden. try more like >>8860020 or pic related

>>8859994
>>8860020
To add to my own post, whether or not you get laughed at by a philosophy professor doesn't say too much. Most philosophical progress, especially recently, has been in "reinterpreting" older philosophers and innovating from there.

Not "getting" Heidegger gives you a great chance of being an idiot on the subject, but you also have a much better chance of contributing something new over everyone else that still "gets" him.

This is not at all a suggestion that self-study is better than taking the academic route; the latter is much better than the former, but obviously the former is better than nothing.

>>8859973
I'm with this guy. knowing that a room of people are going to be reading your work and talking about kind of forces you to work hard. It's obviously best to self-motivated, but fear of humiliation can do a lot for a person.

It's good for networking if your school has a good program. They'll set up readings with people who can publish you.

>>8859959
nice creative equivocational fallacy you egg

>>8859946
depends on the class.
I took a creative writing course at community college and literally all we did was post our work on the class site online and critique each other's work in class. Teacher taught very little, we just wrote and talked about what we thought was weak and what we could do better.
it was great.
teacher was obsessed with Vonnegut though.

>>8859946
Yes. You can get the basics of story structure from Robert Mckee's "Story" (even though it is focused on screenwriting). Beyond that, read books critically and formally. Break down their plot structure and characters to find out what works. When you read a book you dont like, take notes on what works and what doesnt.

No creative writing class will help you if you dont write regularly.

>>8860097
t. 100,000 in debt for an English degree

>>8859946
Depends on the quality of the teacher and the students which is very variable. You could be getting quality advice for objective improvement or "critique" about how your writing isn't diverse enough, isn't appealing enough to the <18 year old demographic, or isn't genre fiction.

>>8859959
Creative classes are about writting techniques, not being "creative".
>Inb4 'You wasted your money in meme scam'. Nop, i didn't and i wouldn't pay for creative writting classes, i am just trying to make a point.

>>8860098
sounds good but HIGHLY dependent upon the quality of the group

>>8859959
terrible advice, catching syphillis in thailand is not an experience anybody wants to hear about. Also, more generally, books are made from reading and thinking. Take for example Dubliners, its all about experiences but theyre the experiences of human life, not the experience of a backpacker. You need never leave your hometown to have all the epxerience you need to become a great artist.

>>8860169

underrated post

>>8859994
I'm about to apply for a history degree and I think I might be making a horrible mistake.

>>8859946
No, most amateur writings don't know about the more technical side of writing which is why so many novice authors self-publish: their work lacks the quality, regardless of ideas presented, to be published traditionally.

>>8861602
everything about your post screams 'teen'

>>8859959
Your best bet is to SIT DOWN AND FUCKING WRITE.

>>8861607
Saying that amateur writers often don't know about the technical side of creative writing screams teen? Why is that?

>>8861347
>>8860169
overrated post t.b.h.

>>8859946
Read a lot of literature, think a lot, and write a lot. That's all there is to becoming a decent writer.

>>8860169
actually it's just 60k and it was for art history