Why I abandoned my creative writing class

POSTAL ADDRESS (if you're kind enough to send me a letter or something!)

Tim Hickson
PO Box 69062
Lincoln, 7608
Canterbury, New Zealand

Script by meeeeeeeee
Video edited by Lalit Kumar

The artist who design my cover photo:

Stay nerdy!
Tim

[HelloFutureMe]

To the people saying I'm being dumb because this was an introductory class — nope! This was a second year course. I expected this in first year and skipped it. I promise, a lot of the time, you will learn a lot more simply by consciously reading broadly or taking classes to study areas of literature.

~ Tim

[heidiweber]

Same thing happened to me in a creative writing class. I speed wrote a piece of garbage to meet a deadline and the teacher used it on the overhead as an excellent example to follow. My jaw was on the floor.

[bestbi]

I'm taking a quarter off of my Creative Writing degree right now to try to get published by myself. If I can make this work, I won't have to go back. Wish me luck!

[s-o-tariknomad]

reminds me of advice I heard that went "Good writers don't study writing, they study something else and write about it"

[RyuuKageDesu]

I am literally in a script writing class, and I turn in a script. The feedback is, "I don't get it." I state what I want to portray, and the reply is, "That's just something you will need to figure out."

ThAnK's, Professor.

[Fawkes]

To be fair, writing an assignment badly as a joke is how the Dresden Files got started

[j.r.mythical]

I've always remembered how my creative writing classes forbid us from writing fantasy. Which is, of course, the only reason I was there

[Drakorn]

Thankfully, my university actually took Creative Writing seriously. The first few classes had nothing to do with dialogue or paragraphs or any of that basic shit, no, our first ever class was on haiku. Throughout the whole year, we kept jumping between every single genre imaginable to determine where our individual strengths lie. This was, in later years, followed by genre-specific courses, and culminated in us having to do a year-long assignment that has us do a full research diary on a novel we would like to write. I chose to do historical fantasy set during the European witch hunts, so they had me reach out over the pond and interview a history professor who specified on that topic. I also dug up texts written during that time period and had to incorporate all that knowledge into the novel research process. What followed next was us receiving an extensive course in how to actually write and talk to agents to get the business side of publishing a novel going. At the same time, in the other class, we had to write a full-on screenplay and demonstrate our process throughout the various drafts. It was intense but I felt like I definitely got the money's worth.

[raerants]

Not everyone has the same experience. I loved my Master's degree on Creative Writing. I loved my lecturers and colleagues, and that is a major element in art degrees to exchange opinions and grow as an artist. I deepened my knowledge on most matters I already knew and we read a lot of fiction we loved. I definitely didn't discuss what is dialogue 🤣 but we discussed how to improve it according to setting, characters, etc. My advice for everyone who wants to get a writing degree is to really investigate the curriculum and the lecturers - know if it's the right fit.

[patches]

I had a creative writing teacher who pretty much hated popular fiction, like god forbid you had a superhero universe and was in the class trying to make it better like I was.

[yevhenii]

The professor wanting to use your JOKE story as an example is probably a best lesson in irony that the class could ever teach you

[wazzup]

You figured it out a lot quicker than I did. After I got through 3 1/2 years in a Literature degree, I heard a professor mention some really interesting and deep concept that I would actually have trouble learning on my own. I replied, "Wow! When do I get to learn about that?" The reply: "While you're taking your masters degree".

That was the moment that I asked myself why they had been teaching me basic concepts for four whole years, while at the same time I had been consuming as much material on my own as possible.

I'm glad that I learned what I did in college, but I could've learned everything useful that they taught in a year. I've learned so much more on my own, and your channel has been part of that. Thanks for doing what you do.

[elishatea]

My creative writing professor was the type to look you dead in the eye when you handed him a story and say "any publisher would throw this out after reading the first sentence." I don't consider myself a great writer by any stretch but that man brought me from being awful to being somewhat competent in a semester, and I wish I had been able to take more classes with him.

[resentfulshrimp]

These stories make me grateful for my writing professor. She never treated us like we were stupid and was flexible with deadlines in order to let us be the best writters we could be. I miss her man

[Sanguimaru]

It’s pretty normal for basic concepts to be covered early in any arts programs. You actually do have to assume not everyone knows anything and build all those foundational skills and information from scratch. It can be frustrating for more experienced students sometimes, but it’s ultimately true that you can never afford to assume what your students know or don’t know when you first start teaching them.

[infinitecurlie]

I'm a CW major (sentence structure and etc isn't going to come out in the comments haha) and what's really helped me is that I was forced to do writers workshops and had to put my work out there and receive feedback. I also had to give feedback to my peers.

This was something I wasn't going to do by myself because of my crippling anxiety lmao. Doing those workshops made me realize that I REALLY like them and it helped solidify that I would like to teach writing at my current university, but in order to do that I need to have a master's degree. (I'm not good at anything else so if it's not this then I'm effed LOL.) I've honestly learned A LOT about writing from my university and it has really challenged me. I'm currently in a screenwriting class and it's kicking my rear but my university (SNHU) and it's curriculum is pretty fantastic.

AT THE SAME TIME.

I've had a different experience, my "joke" work wasn't used as the prime example lol. But I'm also taking CW online. You are speaking a lot of truths here. I imagine a lot of universities have very poor CW curriculums.

If you aren't looking to become a teacher (and maybe also an editor or copywriter but I imagine you'd just need an English degree) then (especially if you're American because college is expensive) skip the major. Watch YouTube channels like this one, read a whole bunch, send your work to friends and then work yourself up to posting it on the internet and you'll be golden in no time. People like Brandon Sanderson have all of their lectures from their writers workshop posted on their channel, you do not need a CW degree in order to write great stories or become an author.

Then again....

If you want to pursue a CW degree then do it! Don't let anyone or their opinions stop you if that's what you want to do. You could have a completely different experience and a CW major could do wonders for you!

[the_strategst]

I'm an engineering major who got into writing in large part because of Tim's videos. I started a discord server for aspiring writers at my university and naturally we got several creative writing majors. Now, I've never taken a single creative writing class in my life, I've learned entirely from either reading good books or watching videos on youtube. So I was rather confused when these creative writing majors would post their stuff and there'd be so many basic things wrong with it. And I couldn't help but wonder what they were being taught over in those classes. To be fair though, some of the creative writing majors were are actually quite good and I benefitted from their advice and feedback greatly. But still... it's college level classes...

[kristianm]

As a soon-to-be college freshman who is really considering being a CW major, this both terrifies me and is very helpful

[jacobdarling]

I had a similar experience in college and quit when I realized that there was no degree that could open the doors I wanted or get me the opportunities I wanted. In the creative writing space you want a door open: you break it down yourself. You want an opportunity: you make one for yourself.

[lordtrinen]

I contemplated taking some Creative Writing degree courses but two three things stopped me:
1) Lack of time due to work.
2) Lack of funds and an aversion to taking on more student debt after finally paying off my original debt.
3) I started finding great videos like yours and realized that I could get a great education at a fraction of the cost.