Elif Batumen on the creative writing workshop:
Because writing is suspected to be narcissistic and wasteful, it must be ‘disciplined’ by the programme … The workshop’s most famous mantras – ‘Murder your darlings,’ ‘Omit needless words,’ ‘Show, don’t tell’ – also betray a view of writing as self-indulgence, an excess to be painfully curbed in AA-type group sessions. Shame also explains the fetish of ‘craft’: an ostensibly legitimising technique, designed to recast writing as a workmanlike, perhaps even working-class skill, as opposed to something every no-good dilettante already knows how to do…Posted by Dr. Frank at October 17, 2010 10:51 PM | TrackBackAs long as it views writing as shameful, the programme will not generate good books, except by accident.