McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Maybe an English degree is a must?
gatordave96:
--- Quote from: Shecky on April 11, 2013, 01:03:42 AM ---Oh lawd, let's not start talking about academic language. I speak it fluently but it gives me heartburn and particularly effective gas.
--- End quote ---
Could be worse. Trying working in the legal field. Makes my eyeballs bleed to see some of the pleadings or contracts that crawl or slither across my desk.
But I digress. Writing is a skill and an art. It takes knowledge and practice to cultivate both. So if you're an English major, you have a leg up on everyone else. You read. You write. A lot. All done in four (or more) years. But there are other ways to get there.
I just happened to take a dark and twisted path before I started writing my novel. :-[
Wordmaker:
You've also got Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Dan Brown, or Jim Carroll, none of whom had English degrees, and many of whom had nothing close to what we'd consider a full education today.
I think the love of writing does attract people to study English, but it's by no means a requirement.
slrogers:
Just out of curiosity, why do you ask? Is it because there's a lot of things that people say with regard to writing that's hard to understand and not having spent years of dedicated education to the subject you feel like perhaps you're behind the curve?
I can understand that.
If you're looking for more than just moral support, and want some good resource material ... I'd like that as well, to know what books or websites people found useful. I'd also like to know what terms people have not found helpful. I think for example, "show don't tell" is sometimes so over-simplified that it's not actually helpful. Learning what things to show, sounds like it's something that even the best authors struggle with. I think Jim talked about that with respect to the "sagging middle" that he said everyone has a hard time with.
But in terms of moral support, I'm sure you'll do well. Just keep at it.
arianne:
--- Quote ---You've also got Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Dan Brown, or Jim Carroll, none of whom had English degrees
--- End quote ---
Dan Brown has degrees in English and Spanish and taught high school English for a while before becoming a writer...
--- Quote ---Just out of curiosity, why do you ask? Is it because there's a lot of things that people say with regard to writing that's hard to understand and not having spent years of dedicated education to the subject you feel like perhaps you're behind the curve?
--- End quote ---
I think it's just that when I stand in front of the fantasy section of my local bookstore and look at the current names on the bestseller lists, I find that most if not all of them are English majors. (I focus on the fantasy section because that's the genre I personally like the most to read and write. No disrespect intended to other genres and authors).
So it makes me wonder, maybe I'm missing something here. Like maybe I didn't get the writer memo where it says, "Thou shalt be an English major to be a fantasy writer".
I don't think I have trouble understanding concepts laid out in writing books (I do sometimes ignore writing advice that I don't think applies to my own writing or my personal style, but not because I don't understand it), so that's really not the issue here. I will admit to sometimes rolling my eyes at teachers who Cliffsnote every good bit of fiction into symbols and metaphors and whatnot (good thing I didn't become an English major then, I guess) but at the same time I do wonder if maybe there is some sort of "Rules of Fiction" thing (like a more general and more complicated version of Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces) that should be applied to fiction to make it good.
I think I could do with some moral support about now....
Wordmaker:
I didn't know that about Dan Brown, I thought it was Art History he'd studied.
In any event, seriously, don't sweat it. There are only two things to worry about when it comes to writing for commercial publication: What you love to write, and how to make that accessible to a reader.
Sure, there are rules and guidelines, but you don't need any kind of a degree to understand them and choose to apply or ignore them as you see fit. The only things you absolutely need that you could learn from studying English are the ability to spell and knowledge of correct grammar. Beyond that, the single best way to learn to be a better writer is to keep writing.
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