I wish they'd taught us this at the big-W Workshop

From Sam Sacks' "THE FICTION MACHINE The Workshop and the hacks", in which he skewers Best New American Voices 2006, workshops, the Workshop, and professors of creative writing:

A Story, as it progresses, is counterbalanced by a Backstory, which informs the reader what of importance happened beforehand. Both Story and Backstory must have a pronounceable Why Now, a meaningful reason that they are being told—something must be At Stake. Regarding meaning and significance, the writer should Show Not Tell through recurring Central Metaphor rather than through dry explanation of what is being felt. Furthermore, a good story has an apt and memorable Voice and conveys a strong Sense of Place.

I must have missed "formula day" at Iowa. Bummer. Probably would have been published sooner.

A popular anecdote that sheds light on an earlier epoch of American literature has F. Scott Fitzgerald, fresh out of Princeton, saying to his fellow alumnus Edmund Wilson, "I want to be one of the greatest writers who ever lived, don't you?" There is naivete in the statement and there is hubris, but the boast also expresses a serious pursuit of greatness that is beautiful and quite spine tingling to any young writer who feels within him the powerful welling of undeveloped talent. But today, such a statement would most likely be met with muffled embarrassment in a workshop, which values the practical ends of publication and employment over this sort of dreaming.

Actually, what I said was "No sleep til Stockholm." And the response wasn't muffled embarassment, but "Fuck you, Antoine," which in those days was the highest compliment available. Sometimes a story would go in, and you'd get a call the next day. "I read your story. Fuck you." Click. Then you knew it was good.

Mostly we learned by reading great literature, and writing a lot, and talking about it a lot, with nudges from professors here and there, professors who weren't trying to shove some formula down our throats but who were trying to impart to us the importance of our calling.* And by sitting around the Foxhead and of the Java House arguing about what was good and what wasn't.

Picking on the BNAV anthology doesn't seem quite fair to me. Of course the stories are going to seem derivative. Writers learn by imitation. Proust learned by imitation. And keep in mind this is an anthology of student work. Now, why would anyone want to read student work? Why is it called Best New American Voices when finding one's "voice" usually takes longer than learning the nuts and bolts of craft? I have no idea. I guess it sells books?


* Plus the mindblowing idea that stories are actually made of words, and that we should pay attention to them.