On the Impossibility of Teaching Creative Writing [by Tara Skurtu]

Have you ever heard of a tipperau? This is the first thing I ask my composition and creative writing students when I walk into a classroom on day one. They look at me, confused. I spell it on the board. No one has ever heard of a tipperau. It’s an ancient Romanian architectural structure, and you’re going to draw one right now. Now they really look at me. Like I’m crazy. I get a few whats and hows. (Especially when it’s a composition class.) This is great. They’re already outside of their comfort zones. Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you what it looks like. But here’s the thing: you have to draw it with your eyes closed. Usually here I get some laughter. But I mean it. I make them close their eyes, tell them I can see if they’re cheating, and then add one more rule. No talking while drawing. We begin.

The tipperau is a large rectangular structure, wider than it is tall. On the right side of this rectangle is a tall tower. This tower has a triangular roof. At this point, they’re really fighting the urge to open their eyes, and I usually hear a little laughter, some frustration. They want to ask questions, they want to get it right. On the left side of the rectangle is another tower, but this one is even taller. I don’t want to spoil the secret recipe of the tipperau on the internet, but I’ll tell you that I slowly describe a building similar to a cathedral (a bell in one of the towers, a large arched doorway), but with some quirky features like a circular window with bars and, finally, a moat—without a bridge.

And now for the best part. They open their eyes to inspect their stunning asymmetrical, rudimentary drawings full of geometric shapes as scattered about as they are cohesively arranged. I make them hold their tipperaus up high and show them to their classmates. Everyone is laughing at this point. It’s hard to be embarrassed about these beauties. The reasons are obvious, but I ask them why they’re not embarrassed. The answers range, but say basically the same thing: we had no idea what to expect, and we can’t be perfectionists with our eyes closed.

I tell them that drawing a tipperau with their eyes closed is what writing is like. Or, to be more precise, it’s what any creative process is like. You begin with an idea you don’t understand, and you move forward blindly, with an intuitive guidance that can’t be explained. Or, to put it more simply, from a single word—even an unfamiliar one (especially an unfamiliar one)—we create a world. And through the creation of this world we begin to understand the idea. Even if we start with the same word and are given the same instructions, the worlds we create will be unique. Not one tipperau looks the same as another. This speaks to voice, which many young writers are afraid they don’t have enough of. And the students are right, these worlds aren’t perfect. These tipperaus, I tell them, are rough drafts. Rough drafts can easily look like the work of a preschooler, and these certainly do. If they were to revise—literally, I tell them, “to see again”—their tipperaus with their eyes open, the next draft would be more refined, their towers might actually be connected to the main rectangle. A final draft (well, I don’t believe in the word final when it comes to poetry—I prefer to say “leave-alone-able) is a destination reached only through a process like this one. Process builds skill, and, to quote Elizabeth Bishop, “Writing poetry is an unnatural act. It takes great skill to make it seem natural.”

Do you know why you’ve never heard of a tipperau? I ask the students. Most times they know, sometimes they don’t. Here’s where I tell them I made it up. Our brains seek to make sense of the unknown. Minutes ago they had no idea what I was talking about, but now the tipperau exists as a visible and believable structure in their minds.

My father and Raymond Carver inspired this exercise. My father is the most imaginative person I’ve ever met. He can prank anyone into believing the most absurd story. His secret, he once told me, is to begin with the believable, then to gradually add components of the unbelievable. This is how he taught shapes to me. We’d sit side by side, each with a piece of paper and a crayon. Square, he’d say, and he’d draw one. I’d copy. Rectangle. Triangle. Circle. Slibeedoo. The slibeedoo, a structure that included all of the shapes interconnected, was something I believed to be real until the middle of kindergarten. This simple art lesson taught me how imagination shapes new realities for the mind. Turns out it was the best lesson for my writing. Now, on to Carver. After I read “Cathedral” for the first time, I wanted to experience what the narrator felt as he sat on the carpet drawing a cathedral with a ballpoint pen on a shopping bag, eyes closed, the blind man’s hand around his own. I drew a cathedral with my eyes closed. It looked shitty. I was a beginner again. And, aren’t we always beginners again in everything we do? This exercise made me remember this. It felt fantastic.

So, is creative writing something that can be taught? I’m not so sure it can. But I do believe teachers can create a space in which students see beyond their conscious and subconscious limits and challenge themselves to realize that they do know how to create a unique world, whether it be a poem, story, or essay. And the worlds of the genres— they’re not so different when you picture them as, say, an imaginary architectural structure made from a nonsensical word that you’re attempting to draw with your eyes closed. My advice about teaching creative writing could be summed up by the blind man in “Cathedral,” who created a space for the narrator to revise the way he saw the world he created on a sheet of paper, and also the world beyond that page. Close your eyes now. Keep them that way. Don’t stop now. Draw.

Comments

[Leslie McGrath]

As a teacher of undergraduate creative writing, I try to find every means to encourage the peripheral, the unintentional, the misheard and the mistake in students who've spent their young lives focused on rules and rightness. I love this exercise and will try it this semester. Thank you.

[Maria van Beuren]

Wonderful! The tipperau will definitely help me write...

[Tara Skurtu]

Thank you so much, Maria! I'm so happy about this. :)

[Tara Skurtu]

Thanks, Leslie! And, I agree. (Mistake can be such a good word.) I'm glad you're going to try the exercise. It tends to get everyone talking and laughing right away, and puts them in the mindset that anything can happen at any time in class.

[loira]

I wouldn't have heard of it because, as a Romanian (too? :) ), I am aware that neither this nor "ancient Romanian" have ever existed.

[Tara Skurtu]

Yes, the whole point is that it's completely made up. :) (Also, when I'm teaching in Romania I tell the students it's a Macedonian structure.)

[Tara Skurtu]

Yes, the whole point is that it's completely made up. :) (Also, when I'm teaching in Romania I tell the students it's a Macedonian structure.)

[Emily]

There's nothing like using the worn-out analogy of blindness as blundering without bothering to understand blindness outside literature. Though Carver's work is admirable, he's not the authority on blindness. While this exercise could potentially open discussions about nonvisual perception and the hierarchy of human senses in creative writing, as described here, it simply reinforces the privilege of sight and the "mysticism" of an encounter with a real blind person. I shudder to think how offputting and tokenizing this practice would be for a real blind student.

[Mimi]

To be politically correct, and please people like Emily, perhaps better to use the analogy of a blindfolded person, rather than a blind one?

[Bob Evans]

My tipperau is something out of art writing. However, when I had a looo at it upside-down, it looks like a panda. My writing seems definitely to be better. If you need more creative ideas, you can use this website: http://ezcollegepapers.com/

[William F. Howard]

Creative writing from my point of view cannot really be taught, it has to come in a natural way that synchronizes with who you are. Given a particular topic, a number of students say five, without any discussion are going to write different stories about the same. That is what we call creative writing, forming the known out of the known. You can check this one out for yourself on EssayWritingLab where there is a pool of writers writing on a particular topic but all with a different point of view, each one unique in its own sense. For those that ask how they can become creative writers, the answer is simple, just write.

[Lisa King]

Hey Tara, it was a good read. I have been very good at creative writing since my childhood school days. I remember my teachers used to ask me for writing on various topics and gifting me with chocolate bunches. But the time has taken away that ability or skill of writing for me I guess, that is why I used to hire EssayKing for my assignments and essays.

[Hanna Jackson]

It would be a good idea to read "The Norton Anthology of Poetry" and "The Oxford Book of American Poetry," IMHO.

[Kristyka]

A poet I greatly admire whose work appears on your blog is Mitch Sisskind.

[kennethparker]

It is possible that it is impossible.

[Liberty Valence]

My money was on John Wayne from the start.

[Speedy Gonzales]

Try writing sonnets, skinny poems, poems imitating a great master.

[Liberty Valence]

I believe that Woodrow Wilson is now underrated. Frost is certainly underratred. Hemingway, whoi was once overrated, is now put down by assholes. Henry Miller kicks the ass of half ther bullshit award winners in fiction.

[kenneth parker]

To say someone is underrated is ambiguous. Is Robert Lowell, so revered in his lifetime, underrated now?

[Ben Gringo]

Thanks for the information! It is important for students to learn how to write and speak correctly. "The Eleemnts of Style" is excellent, as is Donald Hall's "Writing Well."

[nelson aldrich]

Thanks for the enlightenment. You probably won't post this comment, butif you do, please know that the be alland end all of creative writing is neither one nor the other, and trhe same goes for expository prose. But consider this wonderful poem:
https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2021/11/virginity-by-amy-gerstler.html

[velma shackles]

It ain't as impossible as psychoanalysis.

[James Garner]

Yeats was "the king of the cats." He, too, was a maverick.

[williamgarner]

Get best discounts on Fundamental Concepts And Computations In Chemical Engineering Solution Manual and be a 4.0 student on every test.

[Greg Ruthmore]

The truth. What is the truth? What is the point?