Also, the funniest thing I read today will probably be: “Have you guys seen Californication?” sounds like the beginning of a teacher/student harassment case.

The difference between Shakespeare and TV is that despite their convoluted plots and stock characters, Shakespeare’s plays aren’t plot- or character-driven, they’re language-driven. All you had was dialogue, and the dialogue was only a half-step removed (if that) from poetry. There are long, long speeches in Shakespeare’s work unrelated to plot or character. It’s about the lines.

Of course students are more engaged by TV or movies than they are by stories and poems. It’s what they are used to. It’s what they’ve seen since birth, and it’s more immediate and superficially entertaining (i.e., colors and lights and bells and whistles) than text. It always will be. Setting entertainment as the goal, in order to “compete” with Lost, is a losing battle.

BUT: Of course literature is entertaining. They don’t know that because they have no experience with it. They aren’t engaged with it right away because it’s a whole different kind of engagement. They can’t write good scenes is because their model for all storytelling is televisual and cinematic, where acting and photography and music and editing come together with writing to do the work.

This is so long. What the hell is my point? I think it’s this: “Entertainment” is relative, and ill-defined. I think George Orwell’s critical essays are entertaining. I think Warner Brothers cartoons are entertaining. I think it’s entertaining to hold class discussion about the ways media shifts change our culture. (My students may think otherwise.) I am not particularly entertained by U2, or Agatha Christie, or The Hangover. So I don’t know if hitting students where they live, so to speak, is as important as we worry it is.

All right, I’m done. Except to say: “Have you guys seen Californication?” sounds like the beginning of a teacher/student harassment case.

Demons, which a lot of people feel is one of Doestoevsky’s finest novels, is almost unbearable to me. The reason: the first 100 pages are almost entirely exposition. He TELLS the reader details about his characters the whole time and nothing eventful really happens. But that was one mode of writing back then.

One of the most important reasons to read contemporary writing is to see that this isn’t how people write anymore, and one of the main reasons it doesn’t work is that you’re competeing for attention with television, not to mention the other million people out there who want to become writers too. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone purposely compromise their ideals to be successful, but try to have a realistic idea of what it takes to be successful and what is considered effective now. Good question to ask: if you hadn’t written this, would you want to take the time to sit down and read it? Because you have to realize that asking for the amount of time it takes to read a story is a big deal. People are busy, they have lives. Why should they read your story in particular?

They tell you in intro writing classes you can’t write like Dickens and Austen anymore, which is a good lesson, but in order to see that you need to get the student’s pulse on what’s currently going on in contemporary writing.

Teachers also say show don’t tell, and this is also very good advice for beginners. In fact, there have been a lot of writing dos and don’ts lists online recently, and I find it highly entertaining to read the comments sections for them becuase people get so angry. Rules are to be taken with a grain of salt. Most rules are created for beginners to say, “This is what’s commonly done wrong.” It doesn’t mean you can’t do a, b, or c, but if you choose to attempt a, b, or c, you need to find a way to make it work and usually only seasoned writers know how to get away with breaking the rules.

Anyway, I think a lot of literature students/aspiring writers buck up against contemporary literature for the same reason they buck up against TV. Classic writing has a track record. It’s been around a long time, and when reading it, you’re not wasting your time on something that may or may not enrich you. Plus to a certain extent you don’t have to form your own opinions; you can just regurgitate what previous scholars have said. It’s more dangerous to read people like Marilyn Robinson or Michael Chabon or any other successful literate writer currently working because, though respected, they haven’t been canonized yet. And though it would be great if you could get students to subscribe to literary journals, I’m not sure that happens all that much.

Anyway, all this is just to say, an understanding of contemporary arts is important, and I think most younger writers starting out aren’t equipped with this knowledge, which is why you end up seeing the excess of exposition.

Then again, I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons too.

As for “Show, Don’t tell.” I think one of the reasons it’s so popular, besides the fact that, to a certain extent, it’s true, is that beginning writers are SO good at exposition, pages and pages of exposition, that teachers like me want to get them to stop it altogether in the fear that they won’t get it if we just ask them to moderate their use of it. In the end, though, I agree that a balance is necessary, and some of my students are starting to get that, which is nice.

I think writers often think of television as one of the baser arts, but you mention of Shakespeare in the post is apt. He both entertained, and while doing so, made some of the most profound observations on human nature the world has known. Of course, there are still writers out here who try to bridge that gap, but it’s not an easy one to bridge, and as a writer, you risk the criticism that your work is ephemeral or unimportant if you are entertaining.

Still, the most successful writing does both. I remember reading Crime and Punishment in high school, thinking this 500 page Russian translation is going to be boring, but they’re making me read it anyway. I went home cracked it open and within the first 50 pages Raskolnikov kills an old pawnbroker with an axe. You mean, this was written in the 19th century? Wow! It was kind of mind blowing. Still, the murder plot and investigation were only a method of investigating something deeper.

As for show don’t tell, we’ve ingrained that too deeply into the writing psyche. To be a good writer, I believe you have to be able to do both and decide when one or the other is appropriate. There are certain details necessary to propel a story that don’t always warrant their own incident or anecdote or scene to illustrate them. If that’s the case, just tell. One line. Exposition, get it over with, and keep the story moving.

Anyway, that being said, watching good television can be good for young writers to see both what they’re competing against and to learn how to artfully construct a plot. Just remember, you should set some time aside to do plenty of reading too.