# Teaching > General Teaching >  Writing Problems!

## yute

I'm a Literature student who is having problem with my writing skills.I would greatly appreciate any help that can be offered.Thank you very much. :Yawnb:

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## Beverly S

> I'm a Literature student who is having problem with my writing skills.I would greatly appreciate any help that can be offered.Thank you very much.


There's a number of really good writing books out there that should help. Have you tried "Portable Literature?" It's written by Kirszner & Mandell and is a literature book used frequently by English classes. It's very helpful. Ask at your local library or at a Borders about helpful writing books. There's tons of 'em out there!

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## Charles Darnay

Any chance you can be more specific ...what exactly are you having trouble with?

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## blazeofglory

Writing problems can be solved by writing only not by anything else. Of course there are hundreds of guidebooks they can help you, indeed, but they do only if and when you take to writing, or else it is like you are thirsty and there is a river near by. Knowing the river does not quench your thirst, you have may have to go there and drink. 

Read more and more and write. Imitate, for literature is imitation, an imitation of nature of human behavior and nothing else. And the better the imitator the better the writing skill. That is it.

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## Etienne

> Imitate, for literature is imitation, an imitation of nature of human behavior and nothing else. And the better the imitator the better the writing skill. That is it.


No, not at all.

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## blazeofglory

> No, not at all.


Can you write without imitating something? Every writer imitates and in that process some efficient ones better the idea imitated and others worsen them. Art is indeed a matter of imitation at the base.

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## B-Mental

Ok, i would say write something and post it... whatever it is that you need to figure out...explain your problem...and respond...you will get what you need. Cheers, B

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## Etienne

> Can you write without imitating something? Every writer imitates and in that process some efficient ones better the idea imitated and others worsen them. Art is indeed a matter of imitation at the base.


You think metaphors are "an imitation of nature"? You think expressing an abstract thought or an idea is an "imitation of nature". And if we take two different description of, let's say, a forest. There should be one of the two that is "more accurate" and therefore better?

That doesn't make sense, the only imitation you have is an image but the words are a creation that will translate a probably different image to the readers, but it is the emotion or the feeling that is mostly being transmitted, not the accuracy of the "imitation".

Besides, that would also mean that the best imitation, and therefore the greatest way, of writing that something is red would be saying plainly that it's red. Poetic metaphors, after all, are only inferior ways of writing red...

You sound like a sovietic writer, except that even they said that's how literature SHOULD be, not that it was... and we all know that their attempt produced boring literature ayways, with perhaps a few debatable exceptions.

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## Lote-Tree

> I'm a Literature student who is having problem with my writing skills.I would greatly appreciate any help that can be offered.Thank you very much.



You need a space after skills before the I.

Does that help  :Biggrin:

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## HotKarl

Why don't you post one of your assignments so people can see some of your problems?

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## blazeofglory

> You think metaphors are "an imitation of nature"? You think expressing an abstract thought or an idea is an "imitation of nature". And if we take two different description of, let's say, a forest. There should be one of the two that is "more accurate" and therefore better?
> 
> That doesn't make sense, the only imitation you have is an image but the words are a creation that will translate a probably different image to the readers, but it is the emotion or the feeling that is mostly being transmitted, not the accuracy of the "imitation".
> 
> Besides, that would also mean that the best imitation, and therefore the greatest way, of writing that something is red would be saying plainly that it's red. Poetic metaphors, after all, are only inferior ways of writing red...
> 
> You sound like a sovietic writer, except that even they said that's how literature SHOULD be, not that it was... and we all know that their attempt produced boring literature ayways, with perhaps a few debatable exceptions.


Everything in the universe is an imitation of something else. And a good writer , imitating something of his or her predecessors spoils or worsens it whereas a good one betters it. Shakespeare had to borrow the stories from Greek tragedies and while imitating them he had done it skillfully not giving shades of doubts that they are simulated. 

Did not Aristotle say art is an imitation of nature? So did Eliot say, as there is nothing new in art, all are imitated.

Why you despise Sovetic writer? What point at which you do not like them?

Of course everything is imitation. A child grows up through imitations of his elders. When you peruse something and learn is not it an imitation ?

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## Etienne

> Everything in the universe is an imitation of something else.


So are you trying a comeback to platonic ideas?




> And a good writer , imitating something of his or her predecessors spoils or worsens it whereas a good one betters it. Shakespeare had to borrow the stories from Greek tragedies and while imitating them he had done it skillfully not giving shades of doubts that they are simulated.


Inspiration is not imitation.




> Did not Aristotle say art is an imitation of nature?


Yes, he also said that matter was composed of four elements: fire, earth, water and air. Whether he is right or not on a certain point is a matter of defending that point with arguments. Using Aristotle as an appeal to authority might have been something trendy in Middle-Ages, but is not something taken so seriously now.




> So did Eliot say, as there is nothing new in art, all are imitated.


I'm sure I can find you more quote about people who talk of art as a matter of creativity, you want to make an appeal to authority fight? I think I should be able to win that one.




> Why you despise Sovetic writer?


Some of them are good sometimes (Gorki), and usually the good ones are those that managed to go around the imposed "model" to some limit (Sholokhov being an example).

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## JoanS

i would need also some help with my english, as iam foreign student and need to improve it as soon as possible. I think the best way is to write some essays, show it to english people who would dedicate some minutes to revise it..

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## blazeofglory

The v very course of learning is simply imitation, and nothing else. A child learns by imitating adults. They keep on mimicking and then after they start pouring out in point of fact.

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## Charles Darnay

> Inspiration is not imitation).


How is it not? What is inspiration but our minds reflecting off something (physical or abstract) an (in literature) putting that reflection into words? What are we inspired by; surly things that already exist. And thus when we write about what we are inspired by we must mimic its essence in some form or another. When dealing with abstract concepts (Nature, Love, God?) how do we stay true to our inspiration, we build up in our mind everything we know about it, ie, what we have read about it. And so we must imitate on some level what Shakespeare, for example, wrote about Love in order to form our own opinion about Love should we choose to write about it.

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## byquist

Get a book by Peter Elbow called "Writing" or some similar title/he's on youtube also so you can hear his pitch/his background story. He can make anybody a writer. Just freewrite or quickwrite--get the mechanism going w/o any self-evaluation, self-judgment, or self-criticism. It's okay if you write garbage because you're just going to edit it later anyways; just puke out words on a paper.

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## A Siege

I recommend you read George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language", which you can find in The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters of George Orwell. You can probably find that in your library.

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## The Comedian

The book that helped me the most was Joseph Williams' Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace.

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## alestar89

> Writing problems can be solved by writing only not by anything else.


I would say you learn to write by reading. The question here relates to essay-type of writing in which case imitation IS the basis of the entire system. There is a standard which must be repeated in order to obtain the desired, acceptable results.

In literature, however, I would say that it is most important to read and then discover the writing style within us. Something along the lines of the magical subconscious. I, for example, as much as I read and love Shakespeare, would find my writing boring if it were exactly like him. In fact, I don't think I 'imitate' anyone's writing. It is my own style and voice, produced by my experiences and reading. Even people who've been said to imitate someone's great writing... well, the fact that they are being remembered implies that they have done something new and different, therefore worthy of remembrance and recognition.

Art/literature, sure, has to borrow materials, ideas or even certain results from what has preceded it, yet what sets a work apart as 'great' is the novel use of past ideas and the creation of a completely brand-new thing or experience.

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