How to Survive College With a Creative Writing Degree (Part 3/3)
This is the final part of the three-part article series I’ve been posting here, and I’m pleased to share my feeble “wisdom” with my readers. Previously, I’ve given tips on how to “survive” college while facing the challenging aspects of the degree you are pursuing as a Creative Writing major. Now, I will detail the “fun” aspects of being an aspiring writer in college, complete with the pros and cons of being able to write a smashing essay and how to invigorate your work in every class by giving it all you can.
Let’s start by saying that the “inner Picasso” of your soul and being will delight in the paperwork of college classes, whether if it’s an essay you’re challenged with or a short written answer on a question. You’ll no doubt be able to rise to the challenges you will face by being able to write fluently (and hopefully with correct grammar and spelling), but during many occasions, you will be forced to write about things that you hate.
This is in preparation of a writer’s daily work in the real world, because many authors will definitely be pressured into writing books that they did not plan for and articles whose subjects are nothing but a pain, as well as reviewing other books (for publicity’s sake) that they may hate. I don’t have any personal experience with most of these things, but I know these issues will most likely rear their heads when I publish my works in earnest.
College is more than just a stepping stone for your career; it is also a helpful barrage of issues that you will encounter in your journey in life, both as a writer and as a successful individual. Unless you plan on flipping burgers at McDonald’s forever (no disrespect on those who do, in fact, work there — it’s honest work), you want to be able to conquer challenges that will allow you to grow and succeed as a writer so that you may be able to fulfill your goals in life.
This is a list of helpful tips on writing in college, and it is by no means a complete list that will help you out in each and every scenario. But I do hope that it will come to your aid by giving you some amount of confidence and “wisdom.”
Practice Handwriting/Typing
This seems obvious, especially in light of my previous articles on how it helps to take copious notes in each class, but it deserves some amount of consideration. Handwriting is especially useful in college because it not only uses the muscles of your hands (strengthening them for future writing) and allows you to get more A’s on tests — it also helps you in a scientific sense. According to a blog called Pen Heaven, “Handwriting reinforces our reading and language processing skills. Writing by hand allows time to slow down the thought process enabling the writer to think about the words, how they are spelt and the structure of the writing; all making the writer more adept at the language they are using” (“Why is handwriting still important in the digital age?”). It is, of course, not required for a college education to practice good handwriting, but the more it is exercised in an individual, the more that person can benefit from the fruit of its use.
Like I said, it goes beyond being able to review notes from a class and to remember important parts of the professor’s lecture. It’s a good, helpful tool that trains your body to memorize facts without having to think hard about it. It is more than clear that handwriting has proven useful over thousands of years, and it is still no less valuable today for that reason alone. Typing is great, but it is more of a “modern” invention that most of the people in the history of the world were never able to experience. One of the main cons of handwriting, though, is that when you type on a computer, you can spell-check by using a word processor or other software. When you are handwriting something, it’s all on you. I could go on, but despite the cons of it, handwriting is a useful skill that will aid you in other areas of life outside of college — from signing your name on checks to making a grocery list. The possibilities are endless!
As for typing, it is also a method that I highly recommend, whether you’re taking notes on a computer or typing up an essay. Typing is an important aspect of a writer’s life: there, I said it! Know the computer and learn its ways, and writing will be more of a breeze. You can check your work for errors, change the font, add pictures, and do various other tasks that you cannot do on a regular piece of paper. It also goes a lot faster than a pencil does in a notebook (another obvious point), and unlike handwriting, professors will want your work for their class to be submitted either online or in a printed-out set of papers, fresh from the computer. The main reason for this is that typing is a neater way of creating a document, and you would do well to practice this habit more often, even outside of college.
Everyone respects a person with good grammar and sentence structure, and for some reason it is hard to keep this up with handwriting on some occasions. When you’re handwriting something, it seems as if the rules of sentence structure are flexible and not their rigid realities. We’ve all been there. Semicolons are used instead of commas, capital letters frolic over meaningless jumbles of words that should be lowercase (and vice versa), and the very sentences themselves can spill over the lines of the paper. It’s chaos! Thank God for typing, where all of the lines have the structure of being “one line at a time,” among other welcome “side effects.” When you can type up a storm, your time in English and Creative Writing classes will be a walk in the park.
DON’T Plagiarize
I shouldn’t even have to say this. When someone goes to the trouble of creating something, no one else should claim that work. There are no excuses. It goes for classmates and other people outside of college, to name a couple of examples. Plagiarism is not one of the “Seven Deadly Sins,” but it stems from them in its own way (think about jealousy and deceit). One good method that professors will use to know that you might be cheating is when you submit your work online on Canvas (or another software/site) and run it through a database that sees if someone else has already submitted something similar. I love this, because of two reasons: one, because I would die if someone stole my hard-earned project, and two, because I would want to know if I was copying something that someone already said. I don’t want to copy someone else’s work for decency’s sake, and no one should even entertain that thought. In short: always cite your sources in essays, and always come up with your own, original work. What kind of writer plagiarizes?
Learn to Cite Well — A Writer’s Responsibility
This topic goes back to the “Plagiarism” warning. Citing with your class’ chosen formatting (MLA, Chicago, etc.) is a must for every student and individual who writes anything in college. MLA is the main format that I used in college, so I have some experience citing with it — even though there are a lot of different editions of MLA that have come about in the recent past, the ninth edition coming out right as I graduated with my last degree — so I can’t say that I’m an expert. It is an evolving creature, but that does not mean that we can ignore its rules. Paying attention when you’re citing helps you to focus on what needs to be in an “in-text citation” and the “Work/Works Cited” section. Follow the Purdue Owl website for more information on how to cite correctly, and purchase the current edition of the book. As for Chicago and other formats, I can only say (from what I can recall) that they are somewhat different from MLA. Chicago has footnotes and endnotes, for example — which really tripped me up. Again, Google it if you’re stuck — but make sure that you have the right edition pulled up before you make those changes to your document! If there’s any mistakes, your professor can provide support by explaining what went wrong. My advice is not to wait before it’s time to submit your essay, or they will be less than eager to see your problems.
Sharing Your Work
This is where your “masterpiece” (which is really, in all actuality, probably just a first draft) will be made known to others. It’s scary. I’m not going to lie about it, because it still gives me goosebumps when I hand over my work to someone else to see what they say about it. In classroom settings, you’ll want to make your work as perfect as you can before asking someone for their opinion, and you certainly want to listen to their feedback. In classes tailored for writing creatively, you’ll probably have to go through a workshop with the rest of the students — which means hearing a lot of them moaning about your use of a character where that person is not needed to advance the plot, how your diction could be tightened up here and there, how your Limerick poem needs to rhyme better — on and on it goes.
But this is where it all happens, even though it’s painful. You’ll want to listen to these interjecting voices, because they will no doubt help you to become a stronger writer than you were yesterday. Even the most obnoxious person can help you by pointing out a blatant fault in your work, which may not be evident to you at first. The sweet moments of feedback are those times when some voices will praise your work. Don’t let it get to your head in the sense that you feel that “your work is nothing but gold,” but do let it give you some confidence.
To be fair, the scariest part of sharing your work with others is that the person you are handing it over to will have to be a trusted individual, such as a classmate who needs to review it for errors and strong points, a professor who will grade it, or — actually, those two are probably going to be the only ones who are worthy enough to view it. (See how I worded that in a tricky way?)
If you’re outside of those Creative Writing classes and decide to hand it over to a student from a Spanish class for their opinion, you’re risking your work. Why? Well, that old saying: “A magician never reveals his secrets” comes into place. You don’t want to endanger losing your “masterpiece” to someone who barely knows the difference between “effect” and “affect.” There are a lot of decent people out there who won’t steal your work, but be wary of sharing it with anyone outside of class. They’re out there. I hope you never find them, or vice versa. But, again, don’t let this discourage you from doing what you need to do to get good feedback. As long as you’re in the classroom where it’s required, your professor will most likely catch on to anyone who attempts this, and you’ll be able to see the signs in viewing others’ works. The point is not to be gun-shy of sharing your work in required settings, but to be smart about it. The clerk at the grocery store doesn’t need to hear your entire plot outline, but the Creative Writing professor wants to help you strengthen it. Don’t learn the hard way!
Learn From Other Works
Why do we have to read other works when we clearly know what we’re doing? Because reading other works outside of your own will teach you a thing or two about this magical art of writing. Numerous articles and quotes can back me up on this. It’s common sense. As children, we learned how to end sentences with periods and when to use exclamation marks. Now, we’re learning that the character arc of Mr. Rochester (from Jane Eyre) is stronger than Mrs. Reed’s. We’re learning that Hamlet’s sanity is in question, but it is not out of the question. We’re learning whether A Catcher in the Rye is a “Man vs. Self” or a “Man vs. Man” plot. Et cetera.
The bottom line is that every work of fiction/poetry contains a lesson for the reader. You may hate the work, yes, but what did you learn from it? Moby-Dick was the dullest book I’ve ever attempted to read, but it taught me that a single man’s insane obsession can wreck other individuals’ lives. I think a better question of Why we study Literature is Why not?
As for our peers in the classroom, you’ll see various scenarios that teach you why spelling is required for a writer’s occupation and why the age-old story of a boy and his dog has been written to death. Some people cannot write: this is a cold, hard fact. Everyone deserves a chance, but not everyone can make it to the “Bestseller” list on the Barnes & Noble emails you can get. Other writers may disagree with me on this, but to me, the answer is crystal clear. You can teach yourself to be compassionate and helpful to your peers while seeing their mistakes, but those lessons about their mistakes can be stored in your mental database to come to your aid when you’re writing your own work.
Reading is one of the best ways you can help yourself in college. Don’t miss out!
Edit, Edit, Edit!
If you don’t edit your work, you’re not going to excel as a writer. If you automatically think “I can’t improve on that!” when you write something out for the first time, you’re wrong. Being a strong editor is more than just fixing sentences in a paper; it’s becoming “one with the project,” which entails paying attention to every aspect of the written word that’s there. If someone has blue eyes and brown hair in the second page and does not undergo a drastic transformation of their appearance by the end of the book, you don’t need to write about their “sea-green eyes” in the last chapter. This is one fine example that writers need to remember descriptions, names, events, dialogue, characters, and so many other things about their projects.
For essays, you need to come back to the points made in the previous paragraphs and to remember what you’re talking about from Page One to Page Five. Of course, grammar is extremely important, but so is making sure that everything is flowing correctly. I learned a good method from a professor when I was getting my Associate’s degree: and this method consisted of typing out your work as best as you could and printing it out on paper — and then going through it with a pen/pencil to mark places to improve on in the next draft. You can do this as many times as needed. This is perfect for any kind of work that you will make, because it presents a hard copy to hold and examine instead of a glowing screen of words in front of your face. And you can’t mark on a document the way you can on a piece of paper unless you’re using an iPad or a tablet!
Editing is a necessary tool in college and in the writing world, and only a head-strong, foolish mindset will spurn it.
Finally, the last bit of advice that I can give you today is to keep your head on straight. Don’t lose your personal values, don’t give up, and don’t let the weight of coursework make yourself or your writing suffer. Stay organized, take notes, and keep heading towards the finish line.
You will encounter problems that you think you’ll never get through. Maybe it’s that witch-like professor who favors a few other students over you, or maybe you think that you’ll never get an A in that opinionated Psychology class. There’s all kinds of battles and wars that rage in students’ heads in colleges all across the world, so you’re not alone. The difference between a bad student and a good student is that the good student never stops trying.
And don’t put your writing on the back burner just because you feel like you don’t have time to write. I understand that this may come about during finals, and if you need to take a break to study or to write an essay, that’s okay. But if you neglect your God-given talent, your talent will suffer. There’s a reason why you’re in college to get a Creative Writing degree, so letting your writing fizz out is simply not an option.
Lastly, I want you to succeed. That’s why I wrote these articles. Beating yourself up over a failure will set you back. Move forward, not backwards. With that note, I’ll end this series. I hope you found something that will help you in your journey at college and in writing, and I hope the best for you.
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Work Cited
“Why is handwriting still important in the digital age?” Pen Heaven, https://www.penheaven.com/blog/handwriting-still-important-digital-age#:~:text=Handwriting%20reinforces%20our%20reading%20and,the%20language%20they%20are%20using. Accessed Aug. 29, 2023.
