The Only Writing Teacher

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Tuesday, May 02, 2006
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My teachers, who were writers themselves, always insisted that they could not teach me to write. Either writing could not be taught, or they could not teach it. The admission frustrated me because writing was what I wanted to learn. I could not accept that my desire could have no fulfilment -- and I was right. My teachers, I have since discovered, were quite wrong. Writing can be taught, and I can teach it. I can teach you to write without ever reading your work. I can teach you without ever meeting you. I can do it without giving tedious advice on craft, on structure, on the clever choice of words.

I can teach you to write in a single lesson, with a single instruction: revise.

Revision is the only writing instructor worth the investment required. (It works cheap, but requires a lot of your time.) Revision will teach you the old fashioned way, with silence. Like a piano instructor, revision will wince at the sounds you make and force you to begin again. And again and again. Revision won't give advice, but it will tell you what to listen to, and what to ignore. As long as you have revision for a teacher, you can learn your craft in a single story. Revision customizes each lesson plan. No two students learn the same thing; each learns what he or she needed to know.

It took me a long time to figure this out. I read plenty of how-to books. I attended classes and workshops. I listened as other writers explained the minutiae of craft. This would have been wonderful help to me, if only I'd been a student of revision at the time. But I wasn't. I wrote first drafts, and if they weren't good enough, I re-wrote them entirely, producing another first draft with different (but parallel) weaknesses. Now, though, I revise everything -- sometimes lightly, sometimes extensively, depending on what I have left to learn. I don't mind the extra effort. In fact, I'm grateful for it. At long last, I have found the perfect teacher.