Swiss Army Knife
For this blog post we read two pieces. These were Elizabeth Wardle’s “Why You Can’t Write In General” and “Looking For Trouble” by Catherine Savini. Both of these articles make similar points about academic writing and different strategies that should be applied in the field. However, I feel that all of these ideas presented in these two articles can and should also be applied to creative writing spheres as well.
Wardle’s article, as the title implies, puts forth the idea that it is impossible to write without having an intended audience for the piece. This statement is factually correct for any piece of writing including anything from poetry to prose to even advertisements. Wardle also points out how the education system has seemingly suggested that writing to no audience is possible when it is not, which is not only a meaningless task but also the sort of thing that would be harmful to writers. In general, much of The United States Education System is attempting to purge personality from its students. The goal is often to educate while also making sure that every student is as similar as possible. However, in attempting to ensure that every student has the same “general” writing voice, we have set back people’s writing skills terribly. In truth, people should always have a specific audience in mind when writing anything.
“Looking For Trouble” had similarly good advice that could be applied to both academic and creative writing. Savini’s main point in her article was that in order to write effectively, one should seek out sources of conflict and ask questions regarding them. In the same way that a fictitious story is only interesting if there is conflict and stakes in the plot, so too are informative or argumentative essays only worthwhile when they tell their intended audience what is at stake.
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