The Rights of Writing -- HELP! I need your opinion!

[April]

I think this is the right place for this. It's not exactly fanfic-related, but it is most definitely writer related.

Okay, so here's the deal: I have this first draft of a paper due tomorrow for my writing class. (I love how they've given us so much time to work on it.) Anyway, this paper has to detail what I believe to be the rights of every writer. The prompt was:

"One of the most important things I believe about writing and teaching writing is . . ."

and then you fill in the sentence. So here's my example.

"One of the most important things I believe about writing and teaching writing is that every piece of writing, good or bad, finished or unfinished, edited or messy, is an extension of the author and should be perceived and respected as such. This is not to say that readers should not be allowed to form opinions about books, to decide whether or not they enjoyed the reading. Opinions are a fundamental part of any reading process, but opinions about writing could not exist if the writing did not exist. The writing would not exist if the author did not make it exist. A respect for the writing conveys a respect for the author, and this is of the utmost importance."

I also have a few other ideas, such as:

the right to daydream
the right to not write
the right to write for oneself

If anyone has any other ideas, this would help me out a lot. I'd love to get other opinions about this and figured this might be a good place to post, since there are a lot of writers here. It doesn't have to be a well thought-out or researched opinion. Anything would help me, and I'm interested in what you have to say. Thanks.

-April

[Rowedog]

Damn April, I do children's literature as a subject in my bachelor of education, so if you'd asked me about the rights of the reader then I'd definitely have been able to help you out. We were talking about that last week. Let me consult my notes and see if anything can translate over.

Ok, so some of them can be translated. This original list about the rights of reading is by some dude named Pennac in case you were wondering. I don't have his full name, it's not on the hand out.

The right to not have to defend your tastes. (For example, some people might see writing a goosebumps or sweet valley high type of story as a waste of time and as a lesser form of literature, but does it really matter if the student is engaged and writing? I think this one ties in with your idea of writing for yourself.)
The right to write anything. (Ties in with the above)
The right not to write.
The right not to finish. (I think a lot of us on the board with fics in the D&B can relate to that one )
The right to escapism.
The right to skip pages. (Or in my case, write the ending first )

I think the last point is an important one. Too often we expect people to write in a formulaic, left to right, start to finish manner and I know a lot of my fics wouldn't have gotten finished if I'd done that. And seeing as it asks about teaching in the question, I'll put on my student teacher hat on as well and say that one of the most important things about writing is not having to defend what you're writing about. How would we ever get students engaged and excited about writing/reading if we convey to them that what they are reading/writing is a lesser form of literature? If we devalue what they enjoy/are interested in then it is no wonder that many lose interest or feel that they have nothing of worth to contribute and therefore stop writing.

As you can see, my expertise runs more to reading than writing, but I feel that they're kinda two sides of the same coin. And yeah, that's about it. Hope that sort of helps. *shrugs*

[April]

Thanks, Alison! That definitely helps. I especially like the "right not to have to defend your tastes" one, because that's slightly different from everything I've got so far. Yeah, these are really good. Online hug!

If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to share them!

-April

[Alien_Friend]

I think you have some great ideas there. I don't know if I can help any but I thought what you said here was very interesting:

"One of the most important things I believe about writing and teaching writing is that every piece of writing, good or bad, finished or unfinished, edited or messy, is an extension of the author and should be perceived and respected as such.

The part where you said it's "an extension of the author" really stood out for me. It got me thinking about how I started writing and about why writing and teaching writing is important in my opinion or from my perspective. I'm not a serious writer or anything. I do write poetry from time to time. The way I got started was in grade 7 our teacher started every morning by writing a quote or word on the board and we had to write a poem inspired by it for a few minutes. Then at the end of each week we had to pick our best poem to edit and show our teacher. I had never written poetry before then. I always felt like I wanted to express myself in some way but didn't have style or genre of writing to do that in and poetry just really caught my attention. Since then it's been a means for me to articulate my thoughts and theories on life and my way of trying to solve puzzles or problems that I come across in my daily existence. So in many ways writing for me has truly been an extension of who am. People find out a lot about me from reading my work.

So in terms of rights I think everyone has the right to (when it comes to their writing) explore who they are and what they believe and to take things people never really spend time thinking of and illustrate them and highlight them in a form that not everyone might notice or think about. There is right for people to meet in a form like this or others and be inspired by one another and have them discover more about what they are capable of doing and trying. Teaching writing is very important because it gives people rights to themselves they may not have known they had. They can uncover hidden talents.

This touches on what Alison said I think. I'm a firm believer in the right not to feel obligated to write. And the right not to feel obligated to share your writing. I've found myself in those situations and I hate them. Just because people think you have a talent does not mean you can whip it out whenever they might want. I have a friend that's a super good singer so people ask her to sing at their weddings and she also always gets asked to sing at funerals too. And they don't give you notice they just expect you to do it because you are "good at it". (we both really hate it) I was asked to write about my grandparents when they died. My family was like well you write so you should just be able to do this no problem. But it's hard at least for me to write when my emotions are screaming. But I did it because I felt obligated. Part of me was glad I did it because it was a bit therapeutic but still. There was no room for the right to suck at writing in that scenario. I think no one should feel pressured. Art is all about expressing yourself in the way and means that you feel that best connects to whatever outcome you are trying to convey and that never should have to be compromised. So the right not to have to compromise when it comes to your writing. You should feel free to write whatever you need to, however you need to.

I go to a camp every year for kids with different skin disorders. We get a lot of medical volunteers. Lots of med students and things. I wrote this poem inspired by this drawing one of the kids did and the drawing and the poem was in our camp year book that year. One of the med students decided to use my poem in a thing he wrote for a medical journal where he talked about camp and he never asked me if he could. And I found out like way after the fact. That pissed me off a little. We weren't even that close or anything so it's not like he really knew me and speaking of writing being an extension of yourself you like to know where a part of you will end up. So the right to not just because someone's work might be published already, to be used again for something else without the author's consent. But I guess you fall into that danger when you put your work out there in any form, that it might end up some where you never thought it would.

We're always growing and maturing and our opinions change about things. Some times I feel very far removed from my earlier work and I wish I could remove them from the public eye. I'm not sure what kind of right that might fall into but there should be a right for that.

The right for your work to always accurately represent who you are. No one should twist it or turn into something you don't intend it to be.

Anyhoo I'll stop talking now. I don't know if that helps but I hope it kind of does. Good luck!

[April]

No, that helps a lot! Thank you so much! And thank you for sharing all those personal examples. That really helps get the point across.

My family was like well you write so you should just be able to do this no problem. But it's hard at least for me to write when my emotions are screaming. But I did it because I felt obligated. Part of me was glad I did it because it was a bit therapeutic but still. There was no room for the right to suck at writing in that scenario.

That's a really interesting point, one I hadn't thought about before. I'm going to think about this some more. Thank you.

I'm feeling better about this assignment already.

-April

[April]

Just wanted to let you guys know that we did a workshop on these assignments today, and your suggestions were SO valuable! Thank you so much.

And if anyone has continued suggestions, feel free. I still have another draft to write!

[Alien_Friend]

No, that helps a lot! Thank you so much! And thank you for sharing all those personal examples. That really helps get the point across.

My family was like well you write so you should just be able to do this no problem. But it's hard at least for me to write when my emotions are screaming. But I did it because I felt obligated. Part of me was glad I did it because it was a bit therapeutic but still. There was no room for the right to suck at writing in that scenario.

That's a really interesting point, one I hadn't thought about before. I'm going to think about this some more. Thank you.

I'm feeling better about this assignment already.

-April

You're very welcome. I'm glad I could help some. I like examples so figured I would through them in there. Take care.