Some Of The People You Will Meet At A Creative Writing Workshop

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  1. The quiet ugly guy who will write really good fantasy/sci-fi and really bad chick lit that the women of the class will eat up anyway, saying stuff like “How were you able to tap into the female brain?”
  2. The really blokey guy you would expect to see roughing up some guy in front of a bar rather than in a creative writing workshop who you would also expect to write crime fiction, which he does. You want to tell him that no one writes about heavy smoking and drinking private eyes anymore, but you’re too scared – he might beat you up after class.
  3. The woman in her fifties who writes really bad stories about her experiences as a teenager during the 70s with plot points thrown in that don’t really work – like the boy she helps with his studies who turns out to be her son she gave up after the love of her life who she had a night of bliss with after a dance, who later dies in Vietnam. She asks you what your sign is and acts like she knew it all along. She has no idea how to do an assignment and the teacher has to practically do them for her.
  4. The teacher who thinks all stories should be really descriptive and emotive, and when someone brings up Jack Kerouac, has no idea who that is. When she pronounces Bach “Boch,” we all laugh at her and she can’t figure out why.
  5. The deaf girl who writes really clever poems and stories and always has really helpful comments for your work written in purple so you know it’s her. She’s good at picking out all the flaws in your plot and instead of feeling angry at her for picking apart your story you want to gush a thank you and run home so you can apply all her corrections.
  6. The woman in her sixties who won’t shut up about her children and keeps saying her writing style is so different from the youngsters in the class and that it must be generational. The only difference is that she is really shit and somehow thinks that her age automatically means she is a great writer with really interesting things to say. You’re thankful when she misses classes because of her back issues.
  7. The girl with a faint moustache only you seem to notice who has arrogance and no guilt about telling you if she does not like your piece. Her pieces are romantic fantasy/sci-fi Doctor Who inspired shit she thinks is really deep because she uses Greek mythology for metaphors.
  8. The guy who comes in late with his eyes really red and reads stories about beatniks showing squares the joys of weed.
  9. The young woman in her late twenties who writes about housewives who are sex addicts, bulimic and want to abandon their families – which is really awkward because we all know that she really does have a husband and child at home.
  10. The girl who keeps changing the wacky colors she chooses to dye a single strand of her hair and who writes about the fights she has with her mother.
  11. The Asian girl who writes really funny and quaint stories about growing up in an Asian family with cutesy observations which the whole class loves, but for some reason, your teacher hates.
  12. The guy who mysteriously drops out after reading a story about a serial killer that was really intense and who everyone’s kind of glad is gone.
  13. The girl who writes about all her experiences living in a dangerous area and even though her stories aren’t that good the class is always on the edge of their seat because they cannot believe what she’s reading actually happened. Her best story so far has been about the night she was working late at her local video store and it was held up.
  14. You, who always gets comments like “great set up” and “brilliant idea,” which really mean the actual story was not enjoyable to read and you will never be a successful writer.