Like you, I was also surprised that most crocheters never manage the final step of creating their own patterns.

I still find it kind of boggling. [nod] I mean, I can see having a problem with making up your own knitting patterns, where you have to think a row at a time; knitting design is significantly more complex than crochet design. With crochet, though, you only have to think one stitch at a time, and you can put that stitch pretty much wherever you want. And if something doesn’t work out, pulling out however much is easy; you don’t have to worry about dropped and laddered stitches, as with knitting, or make sure you get every loop back on the needle with the correct twist, as with knitting. It’s just orders of magnitude easier.

The only thing I can think of is that some people, if they’ve learned The Right Way and all the rules and how to follow step-by-step directions right from the start, can’t make that extra step to freestyling, for whatever reason.

I worked in a fabric story twenty-some years ago and I ran into the same thing there. This one woman once decided not to buy a pattern because it called for regular lace and she wanted eyelet. I suggested she just use the eyelet, and she looked at me as though I were crazed. Same thing with another woman who decided not to buy a skirt pattern because she wanted one a couple of inches shorter. I suggested she just hem it a couple of inches shorter, and got the “Are you insane?” look again. [bemused smile] Detailed instructions can certainly be useful, but being a slave to them is just sad.

One of the sample texts he brought in (an excerpt from a Booker Prize winning novel no less) was highly ungrammatical, because the first person narrator was nigh illiterate.

Which is perfectly valid, of course, but I’ve run into English teachers who’d have given a student who turned in such a story a very low grade. :/ I really wish people who don’t know anything about fiction writing would stop trying to teach it.

Angie

I also learned how to crochet from my Mom. She showed me how to make loops and chains and the most basic stitches and tried to get me to make potholders, which were then thought of as a suitable beginners’ project. The only problem was that I didn’t have the least bit of interest in potholders – which nine-year-old would? Eventually, I figured out that I could also make doll clothes and that doll clothes were a lot more fun and useful (to my nine-year-old mind at least) than potholders. I made a lot of doll clothes over the next years and I rarely used patterns, I just measured straight from the doll.

When I was a few years older, I taught myself how to follow patterns, because I wanted to make some of the crochet animals and doilies I’d seen a craft mags. I was shooting past my Mom’s level of crochet knowledge by that time, because she wasn’t good at anything but the most basic patterns. Once I’d figured out how the combinations and patterns worked, I started making my own projects again, using what I’d learned. Nowadays, I no longer need a pattern, unless I see one I really like, and design my own projects. Like you, I was also surprised that most crocheters never manage the final step of creating their own patterns.

As for writing, I started as a teenagers with very little knowledge of anything beyond grammar and spelling rules and some very basic knowledge about different POVs I’d picked up at school. I attended a few creative writing workshops at college. The workshops helped a lot and luckily, we had a teacher who taught us about styles and rules without getting prescriptive about it. One of the sample texts he brought in (an excerpt from a Booker Prize winning novel no less) was highly ungrammatical, because the first person narrator was nigh illiterate.

Sure. [nod] It seems, though, that folks who start out by taking a class or reading a book or something similar, are less likely to just try a bunch of things and see what works for them. Most books and teachers will try to tell you that they have the right way of going about it (because if they didn’t then what reason would they give you for why you should buy their book or take their class?) If you’re an eager newbie who’s looking for handed-down wisdom, it’s easy to get hung up on that and figure that if the espoused technique or set of rules or handy checklist doesn’t work for you, there must be something wrong with you. I’ve seen people get stuck on this kind of thing — not necessarily garbage, but some approach or technique or list of rules which works wonderfully for some people but not for everyone.

Angie

Oh, not at all. [nod] The rules do need to be learned, mastered and fully assimilated, IMO. It’s only when you completely understand a rule up, down and sideways that you can break it effectively, deliberately and for a purpose, as opposed to someone who’s just ignorant of the rule who breaks it at random because they don’t know any better, or someone who’s memorized the rule but doesn’t actually understand it, who never breaks it even when they should.

When I’m workshopping, my critiques are usually longer than the story or chapter I’m critting, and most of my comments are on mechanics. I figure by the time someone joins a workshop, they’re there for the purpose of learning the rules. I hope, though, that most people have learned to be creative and think about the story, and what they want to do with the piece as a whole product, before they start studying the finer points of grammar and structure and such.

Angie

Although please note I am NOT advocating anyone considering writing as a career to ignore their craft, or assume an editor will “fix it.” There is a difference between the so-called fiction writing “rules” and language proficiency.

For me, though, I learned my cart-before-the-horse lesson in art. I was never allowed to simply experiment with various media — it was all about technique. As a result, I became a fairly decent craftsperson, but a lousy artist, without an original idea in my head. So I was determined not to let that happen to me as a writer. And it’s worked out pretty well for me so far.

And, oh, my — it makes me seethe, too, to hear fiction held up to the same technical standards as formal essays, etc. Ninety-nine percent of fiction is (or should be) told from the characters’ viewpoints, in their voices. Sentence fragments happen. As does grammatically incorrect speech. Otherwise the prose — and especially the dialogue — is probably going to sound stilted and unnatural.

But try telling the purists that. Oy.

But I think banishing some bad habits can be easier and faster in the long run than breaking out of the formal rules after you’ve deliberately studied and learned them, finding your own voice and the confidence to create freely in a way which might be outside the rules at times. I’ve seen people who spent time learning the rules first, who then write very stiffly, in this dry, ultra-formal mode. Young people who write fiction in the same style their high school English teachers demanded they use for formal essays is particularly painful. :/ And I’ve known English teachers who insisted that all the formal essay rules did apply to fiction, such as marking down students for having characters in a story speak with less than perfect grammar. [headdesk]

So what it comes down to seems to be, which is easier to unlearn? And which will be easier to learn second — the formal rules after you’ve learned to write with free creativity, or the free creativity after you’ve learned the formal rules?

Angie

Angie

And I think everyone with a distinctive voice has that experience, that some people love them and others hate them. It’s just a matter of finding your audience.

Angie

Angie