Professor G. A. C. Belcher of the Department of Creative Writing has stated on many occasions that writing cannot be taught. The stated aim of his department is “rather to direct, perhaps to administer a figurative epidural when required, perhaps even to so infuriate with unappreciated advice and invidious observations that our students shape their own style out of anger rather than gratitude.” He believes in the virtues of exercises yet understands students’ efforts to avoid them at all costs.
“It is a nonsense for us to profess neutrality as regards style and any intelligent student must be able to see through this at once. Rather, we must demand of them that they interrogate their own preferences, take all criticism, domestic and external equally seriously and assert themselves when they determine that their way is correct for them. Their ability to assert themselves against us is as fundamental to the ability to write as the ability to put pen to paper at all, since writing can be nothing but imagination or, for those unfortunates, intelligence, multiplied by will.”
