gimmicks

August 13, 2013

The word "gimmick" has derogatory connotations.

It often suggests something cheap, tricky, fast, without substance, even immoral.

There are intelligent people who attack the usage of gimmicks

or devices in teaching imaginative creative writing,

on the grounds that such devices encourage kids to be thoughtless smart asses,

witty at the expense of substance,

satisfied with a rough surface

but insensitive to depth of feeling.

Such critics usually emphasize the importance of meaning.

Were there ever a School of Gimmicks,

its members might retort that the Defenders of Meaningfulness

tend to be boring jerk-offs who confuse self-expression with value,

that the most sincere statement of feeling is no better than any other sincere statement,

that what makes the difference in creative expression is style.

In other words, concern yourself with originality, and everything else will take care of itself.

These are two extreme points of view, of course.

They sound like rehashings of the old conflict

between those who favor Form and those who favor Content in literature.

Or those who claim that sex should consist of emotion

and those who say it should be pure animal instinct.

The fact is that there is no appreciable difference

between a teacher who uses gimmicks with intelligence and

one who emphasizes meaning with intelligence.

A heartless use of gimmicks will produce worn-out surrealist imitation;

a narrow insistence on self-expression will produce baloney.

Self-expression is therapeutic and flashy technique is entertaining,

but neither is necessarily good writing.

So don't let any idiots con you into thinking you should teach one

to the exclusion or detriment of the other!

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