On being asked how he would teach a creative writing class, as Givan was about to do, and after beginning to answer that he believed creative writing couldn’t be taught, that either one had talent or not
The great thing, which can, I suppose, be taught, is to avoid the cliché of one’s time. At all cost, never, never use, for example, the word “dialogue,” absolutely never. I would have them write their memoirs, first thing. Write about some incident in the past and this would show right away who had a knack for writing and who didn’t. In reading their papers you could tell by who began “I was born in Ohio and I have two sisters” and who began a little differently, with a twist—you could be on the lookout for something unusual.
…they should write down conversations they had or overheard. That is an important thing, to be able to remember and reproduce—accurately—conversations. And (smiling) they could learn what a dentist does—learn about different professions. That’s very old-fashioned. Flaubert’s idea. Learn the little secrets of a trade, of the different professions, so that they can write about them.
* “Cocktails with Nabokov: ‘The Thing Is to Avoid the Cliché of Your Time,’ ” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 7, 1977, sec. IV, pp. 1–2. Givan called on VN at the Montreux Palace one Saturday in the summer of 1970, but did not publish his write-up until the month after VN’s death.