Having DFW as an instructor wasn’t exactly Chicken Soup for the Soul.  He didn’t care about your feelings, as he told one girl.  She said, “I’m having a real hard time in my personal life right now.”  He responded, “This isn’t psychotherapy.  Nobody cares about your personal life.  We’re going to talk about your writing, and if you have a problem with that, drop the class.”

Dave was a grammar Nazi, no doubt about it, and he used to teach a grammar boot camp before the start of class every week.

He once told a girl, “This fails at everything fiction tries to achieve.  Scene, setting, dialouge, POV, and next time you write a story, make sure it has a point.  Don’t just write some shit that happened to you.”

Having said all that, after 2 classes, he suggested to me that i stop taking classes, as it was damaging my psyche.  And, he was right.  I just couldn’t write for almost fifteen years.