Expectations for a writing workshop
My aforementioned short story gets reviewed in fiction workshop tonight and I thought I’d take you on a backstage tour of my brain so you know my mentality going into the workshop…
“I hope my peers in the workshop like my story, and I’m going to be okay if they don’t.”
Audience is at the forefront of my mind in most all of my creative endeavors. I write to entertain and I read to entertain, so I hope my readers are entertained. This doesn’t often come up in a workshop situation, however. The best workshops are less about writing peers like and more about how peers interpret the writing works. This is where written comments on the manuscript pages and verbal comments during break come in handy.
But let’s say they don’t like it. Be prepared to accept that. Not every story is for everybody, no matter how well written (I enjoy T.C. Boyle, but there are long stretches of The Tortilla Curtain that do not entertain me). Your story will find its audience, but consider what this first audience thinks of it so you can adjust it as needed (or not, if you don’t respect them, though you should respect your peers if only at least a little bit).
“I hope my short story works, and I hope my peers are able to tell me if it doesn’t.”
I try to use craft choice to enhance my writing, and I hope my work shows. As a young writer, however, it doesn’t always show, so I have to hope there’s enough to entice my readers. If my choices aren’t working, or the piece would be enhanced by other choices, my hope is my peers tell me so and give positive suggestions on how to do so. Basically, try to write well and if you don’t, have people interested in your continued improvement.
Your craft choices may end up heavy-handed or on the other hand, far too subtle. Decide which choices are best for the story, not which ones are the most impressive. Remember, your peers are studying the same skill set of craft choices you are, so it’s worth listening to what they have to say.
“I hope I walk away from the workshop experience excited, and I absolutely know I will.”
Whether a story gets eviscerated in workshop or published in Tin House, the writer should feel excited about their product. I put a lot of work into my writing, and the writing that excites me is the writing I enjoy giving my time and effort. If you aren’t excited about what you’re writing, why bring it to workshop? How can you expect anyone else to get excited about it?
This is a lesson in marrying humility with self-confidence. If you’re too confident, it becomes vanity and you won’t listen to anyone about your writing. And if you’re too humble, you’ll take every single suggestion thrown your way even if it ends up being detrimental to the story. Rather than those two directions, let them combine as excitement and let that fuel you in a workshop.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to take my own advice tonight. I’m pretty excited about this story, and my last point will be the most important for me to follow, particularly if it doesn’t work for this audience. I’ll let you know the specific workshop results tomorrow, dear reader.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing workshop, workshop mentality, fiction workshop, story eviscerated
Analyzing a Short Story: Ryan Harty (Part II)
My presentation last night went well, and it lead into a discussion on using the components of genre to one’s advantage when writing, particularly science fiction. This quickly evolved into a great, multi-faceted discussion sprawling into all sorts of speculative talk on writing, creativity, and entertainment.
Our instructor, Diana Joseph, tossed out the question of what today and tomorrow’s entertainment world is and what we feel is coming after post-modernism. The class latched onto the idea that turning life into a game show on “reality tv” where things seem real but are also staged is a new genre of storytelling the western world seems fascinated by. For my part, I believe this is true, and we’ve also moved past cynicism to an age of self-aware irony while at the same time a reinvention of reality. I think enough people understand the ridiculous manufactured moments on “reality tv” while being simultaneously fascinated by it.
I think this carries over to the emergence of magical realism making such a prominent mark in entertainment these days (think Pan’s Labyrinth, or Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper). At this point, my colleague (and great writer - somebody give this guy a teaching job! …I’ll take one, too…) Luke Rolfes interjected that in times of war, this sort of story becomes appealing as an escape. This lead our instructor Diana to speak of the cycles of art and how they’re directly tied into the national mood. Right now, with “reality tv” ruling the national consciousness, it’s no surprise memoir outsold fiction last year, and that trend is likely to continue.
We particularly examined the post-freedom movements of the 60s and post-Vietnam era of the 70s, and I had a moment recalling my film studies undergraduate days of looking at it from the western genre point of view: the feeling out of the genre in the early “pioneer” days (The Great Train Robbery, Stagecoach), the classic formula of the “golden” era (The Searchers, High Noon, Shane), a cynical “satire” of the genre (Blazing Saddles, Silverado, even the uber-violent The Wild Bunch), and finally “reinvention” (Unforgiven, Dances With Wolves, Tombstone, 3:10 to Yuma).
I could go on and on, but the main point is we had an excellent discussion last night and it all lead from the way Ryan Harty wrote a science fiction story - a genre often lacking in the respect it deserves - with character and emotion at its center. Harty used the genre to its greatest strengths, and we all felt it in class last night.
The state of art and life endlessly reflect each other. Harty’s story is a prime example of this. Wanna read it? It’s in the 2003 Best American Short Stories collection at BookCloseouts.com for $1.99.
-nm
Technorati Tags: magical realism, reality tv, today’s entertainment, ryan harty, western films, luke rolfes, diana joseph, salvador plascencia, best american, bookcloseouts.com
Workshopping a YA short story
I had another short story reviewed in fiction workshop last night and the results were mixed. The story is meant to be the opening tale in a young adult (YA) short story collection narrated by a thirteen-year-old boy about his family, his small Minnesota town, and his observations of the ridiculous world around him. That last bit, the observational nature of the story, held much of the workshop’s focus in terms of what was working or in this case may have issues.
The narrator, Evan, is highly observational - he can really read people and understands where they’re coming from. He’s smart, smarter than a lot of the adults (many teenagers think they’re smarter than the adults they know but in Evan’s case, he actually is), and often lets their bumbling play out all in the name of satire. We discussed how this plays out - does it detract from his simple goals and conflicts? Does it ring true? And of course, who is this story for?
A majority of the conversation revolved around YA as a genre, particularly around the audience and what entices a ten-year-old boy to read a book. I know it’s the kind of book I was looking for at age ten, when I was into novels like To Kill a Mockingbird, Shogun, and work by Nathan Benchley as opposed to sports stories by Will Weaver and Chris Crutcher or full-length books by Jack London (I dug his short stories, like “To Build a Fire” at that age, though). What I was looking for and what young boys today are looking for may not be matching up 100%.
Yet for as many story notes that I received and will take under consideration in subsequent drafts, there are a few I think will get thrown out the window. I think notes I received on the story’s focus and weight will serve me well during revision, but notes I received on Evan’s observational tendencies and ability to read people and whether that rings true really don’t interest me. And they don’t have to -that’s the beauty of workshop. Take what works for you and run with it. Leave the rest, so long as you’re open to its potential.
When it came time for me to ask my peers questions, I only had one - what was funny and worked and what was clearly supposed to be funny and didn’t work? I got feedback on this and appreciated hearing what people had to say. I’m trying as hard as possible to not let anything superfluous to the story at-hand weasel its way into a story just for the sake of the gag, and it looks like I didn’t avoid that trap entirely, this time around. I especially want to look at how crowds are handled for comedic effect. I’m reading The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield these days and am enjoying how Pressfield handles the gallery around the golfers both as a character and as satire.
When it comes to the humor aspect of the story, I fully admit I’m far too concerned with only one aspect of the story, and that’s not setting other aspects of the story up for success. That said, I think many young writers do that to some degree, it just so happens my way of doing this is by focusing on the comedy aspect of the story over everything else. This makes the comedy distracting instead of an augmentation.
I’ll keep writing the stories in this collection, that I know. I have six finished stories (which all need another draft and a polish), one halfway done, and a few down the pipe, mostly in outline / note form. I had thoughts of this being my thesis instead of the screenplay I’m currently working on, but the screenplay has too much potential to sit on a shelf for now.
I doubt I’ll turn in another story told by Evan for this fiction workshop, however, as I don’t want notes to repeat themselves and I want to explore another story in a completely different genre. We turn in our next stories on April 8, and I’m guessing my piece will be workshopped on April 22. I’ll keep you posted, dear reader.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing workshop, story notes, YA worshop, fiction workshop
My story’s workshop results
Last night saw my story, “Good Taste,” was discussed in my MFA Fiction workshop.
Most comments centered on the information the main character gives the reader (and what he doesn’t give the reader). He’s selective in what details matter to him, while at the same time being really verbose in his speech. My classmates wondered if more pitfalls weren’t apparent than pros in this move. On one hand, the character talks incessantly about the most mundane details, yet speaks virtually nothing about his past. Similarly, the question of an emotional center to the story was up in the air for most readers. Does this character change, and if he does, can we tell?
I included a few innovative moves in the story, at least innovative for my writing. The main character works at a product sampling company and his worksheets are included in the piece. I was also deliberate in style, his manner of speaking lending itself to a three-paragraph structure on each page, the paragraphs falling into lengths of eleven lines, nine lines, and nine lines. These stylistic choices weren’t necessarily commented on, but they were new for me, and it was refreshing to try.
I’m often appreciative of written comments on my manuscripts, too, because I intended this story to be a comedy and it’s typically in the written comments where if something made someone laugh, they let me know. It appears I succeeded quite a bit in that department, so if I can couple stronger craft choices in other areas with the comedy, the story will hopefully come out stronger in its third draft.
Going into a workshop, one should always be open to any and all comments. I’m of the mind that one should take everything in during the moment and then deal with it all afterward to decide what to agree with and what doesn’t work. I was hoping for more comments on what worked, both because I think a lot of what’s on the page does work and because hey, who doesn’t write a story and then want it to work? That said, my peer Katie Lacey may have said it best on the way out of workshop: “I don’t think people go into workshop wanting only all positive comments.”
She’s exactly right. Whether comments questioned my writing choices or lauded them, they’re all going to help the story in one way or the other.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing workshop, workshop, writing comments
My story gets workshopped tonight.
At the end of January, I wrote a short story entitled “Good Taste” and submitted it for an MFA fiction workshop. Tonight, we’ll take a look at my piece to examine the choices I’ve made, their positives and pitfalls, and I’ll take extensive notes on the entire process. The workshop is small, eleven persons including the instructor, but other pieces have been treated with grace and genuine interest, so here’s hoping mine receives similar treatment.
As for the piece itself, I got the idea from a radio program I heard in January of 2007, then allowed to churn in my brain over a few months. I finally wrote four pages of the story in September, only to not include them in the latest draft that I wrote in January. The pages didn’t fit the direction of the story anymore, though exploring the character (it’s a first-person, past-tense narrative) and the story’s tone in those four pages was immensely helpful in writing the complete story. The fifteen-page manuscript is told by a man who, unaware of his ever-increasingly eccentric behavior, becomes obsessed with his new job working with unreleased consumer products. Okay, so that’s pretty vague, I know, but I’m not ready to let the proverbial cat out of the bag just yet. Let me just say the narrator did his job in surprising me as I wrote, even switching things around when I was sure I knew what would happen next. He made me laugh in all the right places, and I even felt a little sick at the exact moments he wanted me to. Yes, it’s that kind of story.
Tomorrow, I plan to post about the workshop, from the specific details of how it goes down to the kind of notes I received to what I plan to do with the feedback I receive. While the story may not be perfect, and the workshop process may not be either, going into the process with an open mind is what will make my effort feel worthwhile to me. I set out to write a good story, and this third litmus test (the first two being my fiancée and Barry Hess) will help me gauge success.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing workshop, short story, tone, good taste
How I survived my students workshopping my writing.
I’m completing my internship of an upper-division creative writing class this semester. The last two weeks, the class broke into small groups to workshop revised writing; my small group took work home to read and make notes, then assembled with one student (not the author) reading the work out loud as we followed along and made additional notes. The author gets to hear someone else read their work, plus has six readers giving their work a critical eye twice. After the reading, we gave notes, beginning with “pillows” (what’s working and why) before “bricks” (what’s missing, not working). The six students I worked with showed a definite interest in helping each other improve their writing, which is why I wasn’t nervous when they agreed to workshop something I’d written.
This was my first time being workshopped not by peers or instructors or Scrawlers writers, but by my students* - the undergrads who relied on me for notes on their work. We looked at twelve pages of the unfinished YA story I wrote a month ago and I was left pleased. Plenty of “pillows,” but the “bricks” were helpful, answering questions I had about the material, and giving me new ideas. Basically, the best aspects of a solid workshop.
Letting students workshop the instructor’s writing let’s them demonstrate what they’ve learned about workshop.
Having my students workshop instructor’s writing can go in two ways - really well or really… well, not well! I think it went well this time because of how I’d set up the workshop environment. It was about honesty, everyone speaking up face-to-face, and pushing ourselves to help someone improve their writing. If I’d set up a cutthroat environment of figuring out who has the best story or who we don’t like and thus shouldn’t give them de notes, it would have been a different story. They modeled the environment I created and showed not only do they get it, but that it works.
Letting students workshop the instructor’s writing is fun.
There’s something neat about an instructor who puts their own credibility on the line, to say yes, I’m on equal ground with you in terms of trying to improve so please tell me how I can do it. I think most students embrace this as a worthy challenge, not a chance to trash their instructor.
As for the story, these students were its first readers (aside from the fiancée) and the consensus is my story is one worth pursuing. If I continue with it, it’s likely novella length, which is a challenge for me to embrace.
-nm
Technorati Tags: students workshopping instructor’s writing, writing intern, small group workshop
(* Yes, as an intern who is not giving them their final grade, they were not technically my students. Yet I was put in charge of them, set expectations of the workshop and facilitated it, so I’ll use “my” and run with it.)
Making the positive post-workshop choice.
Last night, my screenwriting class workshopped my latest seventeen pages, a sort of Act II, Part One. I received plenty of notes, but not nearly as many positive notes as I wanted or thought would come my way. In fact, I admit my pages weren’t particularly well-received.
Which is a nice way of saying I bombed.
Much of what made the first act work for my classmates was how action and dialogue worked in-tandem. Picture Action, cool and confident, in the driver’s seat of the Scriptmobile. Next to him is his partner, Dialogue, smart and able, assisting Action with navigation directions. The pair work in perfect unison as a team, as partners. In these new pages, however, Dialogue has throatpunched Action and thrown him in the backseat. Dialogue has slid into the driver’s seat of the Scriptmobile and hit the gas, spewing as much vocabulary across the road of paper as it can, all the while laughing at the incapacitated Action. The new pages are dialogue-heavy, action-light, and have lost what made the first pages my class workshopped so enjoyable to read.
This leaves me with two choices:
Despise my classmates, loathe the workshop, and keep my golden pages because I put a lot of work into them and if I put in a solid amount of work they must be good, so what do they know?!
Embrace the challenge of rewrite, give these peer thoughts proper attention, make a plan of action and fix what needs fixing, all the while pursuing new work.
If I’m not taking the second choice, I have no business being in a writing workshop, giving anyone notes on their writing, or writing at all. I’m learning to write for an audience. I’m learning to create good story. I’m learning to improve. Part of the learning process is understanding when something needs more work, and I’m on board with that concept. For me, these pages didn’t fail if they taught me a lesson (my class is 100% right, by the way), and I’m embracing the challenge I’ve created for myself.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing workshop, screenwriting, screenplay, dialogue heavy
Writing criticism and the all-listening ear.
A few days ago, I wrote about Roy Peter Clark’s Learning Tools for Writing. Since then, I’ve found Clark’s list makes for fascinating reading and re-reading. I’ll likely add my thoughts on several of Clark’s tools in the future, but one in particular caught my attention. Learning Tool #49: Learn From Criticism is how I wish all feedback was accepted in both live and online writing workshops. Part of what draws me to Clark’s tools is his articles are both clear and fun to read. Clark explains both the seeming impossibility of such a task and the importance of it, plus he gives a humorous example of how a journalist / editor may disagree on the matter, as well as a bullet-point summary of his already-brief article (make the concise even more concise, I like it).
Clark has a simple credo: “I never defend my story against criticism.” I’m proud to say this has been a staple of my workshop behavior for some time. I never understood the point of explaining why a story I wrote is actually wonderful when the people I asked to read it and give me their honest opinions tell me the story is less-than-stellar. Whatever fodder I have to defend my story with should already be in the story. Staying true to this idea has helped me develop my “all-listening ear.”
The all-listening ear takes in all praise and all criticism without discrimination. The all-listening ear leaves no bit of feedback behind. When I have a story workshopped, I take in all the feedback, jotting down the oral notes and almost never look up as I continue writing whatever my peers have for me. Sometimes, I write down who said what, sometimes I don’t (more on that in a future post). I’ll hear notes I agree with, and am almost guaranteed to hear a few I’ll think are doggerel, but that doesn’t stop me from taking them all in. If I were to pick-and-choose notes I thought had merit in the moment, I would likely lose notes which might make sense to me upon a second look. Instead, I save those recorded oral notes, along with the written manuscript notes, for another day. I return to my asked-for criticisms another day, fresh, ready to weigh each one equally. It’s not easy, as Clark says, but it’s worth it.
I think of the would-be contestants on talent-based “reality” tv shows who don’t make the cut, who have judges tell them what rubbish their act is or how if only they tried a little harder they might have something, someday. The camera invariably shows these folks who want to appear honest and good-hearted doing anything but be honest with themselves. “Those judges just don’t get my act,” one may say. “I don’t care. I do what I do and I’m proud of it and I’ll make it, anyway, so we’ll see who has the last laugh.” If the determination they show in that type of proclamation is genuine, I wish them the best of luck. But if it’s only emerging as a knee-jerk reaction to tough criticism, their time spent in the mire of mediocrity is only bound to get longer.
-nm
Technorati Tags: online writing workshop, writing criticism, writing feedback, reality tv contestant
Bookworms has its premiere meeting.
It appears my weeks is filled with book clubs.
Last night was the first meeting of Bookworms, a book discussion spin-off group from the main youth groups I work with on a regular basis. Attendance was only two (eight youth in all took short story packets, so I knew it would be a small group, at any rate), but we had a lot of fun. We discussed Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, The Pool Witchby Clay McCleod Chapman, Boys and Girls by Alice Munro, and Small Countryby Nick Hornby. I chose to start with short stories because a packet of thirty pages is a lot less intimidating than a book, plus school is still in session (many of my missing youth were studying for finals).
The main rule for Bookworms is it’s okay to say you like something or don’t like something, but you have to back up why. That’s the rule, and it’s what we’re trying to help each other learn how to do. The stories they liked, we talked about why. When we read Girl out loud, we laughed together and talked about why it was funny. For The Pool Witch, we went through it picking out the great action verbs, and for Small Country, we talked about three-act structure and how plotting can work. The story they didn’t care for, Boys and Girls, revolved around the vivid telling of killing and skinning foxes on a fox farm. However, we were able to determine why the act was so revolting - Munro is a sensory writer, using specific imagery and appealing to as many senses as possible. The two young women in attendance thought it was cool to pick up on that. Ninety minutes went by before we knew it. They were attentive, I was willing to listen, and all three of us were excited.
My latest Scrawl, Boy, is a shortened version of the writing exercise we did last night - using Girl as inspiration, write a short story from a father to son entitled Boy. The girls in attendance did a wonderful job, both language and humor. Lucky me, they plan to spread the word that Bookworms is the place to be this summer. Next month, we discuss Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Yes, that makes two Gaiman books I chose to read for book clubs this month - trust me, that’s not a bad thing.
Speaking of book clubs, Cormac McCarthy’s latest, The Road, was put on Oprah’s Book Club list when it hit paperback last month. Apparently, he was on the show yesterday to plug it, so I’m hoping to find a streaming clip of his interview without having to register for the OBC website. Comment if you find one, and I’ll do the same.
You can hear Nick Hornby read Small Country on “This American Life” with Ira Glass (I wrote about his storytelling tips last week). The Hornby section is at the 32:00 minute mark in the streaming feed.
~nm
Technorati Tags: book club, writing exercise, this american life, action verbs
Choosing a Book Club Selection
I attended a book club meeting last night filled with old friends, Caribou coffee, and discussion of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. During the school year, I’m either in class or teaching class, so it’s rare I’m able to join the monthly Monday evening discussion. In fact, this was only my second foray into the Ron Book Team (I’m not sure how they came up with the name and I haven’t asked). I made the January meeting over winter break to discuss The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and now this second meeting. Due to my schedule, the group decided to let me choose the book for the July meeting.
I was torn. How does one choose the one book they can suggest (and have somewhat of a guarantee) people should read? I’ve been introduced to great novels in my MFA program, I have my own favorite writers, and then there’s the thought of discussing a collection of short stories. I whittled my choices down to Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard (one of his best and most accessible), The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (a writer I was introduced to in my MFA), and American Gods by Neil Gaiman (that would make two Hugo winners in a row, following up Ender’s Game).
Eventually I settled on American Gods. It’s no secret I’m a big ol’ Gaiman fan, and I’m always up for getting others into his writing. I’ve tread through this book’s waters a few times, so it’s nothing new. However, I haven’t read it since entering my MFA in 2005, and I’m curious to see if two years of graduate school changes my perception of the novel. My hope is I end up enjoying it even more, though I see two possible negative scenarios which could emerge, too. Either I could dislike it because of my new perspective on writing, or I won’t notice any difference, which means two years in an MFA program hasn’t been all that helpful. I’m really hoping for the first of those three outcomes.
In the meantime, I begin my own book club tonight. Details to come tomorrow.
~nm
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About
Brought together by mutual interest in creative arts and web development, Minnesota duo Barry Hess and Nathan Melcher founded Scrawlers.com in 2006. Scrawlers marries creativity with a web-based outlet for aspiring writers and The Scrawl blog seeks to add fuel your creative fire.
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