Writing Group

[sraun]

My darling wife, iraunink, is asking for input on writing groups in a post here. This is her second writing group - her first experience with one was, to put it frankly, awful.

I think part of the problem was that the first group could not distinguish between 'I like this', 'this works', and 'this is done well'.

Comments

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

*nod* makes sense. There's a crucial difference between "I like this story, but it needs changes"; "This isn't my cuppa, but it works"; "Well-written, but it bores me to tears through no fault of your own".

Being able to distinguish these three is critical to good, constructive feedback on writing... Not to mention, knowing each person well enough to know how to say "OMG, this sucks sooo bad! *claws eyes out*" so that the person will actually listen to the feedback. ;-)

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's important that the group make that distinction -- I think it's important that the writer figure out (with further inquiry, if necessary) whether a putative objection to a thing in the work is actually an objection to that thing, and whether it's a matter of personal preference or defect.

[sraun]

If the reviewer(s) can't be honest enough to admit that they don't like it, but keep giving you feedback about 'this is what you need to do to fix it', and it seems reasonable, but you do it, and next meeting they don't like how that turned out, and the third meeting they ask you to do something that turns it back into what you submitted the first time - it was very messy.

The group may not need to make the distinction. But if none of the group members understand that 'I like it = good, I dislike it = bad' is not necessarily valid, and all but one of the people in the group like the same (smallish) set of stuff, it can get very toxic very fast.

Talk to Irene about it sometime if you'd like to hear gory details.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to be a good listener, honest, but I think that the key to the whole thing is picking the right people in the first place.

It wasn't accidental that, back when I was putting together a writing group some years ago, I started by asking Bethke and Peg and Pat. It wasn't their writing credits -- at that time, Peg hadn't sold a word of fiction -- it was attitudes.

That said, I don't find "this is what you do to fix it" very helpful (most of the time; Lydy did quite a bit of that with the first Palladins book, and it was almost as helpful as the other stuff she did). I'm the mechanic; it's my job to figure out what to do to fix it, although I don't mind hearing what somebody else thinks.

What I want to hear is "this isn't working for me, and here's why," with the emphasis on the first part.

More often than not, I've found that the fix isn't directly to touch the stuff that isn't working for somebody, but to figure out why (what they say and what's really the case may or may not be the same, and I'm not talking about dishonesty here), and then to fix the problems that led up to it.

Just to pick one obvious example: if a death scene doesn't choke the reader up (and you want it to), the fix is at least as likely to be to write the character better initially, rather than to fix the death scene. The problem may be (usually is) that the reader didn't care about the character in the first place.

In my own case, I'm usually better at giving feedback on stuff I don't like. If I like it enough, I tend to fall under its spell and not see flaws that are there.

[sraun]

Oh, I agree about picking the right people in the first place! And the group she was in was not the right group of people, at least for her. I don't know how they're doing - I do know that one of the guys did the Writer's Workship at Minicon last year.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Yup. And you made something explicit that I should have: "right", in this context, means "right for this particular person", not "one of the Elect" (or, at least, not necessarily one of the Elect . . . ).

There's lots of very good writers I wouldn't workshop with, but if I were putting together a workshop again (and, who knows, I may at some point, although I think the first readers thing is working better for me, lazy guy that I am), writing ability would, once again, be a small factor (even though the group that I did put together had fine writers in it, and got more).

Which does, by the way, lead to a notion -- maybe what a given person needs isn't necssarily a workshop, but one or more first readers.

Usually I don't respond this much to anyone's friends list,but can't resist this one. . .

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

Surfing through Tygerr's friends' list and your question brought make miserable flash back memories of far too many bad creative writing workshops (and don't make me go into details as my userid on LJ will offer whatever you or your wife might need to know. Just TAKE MY WORD on the following:

I am a VETERAN of sorts of creative writing programs.

Now, having stated that, MY experience is that your wife should, hopefully, have a clue about who she views and values as an excellent reader of HER WORK, HER VISION and HER OBJECTIVE. Hopefully this person will also have a clue about CRAFT as well.

Now, having stated this. . .if you have a ragtag or random group of readers you are doomed before you get started. Why? there will be diversity of skill level, ability, interests, types of writers, etc. and then, for instance, you will find that someone who is totally into science fiction will have severe problems understanding what a writer is trying do with a romance or someone who is a realist will have issues with someone who is writing magical realism. Why? Everyone likes to think or believe their preferred genre or that their personal taste is what should dictate their opinon on someone else's work.

I remember once, while at Johns Hopkins, I had white classmates who had the NERVE to complain: "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS WRITING ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE AND BLACK ISSUES?"

?!?!?!?
For real. I couldn't believe it.

Now check this out: these white classmates never, ever bothered to reach much in the way of anything by any racial minority so my thing was: what in the hell makes you think that my writing should cater to YOU ---white people? And, hello --- did ya not notice that I AM BLACK? And I am telling YOU: "Why are you always writing about white characters? HUH?" I mean it after awhile, I got to the point where I didn't listen to much of the opinions of any of my classmates other than the now critically acclaimed Z.Z. Packer -- MY ONLY OTHER BLACK CLASSMATE at Johns Hopkins, OK?

In other words: Z.Z., even though she could be highly critical of my work, was the ONLY one who UNDERSTOOD where I was trying to "come from" where my classmates just had some kind of weird mental block that wanted me to subscribe to some kind of colorblind view of literature that hardly seemed realistic to me. And that viewpoint had NOTHING to do with me and EVERYTHING to do with what THEY WANTED ME TO WRITE!

Screw that.

So, in essence, your wife needs to find, I feel just TWO TO THREE GOOD READERS who, first of all, UNDERSTAND her objectives and visions and know something about craft.

I'm afraid to say that sometimes it is a very long and problematic search to find those two to three good readers, but when she does find them, she will know it. Why?

I will argue that a writer ALWAYS knows when they're "trying to get away with something" or they know when something isn't quite "working" in their text. When she has someone call her on this and suggest something that, guess what? WORKS! And not only works, but PRESERVES THE INTENT OF WHAT SHE IS TRYING TO ACHIEVE AS A WRITER --- then guess what? She will have latched on to the "good reader" that she needs to go to whenever she wants an honest take on her writing.

That's my 2 cents. hope it helps. . .

Re: Usually I don't respond this much to anyone's friends list,but can't resist this one. . .

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Happens all the time. People tend to write about what they know, and, for example(s), guys tend to know a lot more about being guys than about being women; black folks tend to know a lot more about being 21st century black folks, etc.

That said, one of my own favorite characters was a teenaged black girl, and at least one reviewer said that she was the most interesting character in the book. (About which I, of course, don't get an opinion.)

Re:Interesting example. . .and I had similar experience

[newblksusan.livejournal.com]

My Master's Thesis at Hopkins is titled "After The Flight" which was an incomplete novel where I had alternating chapters in the voice of white man and a black woman. Madison Smartt Bell, a white male author, was my Thesis Advisor.

Every workshop my white classmate trashed my white male character as not having an authentic white male voice. Madison always maintained that was absolute b.s. and insisted that Brian, my white male character, sounded like a white dude to HIM and thus Madison was adamant about the following: he firmly believed my white classmates did not want to admit that a black woman could write persuasively in the voice of a white male character and that I should be restricted to just being an authority for a black female voice only.

Now do you see why I totally detested the graduate creative workshop experience? Luckily, while as a part of the UH Creative writing Program, i was better able to adapt thanks to some advice from author Rosellen Brown who recruited me to UH's creative writing program after I graduated from Hopkins. I really didn't want to come here and I really didn't want to pursue another graduate program in CW. But here's what Rosellen said that made my future experiences with workshops bearable:

"No one has been accepted into the creative writing program based on their ability to critique your work."

That is almost an exact quote. Also, much of the advice I offered in my first response to the original question is, really, a paraphrase of much needed and useful advice from Rosellen. If she had not had that talk with me I know I would have never accepted the offer to come to the UH Creative Writing Program.

And thus, again: there are only a FEW opinions that I truly value as it relates to my creative work. I do have "a few good readers" that I trust and they are not, by and large, fiction writers from the UH Creative Writing program. There's only classmate in the entire program that I currently trust with reading my work. As for everyone else, my attitude is "Thanks for sharing" and then I pretty much just ignore much of what they say when their critique is more related to their desire for me to write in a way that only caters to their personal tastes, desires, needs, etc. to which I say:

"Well, why don't you do all THAT (of what you're proposing to me) in YOUR OWN BOOK?"

That shuts them up pretty quickly.