Random Thoughts On The Workshop Experience
Mon 2006-10-30 02:24:35 (in context)
- 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long
Going way, way back to the Borderlands Press Writers' Boot Camp experience... why? Because I finally sat down with all 30+ copies of my story that the instructors and other students returned to me, and I read all their comments tonight. I'm sorta subconsciously compiling a coherent impression of What Needs Doing. Meanwhile, I have some Thoughts.
Thought the First: Names Are Important. If you, dear reader, should ever take part in a big group workshop in which you will be one among many commenting on a single story, please, for the love of Whomever You Hold Dear, put your effing name on your copy! Especially if you're one of the Instructors! It's not been so long that I can't still put a name to a face, and I can sorta put the tenor of a set of comments to the memory of a particular break-out session, but memory isn't infallible, and it would sure be nice to know who thought what.
[Note to self: Alternately, I could write the critiquer's name at the top of the copy when he or she hands it back to me. Y'know. Rather than, for example, having an attack of workshopping nerves, tucking it away face down under my notebook, and pretending it doesn't exist for the rest of the day.]
Thought the Second: Paper-clips don't work so good en masse. Acquisitions editors and slush readers famously despise the staple. Paper-clips come off and go back on easily, which staples do not do. But if you take 30+ copies of a 15-page story, all paper-clipped together, and put them in a stack and shove the stack in your bookbag to shlep around town, those paper-clips become very indiscriminate as to what paper they clip.
Thought the Third: There can be too much of a good thing. The way the Boot Camp was set up, there were four classrooms and four two-hour sessions throughout the Big Saturday. Each of the four instructors presided over a classroom, leading a critique session consisting of five or six students and their stories. Thus each student got critiqued by each instructor and, theoretically, each student. Unfortunately, the students were divided into sections such that some of us saw each other twice but others not at all, so we didn't actually get face-to-face critiques with every other student. But we were all supposed to read and critique everyone else's stories regardless--and, oddly enough, I don't feel like 30+ critiques gives me any better of a spectrum than the 5 or 6 I get from my fellow attendees at Melanie Tem's twice-monthly classes.
In fact, I'm starting to get confused. Five people thought the opening was too slow; two more thought it was perfect. One person was totally confused about the plot, another said maybe I was too subtle, another two said they liked the way the plot snuck up on them. Several people thought the space aliens were unnecessary, nothing more than a red herring intended to articially wedge the story into the science fiction genre; several other people thought the aliens were totally cool. Triangulation is a bitch.
Not that I'm really complaining. Like most writers, I consider every beta reader to be a blessing. (And the ones that said things like, "Your story made me sick to my stomach, but in a good way," really made my night! Yay!) But there is such thing as an embarrassment of riches. Stephen Wright once quipped, "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" I'm currently trying to figure out where to put it all.
The issue of the four sessions is something I wish I'd put on my feedback questionaire at the end of the workshop. What I think Borderlands Press should have done was either only have us read the stories of students we'd share a session with (which is what Viable Paradise did), or else try to divide us into sections so that everyone got face-time with everyone. The usefulness of a particular comment is greatly amplified by remembering the student who brought it up in class and the brief discussion that led to. By the same token, a manuscript copy full of lots of underlining without further comment, no name, and no memory of how those underlined passages were discussed... I just don't know what to do with that.
[Note in the interest of accuracy: According to fellow student William D. Zeranski, who is a meticulous record-keeper to be trusted in these matters, there were Twenty-Two Students. So my constant reference to "30+ copies" is probably an exaggeration. So, OK, I got 20+ copies. Still! My point stands, dammit!]
Thought the Fourth: My, That's A Well-Vacuumed Cat. My procrastination tendencies are TEH SUXX0R. However, my high score in Worldwinner's version of hard-level Luxor since the addition of the 5-minute time limit is now somewhere around 192K. I will totally rock the competition ladder. Ph34r my l337 ski11z.
...And that's all I got. It's 3:18 AM in Boulder. I have the IHOP to walk home from and a lot to think about on the way. Tomorrow and Tuesday I will be trying to put those thoughts to work. And Wednesday I'll have this sucker in the mail.