Writing Workshop

[Rilbur]

I just went through an incredible experience today. I thought I was a pretty good writer, with very well crafted stories. In truth, that's probably fairly accurate. But boy do I have a lot more to learn than I would have thought; and the best part is, now I have a better idea of what.

 

I'm taking English 43 (Creative Writing) this semester, to help 'fill out' my course load. That was a great decision. For most of the semester, we've been reading published author's works, short stories to be specific, and talking about them. Today, we did something different. Today was the day we started 'work shopping' stories. And I volunteered to go first. One one level, it was really nice to have an 'enforced' 100% reader feedback thanks to the teacher; I heard a lot of viewpoints that I probably never would have. But then the discussion in class really helped reshape my view of the entire story.

 

As a result, I'm probably going to rewrite -- as in delete everything I have, start a brand new outline, and work from there. And that was before the teacher chimed in with a number of very helpful, useful comments.

 

 

 

If you ever have the chance to get in a writer's workshop, take it. It's amazing. That said... would anyone be interested in trying to get one going 'online'?

[Rilbur]

I had a few other people sound interested elsewhere, but is there no one in GA that would be interested in joining such a group?

[JamesSavik]

I would be but I've got a full plate at the moment.

[gardentuber]

Hey, Rilbur! Consider me! If there were a group... six folks? Something like that would be really great. I'm working (very slowly) on a story currently and could use feedback before putting it up online. So, a writer's group could be really valuable.

[Lugh]

I might be interested, depending on the genres of the works being presented.

[Rilbur]

Lugh, I'm planning to let the genres be pretty open to whatever the authors want to write, though 'decency' limits would still be necessary (e. g. no raping of children allowed). I suspect I'll also need to be fairly strict on the use of sex scenes -- i. e. nothing rated 'NC-17' allowed. Let me quote a post I made elsewhere...

 

 

 

OK, it sounds like we may have enough interest here to get such a group off the ground. The question is how many people who are going 'sounds like a good idea' will actually get involved

 

I'm going to start investigating the various options (setting up an IRC group or a forum), and I'll try and get back within a week or so. I'm leaning in the direction of a forum, since syncing our schedules is likely to be difficult, but if we could set it up via IRC (or Skype) that would be nice too. It's possible we may receive support from the board to do it here, or I may run it through my own website assuming I can get some kind of forum software running.

 

With NaNo coming up next month, this is probably a bad time to get it started, so the 'due date' on any stories is likely to be mid-December, or probably later; maybe new Years. So there is still plenty of time to write up a story. Here's a quick sketch of what I think the rules would be:

 

On the writing:

1. All stories should be submitted by January 1st, 2011

2. Stories should be between 2,500 and 15,000 words in length. (Approximately 5 to 30 pages) These are to be short stories, which does imply a certain concision. Some authors (we know who we are) will just have to deal will the 'cramped' space they have to develop and finish a storyline.

3. These stories should be reasonably well polished by the author -- put the time in that you'd expect from others -- but they do not need to be fully edited / beta read.

4. To help reduce the 'personal' nature of the exercise, all stories shall be submitted anonymously -- the only person able to connect a story to it's author will be the administrator (i. e. me). See below for a caveat.

 

On the workshop side:

1. Each week on Monday, a story shall be posted.

2. Within one week, every group member is responsible for turning in a written critique and a copy of the story 'marked up' with notes. Arrangements will be made to get these to the proper author.

2a. (Optional) The author himself will provide a similar copy along with the story, which will be posted when the floor is 'opened' to allow him to ask questions. The purpose of this is to help expose your writing process so that others may learn from it.

3. Each week the floor shall be open to discuss various aspects of the previous week's story.

4. The author of the story shall refrain from posting anything in the discussion about the story -- the idea is to silently receive and accept the criticism of your peers. This will naturally reduce the anonymity factor, but it's a necessary trade-off for the process to work.

5. At the end of the week, the author is free to ask questions of the group. No one is required to answer, but the 'golden rule' applies.

 

I'll probably try and recruit an independent moderator or two just to keep an eye on the situation, I'll need to consider that.

 

 

Assuming we could make this a recurring thing, I could see having 'two' stories in play at the same time; one slot would be for a new story, while the other could be given over to a rewrite of a previous story.

 

If anyone is firmly, concretely interested in joining under those terms, feel free to announce that fact or PM me with the information. If you have any comments or concerns, feel free to make them known. I'd appreciate all the help I can recieve from anyone interested in being involved.

[Rilbur]

Because I want to include authors from other sites, I've opened up my own forum to run this affair at forums.rilburskryler.net and set up a workshop forum specifically for workshopping. If you'd like to sign up, please register for an account there and PM me so I can include you in the authors group.

[Cia]

I'd love to be involved but between my own stories, my planned participation in NaNo, a collaboration project in December and all the beta reading/editing I do I just can't commit right now It sounds like a great amount of fun but I don't want to commit to writing and participating and then failing to be 100% involved.

[Rilbur]

Sorry to hear that Cia! As time passes, maybe there will be something you can help with -- I know that I have a few other ideas I want to run with that I'm just not ready to start pushing (a 'blog' consisting of articles from various others with the subject of 'on writing -- advice to aspiring authors', for example).

[AranaDarkwolf]

I'd be interested. It would, if nothing else, keep my creative juices flowing even when I hit writer's block with other stories I'm currently working on.

[Rilbur]

OK, I've firmed up my intention and gone ahead and taken the plunge. Below is an 'advert' of sorts, please feel free to spread it around!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every writer has had to start somewhere. We all know the feeling of those first few words, the awe and wonder of looking at a finished story or chapter, and the fear of negative reactions. Some of us have pushed past that and managed to publish online, finding the reaction of our audience to our liking, or not.

 

After experiencing a writing workshop for a class, I decided that a similar activity, done online, might be a beneficial activity. Therefore, I am setting up and running an online writing workshop through my website, open to authors of all experience levels and skills. The idea is to help each other improve our writing in any way we can. More skilled writers can assist each other as well as provide a 'hand up' to those just starting out, who will have an opportunity to learn.

 

I can provide the workspace, the guidelines and rules, but the one thing I can't provide by myself is the authors needed for this to work. The more, the better! Please consider taking part, even if you can't write a story yourself you can still critique, read, and learn!

 

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact the workshop team at workshop-team@rilburskryler.net and we will get back to you as soon as possible!

 

 

 

 

Writing Rules:

1. All stories should be submitted to workshop-submit@rilburskryler.net in .doc format, in English.

2. To help reduce the 'personal' nature of the exercise, all stories shall be submitted anonymously -- the only person able to connect a story to it's author will be the moderator in charge of handling new entries.

3. Stories should be between 2,500 and 15,000 words in length. (Approximately 5 to 30 pages) These are to be short stories, which implies both a degree of concision and the ability to stand alone. Because of the anonymity requirement, stories which occur in established universes are disallowed.

4. While subject matter in general is open to the author's choice, stories are not to be pornographic or excessively violent. In movie terms, think 'R' or lower -- N-17 and above will be rejected.

5. These stories should be reasonably well polished by the author -- put the time in that you'd expect from others -- but they do not need to be fully edited / beta read.

 

Workshop Rules:

1. Starting January Sixth, 2011, each week on Monday a story shall be posted. The stories will be chosen to fairly rotate amongst authors taking part in the workshop.

2. Within one week, every group member is responsible for turning in a written critique and a copy of the story 'marked up' with notes. Arrangements will be made to get these to the proper author.

3. Each week the floor shall be open to discuss various aspects of the previous week's story.

4. The author of the story shall refrain from posting anything in the discussion about the story -- the idea is to silently receive and accept the criticism of your peers. This will naturally reduce the anonymity factor, but it's a necessary trade-off for the process to work.

5. At the end of the week, the author is free to ask questions of the group. No one is required to answer, but the 'golden rule' applies.

 

Moderation and Etiquette

1. Each author is expected to come with the intent to learn as much as possible. While it is certainly permissible to reject all advice given, you are presumably here to learn.

2. No personal attacks allowed. Period. Address the work, not the author. Conversely, if someone is addressing the work, don't take it personally -- they aren't insulting you.

3. Moderators will ensure that a civil tone and reasonable decorum is maintained. They are given a wide latitude of powers, but are expected to exercise restraint in their use. Appeal of their decisions is to the writing team, and all decisions of the writing team are final.

4. Apply common sense -- these rules are intended not to be exhaustive, but to provide a framework from which a person may reasonably infer the full body of the rules. The spirit of the law will be enforced, not the letter.

5. We reserve the right to change the rules as required without notice.

 

 

[Rilbur]

For those that are interested, I'm adding some more information / advice to the forums I set up for the writing workshop. This tidbit is placed in a publicly viewable folder, but not all the information I intend to release will be. If you want to see all of it, sign up! You don't need to have a story to be involved in the critiquing process of other people's stories -- but putting a story in is a good way to to keep it going! I intend to try and start it off a bit early by posting a 'sample' critique some time in the future.

 

 

 

 

Advice and Suggestions on the Writing of Critiques

 

First off, let me be clear that this is my personal opinion, and that this entire document is aimed entirely at writing critiques for the purposes of this specific workshop. Many of the items contained in it can be generalized, but don't assume all of them can. Additionally, many of these ideas can be used in the writing process, improving the final result.

 

First off, a good critique should be aimed at the length of 250 to 500 words -- approximately one half to a full page, single spaced, size 12 Times New Roman font. Longer is acceptable if you have more to say. If you don't have that much to say, then you may wish to review the story again to find more.

 

Second, a critique should ideally touch upon both good and bad aspects of the story. There is no magic ratio, simply the basic idea that an author likes to hear about what they did right so they can keep it, and what went wrong so they can delete it. Furthermore, these comments should be impersonal as possible -- yes, they are directed at the author's story, and furthermore what that story exposes of their understanding of the craft of writing, but it should not be a personal attack. Your comments may be harsh, "You clearly do not understand the concept of a paragraph. You break stories up into related blocks, called paragraphs, as this improves readability..." is borderline. "You idiot, didn't you ever take English? Let me introduce you to the 'paragraph'..." is completely unacceptable, while a preferable form would be "You failed to properly break your story into paragraphs. Paragraphs should be sections of related text, generally handling a single, specific idea or theme. While there is great variety in their lengths, a good rule of thumb is that in general they should be longer than a sentence or two, and shorter than a page..."

 

Third, try to be general with your critique. Since you're supposed to be handing in a 'marked up' copy of the story, that is where you want to mention specific instances of grammatical errors, exceptionally vivid sentences, and similar items. Your critique should mention generalities, and use specifics only as reference points. At the same time, there may be 'specific' information that doesn't occur at the 'page' level; for example, plot holes might be one sentence in the story, but because they effect the story as a whole, they are valid commentary for a critiques (and the following discussions). As an example, "On page three...you forgot a comma!" would be a specific, but...

 

"When a character stops speaking and you add an attribution, such as '"We can't make it." Mary said.' you should use a comma and make the attributable part of the speech, such as '"We can't make it," Mary said.'

 

...would be an acceptable generality.

 

So if the author makes a mistake once -- for example, neglecting to start a new paragraph for a new speaker -- don't mention it, but if it's continuous -- they don't consistently start a new paragraph for each speaker -- then bring it up. Don't just say 'you forgot to...'; try to explain the rule as best as you can!

 

Finally, let me introduce various terms, concepts, and ideas that may help with both writing a critique, and writing an actual story. Sometimes you might have to set a story on it's head to understand how a term relates to it, because it's not always obvious, and some of the concepts relate more to one side of the writing / critique spectrum than others (for example, 'triangle' is something you can recognize in critique, but is a technique / idea to help with writing).

 

 

Plot: Essentially, the plot is the storyline of the fictional narrative. It answers the question 'what happened?' As a concept, plot encompasses many of the other terms discussed here.

 

 

Setup / Exposition: The start / introduction of a story, where you introduce the characters and 'set up' the story for what is to come.

 

 

Rising action: Once you've set up the story, you need to introduce the complication (conflict) and start ratcheting up the tension. Something goes wrong, there's some kind of tension, something that helps drive the plot forward. In most stories, this will be the 'bulk' of the story.

 

 

Complication (conflict): In almost every story I've ever read, there is some kind of complication or conflict, something to drive the story. Very, very rarely do you read a story like this:

 

Chad got up in the morning. He went to school. After school, he went to work. Work was exhausting, so once it was over he went straight home and collapsed into bed. All in all, a very normal day for him.

 

There's no action there, no conflict, nothing to actually interest the reader. Somewhere, somehow, the story has to have a conflict.

 

 

Climax: The high point of the story, but not necessarily the resolution. This is the time when everything comes together, any dangling plot points are revealed, and everything becomes clear. This is generally later in the story, and can on occasion even be at the end. WARNING TO AUTHORS: be very careful with putting the climax at the end! This does not always go over well and is no guarantee to a 'good' story.

 

 

Falling action / resolution: The climax is the high point, so it has to be followed by a low point, a time where you let the tension drop away as you tie up any loose ends. Not all stories include this part, but most should.

 

 

Triangle: This is a writing concept. While you frequently have a direct, one-on-one confrontation in a story, triangles can frequently make the story more interesting and engaging, as a third character / component / idea can help introduce some variability and unpredictability to what might otherwise be a very boring and predictable conflict.

 

 

 

 

And now a few question you should keep in mind, both when writing a story and a critique:

 

 

What does the character want? How does the character change over the course of the story?

[Rilbur]

Hey, anyone out there still interested in doing this? I've had zero people actually provide a story or sign up to get into the forums I built for it.

 

I am not even going to try and do this if I'm the only person posting stories!

[Rilbur]

For those that are interested, the individual handling submissions (NOT ME! ) has received the first submissions for the workshop, forcing a small revision in the rules. First off, it turns out I can't use a calendar correctly, it should have been Monday January Tenth for the first story. Instead of using our planned normal submission process (a rotation that tries to balance getting the 'oldest' stories out, with rotating fairly amongst authors) the story will be deliberately chosen to be easy to workshop, one that has readily identified flaws.

Second, our rules have been slightly modified. You may use chapters in ongoing stories if, and only if, they can be read as stand-alone chapters. In general, this will mean that only the first chapter can possibly fit this requirement.

[Rilbur]

Oh, and as an additional note information is starting to go up in the protected section of the forums I set aside for the writing workshop, including versions of a story which will probably not be published through GA (a teacher twisted my arm until I submitted it to a student writing contest). To see this you'll need to sign your soul away... I mean, you'll need to sign up for the forums and promise to keep what goes on in the workshop confidential, at which point I'll give you access to the protected forums.

[Rilbur]

The workshop is starting up today, with our first story ‘The Voices of Raal’. Even if you don’t have a story of your own to submit yet, if you want to take part you can! Just sign up at forums.rilburskryler.net, drop a line somewhere to let me know to add you to the authors group, and then help critique and discuss the story!

[Rilbur]

As an addendum, in order to view the stories, or most material related to the workshop, you have to be manually approved. This is a security precaution to ensure that the stories submitted are held confidential, and not spread out over the internet at large

[Kanaye]

Oh, I wish I had saw this earlier.

 

*sighs*

 

Can I still join? Even though I missed yesterdays?

 

And does the story have to be finished? Or can it just be what we have so far? Mine is a bit over 7k words so far.

[Rilbur]

The stories really need to be finished to be of any use. We experimented with allowing the first chapter of a longer story in, and it just doesn't work.

 

And, unfortunately, the workshop ran it's course last week when we ran out of stories. Joining the forums at forums.rilburskryler.net and getting put into the writer's group probably isn't a complete waste, however, as I will probably try to revive it at some point in the future. If you're signed up, you'll get a direct e-mail notice when I attempt the revival.

[AnytaSunday]

The stories really need to be finished to be of any use. We experimented with allowing the first chapter of a longer story in, and it just doesn't work.

 

And, unfortunately, the workshop ran it's course last week when we ran out of stories. Joining the forums at forums.rilburskryler.net and getting put into the writer's group probably isn't a complete waste, however, as I will probably try to revive it at some point in the future. If you're signed up, you'll get a direct e-mail notice when I attempt the revival.

 

Ohhh, I wondered why a new story wasn't up. Sorry things didn't quite pick up. Maybe at another point. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to have tried. And thanks again for your awesome feedback.

 

All the best, Rilbur.

[Rilbur]

Is there anyone out there that would like to try and resurrect this idea?

[Marzipan]

me, me, me!