Writing and Workshopping

[sartorias]

I suspect most who cruise this blog also cruise matociquala's, but still. Today she has some good stuff to say about craft and success, specifically:

Here's a secret. Once you reach a certain level of competence, books and stories sell because of what you do right, not because of what you don't do wrong. You want to talk about what J.K. Rowling does wrong

Comments

[jimhines]

I've also found that pointing out the strengths of a story or a writer helps the writer to be able to hear and accept the weaknesses as well.

Back when I was doing crisis counseling and training, every piece of feedback, positive or negative, had to be balanced. Having been on both the providing and receiving side more times than I can remember, it really did help...

[copperwise]

Yes, indeed. It is incredibly helpful to hear what I'm doing right along with what I'm doing wrong.

That was one of the reasons I quit writing and sending out fiction. All of my beta-testers would tell me what to fix, tell me the rest was great, and then I'd get little messages from editors telling me what was bad but not what was good. Eventually it felt like there was nothing in any story that worked for anyone.

[ccfinlay]

We try to make that part of our core philosophy at OWW (and I emphasized it when I was teaching at Clarion too). Readers respond to what writers do right, not to what they don't do wrong. So you have to find the things you're good at and really excel at them, while learning to improve the other things or at least make sure they don't distract or detract from the stuff you're good at.

[sartorias]

Yes! As critiquers the other squid to wrestle is telling the other writer how to fix the perceived problem. That's the downside of being fellow writers, that instinct is so natural, and must be fought and subdued--unless the person asks for brainstorming ideas. Geez how I wrestle with that--I am not even aware of sliding into it, and then all of a sudden I've shifted from identifying perceived problems to being a noisy asshole telling someone else what to do with their ms. Mental noogie time!

Yoiks. And "heh".

[carbonelle]

I'd no idea that giving possible fixes was A Bad Idea to be resisted. It seems that for once I can succumb happily to vice, e.g. laziness. I had much rather not bother!

On the otherhand, when offering free editing to a friend, I rarely profer broad writing critiques (e.g. "pacing's off") but red-pencil spelling, grammar, word-choice and the like. Since writers usually seem to be working under editorial deadlines, I'd felt like a bit of heel if I didn't include at least one possible correction.

I'd no idea I was trespassing! Clueless Broads of the World meeting at my back-garden, Thursday next.

[buymeaclue]

That added to the what isn't working and why can give someone a better sense of how their piece is being received at the other side of the reader-writer bridge.

The kind of critique that I try to give (and the kind that I most like to receive) is almost entirely reader-response.

I figure, I can make guesses at what exactly is or isn't working in a story. I can make guesses at the reasons why. I do, often, because it's a useful exercise for me and because some writers get very very frustrated otherwise: "I know it doesn't work! Tell me why."

Which I understand. I get that kind of frustrated myself, sometimes.

But the thing is, I can't tell 'em why. I can tell them what I think is why, but I may or may not be right. The only thing I can tell them with absolute honesty and accuracy is what story I read and how I felt about it.

Writers can lie. Readers never do.

[buymeaclue]

In other news, I have no idea why your journal won't put blank lines between my paragraphs. I comment with blank lines! Then it posts. No blank lines. Le sigh.

[sartorias]

I know. I hate that too, but I like the rest of the style so much I just go with it.

[ebess]

Which style is this, by the by? briarhill has it too, and I really dig it!

[haikujaguar]

I think it's because all my first critiquers emphasized what I did right over what I did wrong that I have the confidence to face rejection today with so little distress. I was a teenager then, but I think it goes for all beginning writers... in the beginning, people need to hear about what they do well far more than what they do badly, because confidence is so hard to come by.

Once you feel confident about your work, having people tell you how to make it better is good. And you can typically weather people telling it to you in the worst possible ways.

I, for one, never understood the, "If they can't take the bad stuff now, they should just get out of the business" attitude. I don't know any people who were born confident. And there's never any reason to be mean.