McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Critique Circle Online Workshop

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Cyclone Jack:

Unpolished, weak stories are ideal for critique purposes. The more you can diagnose wrong with the work, the better. The process of critiquing is about developing a critical eye, learning how to spot those mistakes in your own writing as you make them.

And remember -- even once published, the people who read your stories are not going to be talented writers, but readers. If a writer -- one you consider talented or not -- finds passages, ideas, etc. unclear, vauge, contradictory then rest assured that readers will as well.

And editors will sure as hell notice those things. ;)

As to 'safety' -- if you're worried about plagarism, look at it this way. Placing a story online gives you a copyright by fait accompli. Not only that, but the server timestamps and dates your work. If it is plagarized, you have proof -- not only of prior ownership, but of every single computer to view that work. Excellent evidence for everyone from webmasters to editors to courts of law. :)

Suilan:

--- Quote ---And remember -- even once published, the people who read your stories are not going to be talented writers, but readers. If a writer -- one you consider talented or not -- finds passages, ideas, etc. unclear, vauge, contradictory then rest assured that readers will as well.
--- End quote ---

I don't know the Critique Circle, but I was a member (13 months) of OWW, where I workshopped almost the entire first part of my fantasy trilogy, which lead me to a complete rewrite, starting with making the beginning chapter more exciting. You learn as much from what the readers don't get as from their suggestions / analysis. For example, my first reviewers confused all my names and peoples and by page 100 or so still didn't get what the story was about. So I knew I had to introduce fewer people and events in dialogue, but add scenes where the reader can see for example the war-ravaged country with his/her own eyes, and also introduce the main plot element earlier.

So yeah, I do believe that a critiquing group can help. But only so much. Reviewers can sometimes not express clearly why they don't like your scene/chapter, or they recite rules they once heard (like: show, don't tell, or: passive and adjectives are baaad), whether they apply to your writing or not (not all telling/adjectives/passives are bad).

Imho, a lot of writing mistakes can more effectively be avoided if you read a couple of how-to's on creative writing first (you probably did, but the majority of people at a workshop didn't, and tend to get a little upset if you tell them something like: your one weak point seems to be description. You may find "Description" by Monica Wood helpful.)

Anyway, the most helpful how-to's on Creative Writing, imho, are:

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King.
Scene & Structure, by Jack Bickham
Description, by Monica Wood
The First Five Pages, by Noah Lukeman.

Also OK are:
Characters & Viewpoint, by Orson Scott Card
Plot, by Ansen Dibell.
Heroes & Heroines, by Cowden, LaFever, Viders

I read tons of other how-to's; most were absolutely worthless.

Cyclone Jack:
Suilan --

Yep, workshops aren't the be-all and end all of polishing craft. No resource is as important in that regard as simple, old fashioned practice.

'Show, don't tell!' is, to me, the most annoying canard tossed out during a critique/review. Mainly because people seem to think it's some sort of Immutable Law Of Proper Writing. I've seen people pull it out while critiquing an epistolatory story! I wondered if they thought they were responding to the fictional letter writer. :D

It also ignores how well a writer 'tells'. R.A. Lafferty was an honest-to-God master of the short story and he 'told' almost exclusively.

Kiriath:
Scene and summary, yeah, some things work better when they're not said at length. There are a lot of beginners who don't describe enough, though. It's one of my weaknesses. :P


--- Quote from: Suilan on October 04, 2007, 04:28:58 PM ---I read tons of other how-to's; most were absolutely worthless.

--- End quote ---

Monica Wood's description is actually as good as Amazon says? I'll have to get it from the interlibrary loan.

Don't forget Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain. Old but good. :)

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