and why I believe
it's better
When working in a workshop environment there are many
dynamics beyond merely the posted-stories and received critiques.
I argue that truth is imperative at all times.
If you critique me I need to know that the only thing affecting your critique is
the text itself.
I need to know that you are not "being clever" or
"being cute" or sucking up because I'm due to critique YOUR work. I
need to know that you are not thinking about your last story that I ripped
into. I need to know it's not "pay-back time".
I need to know that you're not angry with me because I
ripped into Janet's story and she was upset, and you and Janet are now seeing
each other. I need to know that you are not upping my scores or lowering them
for any reasons other than the bare text.
When you are critiquing our one-legged, very shy Vietnamese
refugee I need to know you're not being too kind "to help him fit
in."
When you are critiquing Victoria I need to know that the
shape and colour of your critique has nothing to do with her cancer scare. And
when I read critiques done by Victoria I don't want to have to adjust every
time and think well, she really likes
John and she really dislikes Frank
and she just loves romance and she
just hates stories about infidelity.
I need to know that all stories are critiqued as objectively
as possible and that the marks are for craft
and not "I like" and "I dislike."
I need to know that when the group's professional writer or
most senior member posts a story it won't be treated with more respect simply
because it's known to be by a better writer. I need to know that our very green
beginner will be judged on his text and not on the fact he's new.
Commonly, where the author is known to the critiquer the
above is not the case.
I see every dynamic except the one that matters, seeking
the truth about the text without any other factors applying.
So, the first rule of my group is anonymity of stories.
Method, Admin
Stories are emailed to a secretary and then posted by the
secretary.
We encourage senders to occasionally send via a third party
and attach a note saying, "Story forwarded on behalf of a known Boot
Camper."
It doesn't matter how often this is done, it's just one
extra layer of uncertainty.
We also post "ringers" - good or bad stories that
are NOT written by a BCer.
Stories are formatted the same, same font, same headers etc.
The stories are author-blind, anonymous.
When we post critiques we write Story Name, Critiquer Name,
Author Unknown.
If we have suspicions we write Author Suspected.
If for some reason we know whose story it is we write "Author
Aware" but we make absolutely ZERO references to the author.
There is no within-crit hinting. We never say, "This
looks a lot like Dave's work," because if we do people immediately change
their approach.
The Critiques
Critiques should be easily comparable.
That is, if there are ten critiques I should be able to see
at a glance what all ten people thought of the opening, character and so on.
The story's author should not have to wander in a labyrinth to discover what George
thinks of the opening. It should be easy. George should be able to
cut-and-paste ten Crits-of-the-Opening into a single document to see, on 1-2
pages, the individual impressions, the average impression and the cumulative
impression of just the opening.
This is a very
sobering exercise.
Critiques should be instantly comparable.
Words are fuzzy, a mark is not. We write copious remarks,
just like any other critique group but we also
give a mark based on the Boot Camp Grid.
That mark is a snapshot, a summary of all our words.
If 110 means "publishable in a small paper
journal" then 112 is a clear statement saying, "this is just about
publishable" and 102 is saying "needs work".
You can hide behind fuzzy opinions, but your mark is a clear
line in the sand.
For every element there is a par mark (eg: 11 for Opening,
12 for character.)
A story with all par marks would have a total of 106, and is
very solid, close to paper-publishable but without that extra "zing"...
as zing is added and the story passes 110, then the story is expected to find a home.
So for example, if a draft is exactly all-par-marks, (106)
and then the story is improved by one mark per element (115) it's clearly
publishable.
The difference between 106 and 115 is, however, immense and
it may take a year to cross that gap. (It may have taken 1-2 years to get to
106!)
Marks
After a while (maybe six months) we can just "see"
a story from its chart, just like a doctor, though he needs to examine the
patient (the text, or the words in the critique) can also at-a-glance see how
the patient is doing from the numbers, his "vitals" - BP, heart-rate,
temperature, bloods.
Critiques are done
to a template
ensuring that nine elements are ALWAYS discussed.
That is crucially important. I have seen critiques that are
2,000 words long that are nothing to do with the story! They start something
like:
When I started to read
this I thought of Flowers for Algernon and strangely also the third book in the
Harry Potter series, and in a way, "Lolita".
Mavis and I were
having breakfast on the veranda (a really beautiful morning - I had Eggs
Benedict and orange juice, Mavis just had coffee - she just doesn't "do"
breakfast, ha-ha-ha!... and I mentioned the story but she didn't have time to
read it.
There is a special kind of "cheat" critique where
the author woffles a lot (as above) and quotes back a lot of the text (cut and
paste is far easier than thinking but looks impressive) but never makes a clear
point about the actual text.
To an untrained eye these critiques look the best. They appear to be highly detailed, but, to begin
with, there's a pointless intro about where the author had breakfast or his
current state of mind, then it begins:
I wondered about the title, but this opening:
Meredith Twp Evans and His Butty, Ernest Jones
In the
villages all down this valley, from Senghennydd down to Caerphilly, they call
me Ernie the Egg.
I do not
mind this, but for the record, I am Ernest
Jones, poultry farmer, son of Robert Jones, Deacon, and they are my hens
that run amok on the hill above the town. You may eat whosoever's pigs you
wish, but it is my eggs that you shall have on your plate if you sup anywhere
in the valley from Park Hamlet right through Abertridwr. My eggs is on the
plates for most the best part of Caerphilly, too, though I know of some Cardiff
eggs there.
Yes, I am
rich, and the boys in the villages, and the old men, make jokes about me. Yes,
Ernie the Egg I am, and with a few bob, and sought after by the Revenue, too,
but I am wealthy by fortunate accidents and hard work, and with the help of
God, and because of a great and ordinary man, Meredith Twp Evans, collier, and because
I am shot in the neck in the Great War and because I am a failed scholar.
The hens
have been my livelihood but this have not always been so. Once I was to be a
teacher, then a collier, then dead underground, then dead from a bullet in the
Great War. That I am not any of these things is an odd thing for me, peculiar
altogether, but facts is facts, which is why I will relate my story.
sort of made me think of Flowers for Algernon
and strangely also the third book in the Harry Potter series, and in a way
"Lolita". I was having breakfast with...
That's 290 words. Not a word of actual criticism. Then the
critiquer spots a typo:
Oh, BTW there's a
comma missing on line 7, and it should be it's not its before the word
Christmas.
The author carries on this way, never actually talking about
characterisation or the dialogue, or the plotting or the theme...
Just join the cut and pastes with a half line of woffle and
spot a typo or two.
I used to have a spoof critique that really "looked the
business" but said NOTHING.
It was 1,500 words long.
So in Boot camp we FORCE the critiquer to specifically talk about at least 9
elements. They cannot hide (even though some still try)
Summary
11 Opening
10 Character
10 Dialogue &
Voice
11 Plot & Structure
12 Theme.
11 Seduction
(Show-Tell, Author Intrusion, 'Carry', Dramatic Flow, Fictive Dream)
10 Language
13 Pace & Pacing
10 Ending
00 Bonus
98 TOTAL
Further Comments & Suggestions
On my crits I will post the element marks with a one-liner summary
as below, later followed, in the body of the critique, by a more in-depth
discussion
Jeremy's Wardrobe
Critique by Alex
Author Unknown
Very occasionally I'll have a note here where I think
something may be influencing my crit. or it might say, Sorry, author, but this
is going to be a tough crit!
Summary
09 Opening Unpromising start, felt weak and Baxter
was not believable
09 Character Baxter
as above, generally wooden characters pushed by plot
08 DV The
speakers all sounded the same, too many speech-tags
10 Plot A few
plot-holes but might be fixable (see notes)
06 Theme. I
couldn't see a theme!
08 Seduction I
felt "author-aware" throughout, a lumpy feel
09 Language OK-ish
but a few clangers dragged it down
12 Pace Didn't digress much, toddled along OK,
last third a bit rushed
08 Ending Not
convincing and the twist was a bit silly
06 Bonus I may
have double-penalised, and overall I think it's worth 85
85 TOTAL
Then the body of the critique will begin with a summary, not
so much of the plot (although it's mentioned) but a summary of what appeared to
be the story's intentions
Summary
This felt like a beginner's work and in a way it's over-ambitious.
There's a half-decent coming of age story, an almost separate SF plot, and some
"interesting" philosophical musing about eggs. But the three elements
don't organically come together and I felt the author's heavy hand controlling
things. I fell that there are two separate OK stories and the egg-thing would
make an interesting flash, but together they don't work.
Opening
Then we will get a few sentences (sometimes a few
paragraphs) discussing the opening
Character
Ditto
One Common Objection
One common objection to the above method is for people to
say, "but all the elements interact. How can you talk about X when it
affects Y and vice-versa?
We know this, but we are attempting to isolate where areas
are strong or weak.
Imagine a good writer who is just crap at dialogue. For everything else he's a par writer and if his
dialogue was OK he'd be selling stuff.
Now, if I criticise the opening and mark it down because
of its dialogue and then I don't like the character because of the way
they speak... and of course I mark down the dialogue element... and I found the
dialogue unbelievable and that hurt my impression of the plot... and I couldn't
quite get the theme because I was distracted by silly speeches... and the
readonability was seriously hurt by poor dialogue... and because the dialogue
was silly I marked down the language... and because I kept tripping over the
silly speech it felt slow so I marked down pace... and that final speech, WTF?
so I scored the ending low...
So ONE problem (bad dialogue) has permeated through the
whole thing.
The author gets terrible marks throughout
06 Opening
06 Character
05 DV
04 Plot
07 Theme.
06 Seduction
09 Language
10 Pace
07 Ending
00 Bonus
60 TOTAL
But really everything would be around par if we JUST fixed the dialogue!
So at the start, in the summary we might say. "There's
a big problem with dialogue in this story so apart from "Dialogue" I
will ignore the dialogue errors and discuss them in Dialogue and in the Further
comments."
We then treat each element as if the dialogue was par. The
exception is Opening, because we mark Opening for the immediate effect on the
reader.
06 Opening (Brought down by the dialogue)
12 Character (Ignoring
dialogue issues)
00 Dialogue
11 Plot (Ignoring
dialogue issues)
11 Theme. (Ignoring dialogue issues)
11 Seduction
(That is, with average dialogue it's not bad...)
10 Language (Ignoring
dialogue issues)
12 Pace (Ignoring dialogue issues)
10 Ending (Ignoring
dialogue issues)
-3 Bonus Oh, that
dialogue!
80 TOTAL
Note that par for dialogue is 12. The author has lost 12
points there PLUS another 3 in bonus, so a full 15 points have been dropped purely because of dialogue issues but
the story's weakness has more clearly pinpointed AS a dialogue issue.
In the first critique the dialogue points are partly
"lost" and it appears that the author is no good at anything. In the second case we have
highlighted the key problem.
Obviously the discussion of the story would highlight that
the main problem is the dialogue and would have a large proportion dedicated to
the fact.
What's important is we've isolated the issue and not
generally slammed every element (wrongly) because one element is poisoning our
view. It's the isolation and separation
that enables us to appreciate the different building blocks and how they
interact.
Self-Critiquing
We encourage the author to critique his own story, but
"as a stranger". That is he critiques the text and nothing but the
text and never defends the text or "explains".
Authors are banned from arguing their case or explaining a
story.
The text has to stand on its own and if anonymity is broken
the thread is closed immediately.
"Clever" Critiques
and "Being Cute".
When there is "no author" it is far easier to be
honest, even blunt, but, because we are honest and blunt, (not cruel) there is
absolute no room for "show-off" critiquers, those people who think
the purpose of posting a crit is to show how clever they are.
Critiquing should not be a performance art. "Cuteness" in critiques, sarcasm,
sly remarks, and personal put-downs are banned
and a critter gets only one warning.
Because we are tough, a common phrase in BC is, "Sorry
Author"
THE TEXT
We stress that the text is the text. We don't allow for a
text being a first draft. We don't mark for potential.
We treat the text as if we are a competition judge and the story is the story
is the story, here, now, as-it-is, the end.
Why not allow for the fact that the story is
a first draft?
Well, Point 1, Joe, Dave and Margaret's stories may
literally be hot off the computer, genuine first-drafts. Paul's may be a second
draft. Alice may always polish her work and submit a fourth draft. We don't know, so we presume, for the exercise,
that every story is a finished story.
Thus, if the author (Joe, Dave or Margaret) gets a score of
101 and knows this is a rough first draft, chances are he or she will be very
happy, knowing that when the story is re-worked it can probably get past 110.
Alice, OTOH might get 105 but that's for a piece she thinks
is finished.
Secondly, we can't allow for
"how-much-the-author-can-improve-it" because that depends on the
author's experience and also the "knack" of editing and polishing.
Because I have been critiquing now for 21 years I can often
"see" a story of 95 and "turn it into" a 112 in 15 minutes.
As an exercise I do that for the group maybe once a month
(but note we are NOT a workshop - this is an editing-lesson, not an edit for
the benefit of the author.
He does benefit
but that's a side-effect.)
But if you knew this draft was mine, then you'd know that I
could improve it by as much as twenty points. Whereas George is famous for
making stories worse when he rewrites...
Hence we crit the story as finished, every time.
Improving the Story versus
Improving the Author
I have had so many
battles over this!
First, let's talk about the typical workshop.
We all turn up with our stories. Do we read the story out
loud? That can be horrible! On paper a story may be superb but the reader is
just a terrible reader.
Or do we let someone else read the story out loud (same
problem) and he person reading may be an insensitive clod.
Or do we all sit round reading the piece, coughing and
burping?
This method (out loud) and/or in a hurry, is, in my opinion,
horrible, socially tense, often embarrassing and completely distorts the
base-story, the TEXT, that was designed to be read in silence.
OK, let's talk about internet-based critiquing.
Everyone can view the story. In most cases they know the
author's name and the author's history and what the author said about their own
work (it still stings!) but we ignore all those weaknesses and just pretend
that all is well in the State of Denmark.
Before we continue, this is the ethos of the standard
workshop.
My name is Frank. I want to get my work read and critiqued
so I can fix it and make it better and send it out and try and get it
published. Unfortunately, to get MY work critiqued I have to read a bunch of
crappy stories and crit them. I don't want
to critique loads of other people's stories but I guess I have to. It's a
chore. I do it because I have to. I get the crits over with. What matters is my story. Let's get to my
story. And if that bastard Keegan gives me crap marks again, he'd better
look out.
Anyway, let's get these crits over and done with done as
painlessly as possible. That cut and paste the original text trick is good...
How often are differences of opinion really argued over?
Nah, it' subjective innit? We just
have to agree to disagree.
And does this critiquing stuff do me any good? A little
maybe, but not much. As I said I do crits to get crits, that's all.
Woah, Hey Up! Here comes a crit. Ah, sheeit, it's Marjorie.
I gave her a bad crit last week and now the beeatch is paying me back. OK I'll look but if she says any shit it'll be
because she's a poxy romance writer and can't stand real writing or me.
Oh, she said she liked the opening.. dum dee dum,
blah-blah-blah... but nothing else.
So the opening is Goooooood and I can ignore the rest cos
she's a be-atch.
After 2-3-4-5 crits, Frank thinks about rewriting. Joe said
the opening was slow.
(Nah, Marjorie who hates me said it was fine, so it must be really fine.)
But Joe rewrites.
Now a story is an organic thing.
Maybe, maybe Frank follows Joe's one piece of advice about
the opening, and maybe he fixes an issue in paragraph seven (Pete said...)
But Pete only said fix paragraph seven because the opening which he thought was fine meant that X
and Y and Z, and therefore paragraph seven needs a tweak. But if you change the
opening, then everything Pete says doesn't work any more.
Maybe if Frank had fixed Para 7 then Joe wouldn't have
complained about the opener!
But remember that many of these critiquers are non-published
writers. What they think they know might be BAD. Maybe they've been told that a
story should always open with a BANG!
or open with dialogue. Maybe, because Victoria writes sugarey romances, that's
why she's always pushing for you to stop saying "said". Anyone with
an ounce of gumption knows, purred, growled, roared and thundered are better!
The point is you are writing by committee. You fix on the
left because Joe said X, which makes something on the right wrong and upsets
Dave, so you need a third fix to please both or worse you compromise to please
everyone.
NOoooooooo!
You end up writing mushy please-all sanitised guff.
Be HATED and LOVED. Write what YOU believe in, don't write
to order, don't write to compromise, don't write by committee.
But, for now ignoring the level of critical expertise you
are living with.
No, let's NOT ignore it. You need critiques, right? Why?
Because you haven't matured enough to critique your own
work.
Let me repeat that.
You haven't matured enough to critique your own work.
Yet somehow your critiques of other people's stories are OK?
How does that work, exactly?
And Vee writes romances and you hate her writing, but she is
critiquing YOU? Why?
It's the bland leading the bland leading the blind.
This why you can go back to writing groups five years later
and the old stalwarts are still there. Five years ago they had no idea. Now they
have had no ideas for five years and are somehow "experienced'. They are
still in the same group and their work reads the same as it did back in the
day. They are unpublished, or more likely they've now self published three
novels...
So critiquing is a chore.
You do it because you have to.
You may learn a little
from simply doing critiques, but your fundamental approach is not to treat
critiquing as a way to learn craft. Instead it's that chore.
You're not really
happy with the critiques of your work.
Something doesn't satisfy.
Although at least Billy spots the typos.
You write, get critiqued, get conflicting messages, manage
some sort of rewrite, almost typo-free and yet the heart has gone out of the story.
Perhaps, technically
it's better but basically it does nothing for you.
You send it out, it bounces back.
Why, after all these years am I still being rejected?
But this week woop
dee dooo, a real live author is coming in. You won the lottery and he's going
to edit your favourite story (the one that's had 39 rejections.)
Comes the night and boy does he rip you one. Big Bang start.
Oops! That dialogue Oops. These plot holes, oops, oops, oops. And that
narrative arc stuff, and the deep import (the what?) ooooops! And the ending is
not the right kind of closure. Pardon?
Just do this, son.
Well you don't exactly LIKE what he's done.
Bit of a pompous twat if you ask me.
It was 11,987 words and now it's 4,500? What about the SF
sub-plot and the bloody egg? How can you take out the egg?
The following week you tell Vicky you weren't that
impressed. Sure you bought one of his books. That one about some chick called
Lolita. Nah, read three pages.
But you send this mangled work off. Two weeks later it's
accepted.
YOU'RE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR (and not self-published, either)
Holy Mary, Mother of God, you're the best writer in the
room. People will now look UP to you.
What was Nabokov saying again? Euphony? WTF?
So despite having countless stores butchered and now one story fixed,
you, Frank haven't changed except by a very small amount. You still think
big bang openers are cool, and twists are cool, and you don't really get
"theme" or that narrative arc bullshit but YOU'VE BEEN PUBLISHED IN
THRILLING TALES!
The writer, after 5 years is almost as inexperienced as he
was when he started.
Maybe he'll get a few small pieces in some dodgy web-zines,
but...
Well, he can always self-publish.
Another Way
Imagine, just imagine, that you didn't write, you only
critiqued. Imagine you could be persuaded that you don't need your stories critiqued, that you could learn how to be a great
reader, a beautiful analyst, an excellent critiquer able to offer brilliant
editorial suggestions.
Just imagine. You're on a desert island and the only thing
to do is critique and argue over critiques. Imagine that somehow it's not a
chore but it suddenly becomes cool.
It's like being a bike mechanic. Some old geezer shows you
how to strip a Harley down, shows you how the pistons ride, the spark-plugs
spark. Gradually you get to understand, I mean really understand bikes.
The old geezer, not a bike man now, a story man, he puts a
story out, you read, crit, think it's shit. It's actually Hemingway and three
people "sort of like it" one likes it a lot, three think it's shit
like you think it's shit. But the old geezer, he fucking LOVES it, and what's
more he's going to explain WHY it's good.
You argue back and forth, and frankly, OK, it's not shit any
more, you see that, but it's NO WAY as good as the old geezer thinks. He's off
his trolley.
Out comes another story. Wow, way cool!
"Stop Now!"
Jenkins raised the Zirgumflutter Mark 17 and aimed.
The sky was very dark.
Fuck, now yer talking. This is a good one, right?
Oh, fuck, the old geezer is ripping it to shreds. He hasn't
got a clue. Maybe Frank should just give up and Self-Publish.
Who brought this old git in here anyway?
Well, you've paid your subs for the month and you quite
fancy that new one, that wossername with the nose-pin, so you hang in.
Week four Victoria (remember her, seventeen SP novels now,
one went to 998,876 for a day once) starts having an orgasm of some story. You
look down, then up at the old geezer who nods. You speak.
Vicky. Vicky! Look that dialogue at the start it's
unattributed. You don't know the context, you don't know the gender of the
speaker. You don't know the tone of voice.
See?
So then in Para 2, what d'you 'ave to do?
STOP AND EXPLAIN WITH A FUCKIN' FLASHBACK
See, Vick? That unattributed dialogue, it's crap. If you had
just said...
Holy, shit I've
learned something
So Vick gives Frank the finger, takes off her fuzzy pink
slippers. Frank says to the old geezer, "Hey, I actually get that. I get
it. What's next?
And the old geezer says:
It was now lunch-time and they
were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining-tent pretending that
nothing had happened.
"Will you have lime juice
or lemon squash?" Macomber asked.
====================
Human nature
dictates that if we receive a critique of our work there's a totally natural
feeling of focusing on the story, can it be made better, do I agree with that
point, this point?
The situation
doesn't lend itself to considering the comments from a more general
"learning about craft" perspective.
We are too close,
possibly defensive, more worried about fixing this story now.
There may be a
SMALL learning effect (sometimes) but often "the shutters go up".
This particular dynamic isn't designed
for learning. That's the difference.
When critiquing is designed to be a learning environment,
we downgrade the importance of the crit itself and downgrade the importance to the writer of the crit itself.
This
is the so-called "burn the story idea" not meant to be taken
literally
Now if we get ten
critiques land and the marks are
150
115
114
113
113
112
111
110
060
We can clearly see
that 8/10 critiquers consider the story just about publishable (110 is the
benchmark for "publishable in a small paper magazine.)
If we only had those
8 middling crits we'd have little variance and probably no teaching value. This
isn't uncommon. Maybe half the Boot Camp stories are uninteresting from a
critical point of view
But one person has RAVED about the piece (150
would be the kind of score for a story in Best American Short Stories) and the
last person (60) has said it's dreadful
.
What happens next is
that the person saying 150 tries to convince the rest that s/he's right.
The arguments have
to quote text.
We don't say stuff
like:
"This was AWESOME! I just LOVED it!
Instead we justify exactly why we gave 15 for the opening (par is 11) and 17
for character (par is 12).
We DETAIL our
reasons, referring to actual text and quoting it, and then "our
opponents" either agree or challenge our assertions.
Meanwhile the person
who said 60 either realises his error or is also trying to say, "No, you're
all wrong. It's junk"
It's THIS, these debates about differences, that
is the core learning engine in Boot Camp, and every successful Boot Camper will tell you
that is precisely where they learn.
Of course the
stories posted are BCer's stories and of course they "want"
critiques" and of course they go away and tinker, but we DON'T workshop, we
don't normally offer editing tips (except where I choose a story as suitable to
teach something.)
So for example we
rarely post rewrites.
Instead we say, on to the next story. Instead of spending forever,
"poishing a turd" we say, the writer has improved by critiquing so
his NEXT story will start out better.
And this leads me on to the next core
principle in Boot Camp
We write a
lot.
I have had
people arrive in Boot Camp who say they write 1-2 stories per YEAR. They
agonise over them, rewrite 27 times, tinker, add a comma on Monday, take it out
on Tuesday, put it back in on Wednesday.
Whether or
not they make the story better, they are learning very little.
They are not
producing loads of work, facing daily challenges, trying voices, styles,
genres. They are, instead, working, working, working on a story that was
written by them when they were at their lowest level of ability. That core may
be fundamentally weak.
Now what if,
instead, they write a story a week?
What if,
every week they talk craft, critique, argue over critiques? Craft sinks in or
is sucked in by osmosis. You notice an unpleasant big bang opener in someone
else's story and determine to yourself that YOU won't do that. You see awkward
speech-tagging and internalise the better alternatives.
While story
two may not be noticeably better than story one, story SEVEN will be, and story
twelve better again. That is, just by writing, writing,writing in this
hot-house environment where craft is spoken all the time, your routine, basic,
first draft becomes of a higher and higher standard.
Let's put
numbers on this.
You join. You're
a very decent beginner and you write 85. We can concentrate on your stories and
maybe get them to 94 (1 point on every element). Once in a blue moon a story of
yours appears that can jump 2 points per element (103 overall).
Remember we
are concentrating on your stories not
you, the writer.
Sure, you
improve a little bit. Maybe six months in your core story has reached 90, from
your starting 85 and you can edit-polish these to 98 or 99 and once every three
months to 107 or so that might just publish.
Because you
are concentrating on stories you're not working hard at understanding craft. Of
course you pick up snippets, you do grow but the fundamental "you"
has only moved from 85 to 90.
Remember
you're concentrating on rewriting those stories 2-3-4 times and then polishing.
You don't have time for craft threads and arguments over other people's stories.
Now go back.
You arrive and can write 85. You write a story a week but you "Don't care
about them. "They are just for the group to critique."
Instead of
rewriting you don't bother. All that time instead is devoted to discussing
craft and arguing over critiques. Gradually the desk drawer fills with first-drafts.
But then,
that same six months in, you realise something. Your twin had improved from 85
to 90 but you just posted a 99, you are MILES ahead. Now your first drafts are
so much better that if you rewrite once and polish once they are publishable.
By "not
worrying" about "this story" (the current story) by just pushing
on you have stopped wasting time polishing beginner works and have raced
towards getting intermediate scores.
Now, rather
than REWRITE those early stories (you're good now, you can turn 85 into 95 with
one editorial pass) you read Story 1 (which scored 85), BURN it and totally
write it again. But now it comes out as a first draft scoring 101 and can
easily be made into 110+
You became a
better writer. Now you're into a totally new territory. Your DRAFTS score 100+.
Previously
you needed to spend months polishing and you still didn't get to 100.
So, in Boot
Camp we demand a full story every two weeks, but we try to persuade our members
to write a lot of shorter stories or flashes as well as their fortnightly story.
The perfect Boot Camper would write six flashes and a story every week,
critique his own work but not even bother to read what others say about his
work.
The writing
is muscle-building, that's all, and providing stuff for the group to critique.
We should
write every day and live, breathe, eat writing, think like a writer.
98% of the
craft knowledge that is seeping into our bones is happening because we live in
a hothouse critical environment with words being the topic of the day.
And I tell
Boot Campers, be serious, formal critical, analytical BETWEEN stories, but when
it comes to writing, "write drunk" let go, have-not-a-care,
freewheel, sail, be in the zone, Just Do-it!
The craft is
in your blood now. You don't need to think.
So the
choice is, start with ordinary stories and tinker, tinker, inker, work, work,
work on something that at its core is beginner's work
OR
write it,
forget it, critique, talk craft, improve
write it,
forget it, critique, talk craft, improve
write it, forget
it, critique, talk craft, improve
write it,
forget it, critique, talk craft, improve
write it,
forget it, critique, talk craft, improve
write it,
forget it, critique, talk craft, improve
This way,
instead of improving by a point a month, you'll surge forward, and there will
be days where the story that emerges starts out as good.
Wow, now
maybe this one is worth polishing.
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