Last Days of ClarionSouth 2007: suffering for our art
Well, this six week intensive writers workshop certainly lived up to its name.
I have learned heaps and am emerging utterly exhausted, with much better writing skills, (I hope!)
Now we come to the exciting part: who will be the first from our group to publish in the Big Five: F&SF, Asimov, Analog, Fantasy, Realms of Fantasy? Who will get there within the next two years? Watch this spot.
ABOUT CLARION: FOR THOSE WHO ASKED:
Clarion centres on a thing called "The Crit Pit." Every weekday at 9 am, the seventeen students and one tutor (plus one convener) meet and form a crit circle to share individual 2-minute critiques of each of the 4 stories given to us the day before. The writer of the first story to be considered for the day gets to hold Gary the Lion while the other students, one after the other, deliver their considered 2-minute response to the piece Then the tutor makes his/her comments, and the writer replies, and a brief discussion ensues.
Our stories were meant to be new works developed during Clarion, in which we applied what we were learning. Different students interpreted that in different ways. Some tried out something very different each time, while others attempted to perfect a particular preferred way of working, either with all new material, or with pieces partly written earlier and edited or developed during the workshop.
Different people had different goals. The product-oriented writers saw a successful crit as one where the critters they most respected recognised the quality of their work and the talent visible in their product. For the learning-oriented writers, it was more important to apply as many of the skills they had learnt at the workshop in a form that demonstrated what they had learnt. For the process-oriented writers, the goal was to push themselves into new areas and often hard areas, and to produce what one of our number called "interesting mistakes." For them the goal was to explore new writing processes. These differences were never really discussed, though their effect was deeply felt.
Our different goals naturally produced different types of critique. Those most concerned with product thought highly of the others who produced the best finished stories, and not much of stories that were raw and unfinished, or by original ideas that were not fully developed. And vice versa. Of course there were a very elite few who managed to do all three things consistently, and they impressed us all.
Sometimes a writer proudly handed in a story, sure it was a winner. But the critters did not fully understand it did not find the work nearly as successful as the writer expected. Process-oriented writers got "this story didn't work for me, I hated it, all these things didn't work etc" comments from product-oriented critters, which did not help them figure out how to continue the process. Product-oriented writers got "This story needs all these changes to make it better, it's not there yet, and maybe you need to be more open to changing how you do things" comments which did not give them the kudos they felt their work deserved. Either or both got told their ideas were not original or were unbelievable.
It was easy at first to feel attacked by this intensive process. But in time most of those who were not sufficiently thick skinned at the start got better at recognising how helpful it generally was, and to appreciate the work the others put into helping all grow as writers, so long as enough people actually gave them something that worked for them and matched their goals. Occasionally people took things to heart and tears were shed. But we got there.
I have learned heaps and am emerging utterly exhausted, with much better writing skills, (I hope!)
Now we come to the exciting part: who will be the first from our group to publish in the Big Five: F&SF, Asimov, Analog, Fantasy, Realms of Fantasy? Who will get there within the next two years? Watch this spot.
ABOUT CLARION: FOR THOSE WHO ASKED:
Clarion centres on a thing called "The Crit Pit." Every weekday at 9 am, the seventeen students and one tutor (plus one convener) meet and form a crit circle to share individual 2-minute critiques of each of the 4 stories given to us the day before. The writer of the first story to be considered for the day gets to hold Gary the Lion while the other students, one after the other, deliver their considered 2-minute response to the piece Then the tutor makes his/her comments, and the writer replies, and a brief discussion ensues.
Our stories were meant to be new works developed during Clarion, in which we applied what we were learning. Different students interpreted that in different ways. Some tried out something very different each time, while others attempted to perfect a particular preferred way of working, either with all new material, or with pieces partly written earlier and edited or developed during the workshop.
Different people had different goals. The product-oriented writers saw a successful crit as one where the critters they most respected recognised the quality of their work and the talent visible in their product. For the learning-oriented writers, it was more important to apply as many of the skills they had learnt at the workshop in a form that demonstrated what they had learnt. For the process-oriented writers, the goal was to push themselves into new areas and often hard areas, and to produce what one of our number called "interesting mistakes." For them the goal was to explore new writing processes. These differences were never really discussed, though their effect was deeply felt.
Our different goals naturally produced different types of critique. Those most concerned with product thought highly of the others who produced the best finished stories, and not much of stories that were raw and unfinished, or by original ideas that were not fully developed. And vice versa. Of course there were a very elite few who managed to do all three things consistently, and they impressed us all.
Sometimes a writer proudly handed in a story, sure it was a winner. But the critters did not fully understand it did not find the work nearly as successful as the writer expected. Process-oriented writers got "this story didn't work for me, I hated it, all these things didn't work etc" comments from product-oriented critters, which did not help them figure out how to continue the process. Product-oriented writers got "This story needs all these changes to make it better, it's not there yet, and maybe you need to be more open to changing how you do things" comments which did not give them the kudos they felt their work deserved. Either or both got told their ideas were not original or were unbelievable.
It was easy at first to feel attacked by this intensive process. But in time most of those who were not sufficiently thick skinned at the start got better at recognising how helpful it generally was, and to appreciate the work the others put into helping all grow as writers, so long as enough people actually gave them something that worked for them and matched their goals. Occasionally people took things to heart and tears were shed. But we got there.
posted by Jessica Vivien | 11:37 PM
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