03 02 00

on the block

Well, I'm on the block.

I participate in an online workshop for science fiction, fantasy and horror authors. I've finished about a month's worth of critiques and submitted one of my stories. It's on the block for this week.

I'm a little frightened. I've never really gotten honest criticism about any fiction stories that I've ever written. I'm a member of a mailing list for furry authors, but almost no one ever critiques stories. When I was in college I took a little credit-padding class in creative writing. The teacher was a poet, so of course we spent most of the time writing poetry. groan When we finally got to the fiction part of the class, I realized I could write the pants off anyone in the class.

I'm not trying to boast here... That's just how it was. There were some good writers in the class, but they didn't have a clue about story structure, or even how to tell a story. You have to have a story to tell before you write a story! One of the stories I read in the class was written by a woman who I had considered to be a wonderful author. The poetry she'd written was moving and filled with wonderful imagery. I was really looking forward to seeing what she could do with a fiction piece.

Her story was awful. It started with a guy waking up in a single bedroom apartment and making breakfast. The whole time, he kept thinking about how he had AIDS, how he contracted AIDS, what medication he was taking, how it had affected his family... Basically she was committing something called an "info-dump," dumping "necessary information" on the reader. She had come up with a wonderful character, but had no idea how to portray that character.

The rest of her story went thusly: the guy went downstairs to buy a paper. He read the paper, concentrating on an article about AIDS. He goes back to his apartment. He watches TV. He waits for a friend to come over. The friend doesn't come over. He goes to bed. The end.

She got upset when I told her there wasn't any conflict in the story. "He has AIDS!" she said. I shrugged. She obviously didn't want to hear what else I had to say, so I scratched out the notes I had made.

Anyway. I was going on about how I could write better than anyone in the class, right? grin The teacher went bananas over the story I had written. She had me read the story - all 11 pages of it! - out loud to the class. My throat was so dry at the end of the story I was rasping out the final sentences. She then proceeded to use my story as an example, picking apart the plot and the characters, explaining why each of them was perfect.

But it wasn't a perfect story. I knew that when I wrote it. Instead of getting helpful criticism on the story, all I got was a bunch of things like, "Great story!" and "Loved it!" I did a little editing and sent it to a bunch of magazines. That is where I got the real criticism.

One of the magazines I sent it to was Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. I have that rejection letter hanging on the wall over my desk. It's a form letter, but at the end is a hand-scrawled note that says, "Poignant but pointless. Sorry." That is the sort of thing I was expecting from the creative writing class, but never got.

The workshop I'm in now is totally different from that class. You're required to write at least one critique a week on the stories that come up. These are real, published authors (as well as amateurs) in the workshop, and the critiques must be something more than "Nice story." The critiques I've read on other stories have been well thought out, filled with useful tips and suggestions. Characters are ripped apart. Inconsistencies are questioned. Pacing is examined.

And I'm up.

I got my first critique today. The reader was confused about something in the story, and I think I know how I can fix that. When the week is over (the workshop weeks from Wednesday to Wednesday) I can edit the story, make it tighter and better. And I'll submit it to some magazines.

Will it be published? I don't know. But I'm really excited about the workshop. It's pushing me to do more writing. Hopefully it'll make my writing better.

And maybe, one of these days, I'll get started on that novel that's been percolating in my mind for years.

Whoa!

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