Viable Paradise: A Travelogue (Part 2)

(Yes, I'm fully aware that spending my tiny half hour a day of BIC time blogging is also a clever way of avoiding the novel writing, but I am not quite ready to face the novel again yet. Soooooon.)

Monday, the first official day of the workshop opened with a small group critique at 8am. Luckily my roomies had bought some coffee and I had a breakfast bar with me in my computer bag, so even with having to skip toothbrushing and wear the same underwear again, I was ok. Monday's small group critique was led by Elizabeth Bear and Cory Doctorow, both of whom proved to be wildly insightful as well as kind in their critique comments (though, not being the writer in the hot seat that morning, perhaps kind was in the eye of the beholder). The stories we were critiquing were good, and the discussion around their strengths and weaknesses was civilized and helpful at a high level (none of this "you spelled this wrong/you need a comma here" kind of line edits.) A few great bits of general advice I wrote down:

"The reader asking questions is what pulls them forward through the story." (EB)

"Exposition is deadly to narrative pull." (CD)

"If things get worse for your characters, the reader will turn the page." (CD)

After the small group critique it was time to head down to the big meeting room for the lecture period of the day. First up was Jim MacDonald on plotting, followed by Teresa Nielsen Hayden on expository writing and world-building. So much here was helpful and interesting, and I took lots of notes (not as many as some of my smarter/more industrious classmates, who brought their laptops and tippy-tapped away during the lecture far faster than I could write--hey, any of you out there reading this want to send me some Word files of your lecture notes? Pretty please?) Here are a few paraphrased gems for posterity (those of you only interested in the travelogue can skip this section):

"Plotting is like a chess game. Before there is action, there is nothing. Get the pieces moving towards the center of the action. Don't distract from the center of the action by moving pieces around on the edges." (JMD)

"Early on, put interesting characters in interesting situations, and plot will take care of itself." (JMD)

"Make your characters umcomfortable and they will want/have to move. That will move the story forward." (JMD)

"Make it matter soon." (JMD)

"Never tell the reader something before they want to know about it. Avoid expository lumps." (TNH)

"If your audience is critiquing the scenery, your train is not moving fast enough." (TNH)

"Any possibilities you don't close off, you are requiring the reader to keep carrying forward in the story. As you go along, this load of possibilities can become too big a burden and frustrate the reader." (TNH)

"Law of Conservation of Weirdness: the reader can only handle so much weirdness at once--so don't throw complex action, new settings, weird names, big plot twists, etc at the reader all at once." (TNH)

"Cultivate people with areas of specialized expertise (guns, horses, botany) to be your beta readers so they can help you get your details right. When in doubt, use 'modified.'" (TNH)

"Times when things break or change, or when people disagree, are great times for exposition." (TNH)

"Don’t explain why something works--it only gives the reader a chance to argue with you." (TNH)

After the lectures, it was time for lunch, which my roomies kindly shared with me since I hadn't been to the grocery store yet to buy any supplies. After lunch was a collegium (a less formal discussion of writing-related topics), but all I remember about this particular one was that we got a whole pile of writing assignments from the instructors:
-write an opening sentence which included a person, place and problem picked from piles of randomly generated ones
-either write a climactic scene from a subgenre we normally disliked (e.g. military SF) or write a scene from the point of view of someone whom we did not like/agree with, but making them a sympathetic character
-write a 5000-9000 word story for a hypothetical anthology called "SET", in which the editor (who likes your "action stories with a noir feel") wants a fantasy story with no magic or elves, set in the 1950's somewhere other than the USA. Also, the first night of VP we were each given a bag with cheap novelty toys in it, and these had to be worked into the story (mine were a pterodactyl foam glider and a "puny plane")
-pick 3-6 entries from Murphy's Laws of Combat and The Evil Overlord Devises A Plot lists and work them into an existing story, a new one, or the SET one
-write a variety of versions of grammatically correct sentences in simple, complex and other forms

After the collegium it was time for individual one-on-one critique sessions with an instructor. Mine wasn't until late in the afternoon, so I took the opportunity to finish my manuscript critiques for the next day and do a quick run to the grocery store with my roomies, courtesy of our downstairs neighbor Jeff who had a car. My suitcase had also arrived by mid-afternoon (hooray!) so I was able to unpack, change my underwear and brush my teeth (thank goodness for small favors). All these were good distractions from my growing nervousness over my impending one-on-one session, which was with Teresa Nielsen-Hayden (an individual for whom I have had a minor case of heroine worship over the last several years of reading Making Light). But I was feeling pretty good about the first three chapters of my novel I'd submitted, and looking forward to some private conversation with someone whose opinion I greatly respect.

Looking back on that conversation now, from a week's distance, my first reaction is still to wince and draw back from the things that were said, to shield my tender writerly ego by just not thinking too hard and long about it. But what Teresa had to say was ultimately not only correct but incredibly helpful, once I got past the "ow" and into the "oh". I'm trying to stay in that "oh" stage now.

She started out by telling me that what I'd written was completely "center of the groove" straightforward traditional fantasy and that in her opinion (and given that she and her husband Patrick have decades as acquiring editors for Tor Books, and know the F/SF field deeply and personally, you have to respect her authoritah) there really wasn't much of a market for conventional fantasy stories any more. Not that people wouldn't read conventional fantasy, but that there were already plenty of people writing it (Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin came up several times). Teresa pushed me to think about what it was that differentiated my story, what my unique and memorable "hook" was, either in style or subject. We got into a discussion of what the trends in fantasy publishing might be, but even with Patrick's help (he wandered in while we were talking, since our meeting was in the living room of their townhouse) there seemed to be no consensus as to what type of fantasy was currently being acquired or what was likely to appeal in the future.

Then there were a variety of specific edits on the first two chapters (we never really made it to chapter 3), all of which were very sensible and illuminating. My main character was coming off as too perfect (apparently there's a name for this syndrome that comes from fanfic critical theory: Mary Sue-ism). My authority figures were one-dimensional (the cure for this is apparently to read Alan Clark's diaries). I needed to rename the Scythians since there was a real historical group already named that. The one compliment I got was one I shall hug to myself for the rest of time: she liked the scene where my high priestess character is praying after a big stressful meeting. I like that scene too, for a variety of reasons. I've had compliments on it before from other reviewers, but if Teresa liked it, it's a whole 'nother level.

So after my talk with Teresa, it was time for dinner. I wandered down to the big meeting room in somewhat of a state of shock. I could feel storm clouds of negative emotions begin to gather in my gut, but I didn't want to let them out before I got a chance to examine them in private. So I ate dinner and chatted a bit with my fellow students until the pressure of the storm clouds became a restlessness, and I got up and walked out.

I walked through the parking lot of the Inn towards the road into town, trying to take deep breaths and talk myself out of having a childish "everybody hates me/I suck" reaction. I stopped at the end of the parking lot where there happened to be a view of the spectacular sunset going on, sat on the fence that edged the lot, and burst into tears. Fountains of tears. Oh, how I felt sorry for myself. I'd spent all these years and all this work on something that would never be published. My heroine Teresa had completely failed to pat me on the head and tell me what a good little writer I was, like all my teachers used to in school. Clearly I would have to start over, or maybe just give up on writing completely and go back to painting. Or nothing.

Admittedly, sleep deprivation and PMS may have contributed to this breakdown, but we'd also been warned the first night that we might each of us experience this sort of self-loathing and despair at some point during the week, and that it was completely normal. I got mine out of the way that first day, and the rest of the week was easier for it. I had enough time for the real lessons to sink in, and the defensiveness to ease, so I could hear everything else that was said to/about me. Trial by fire: it really does work!

After I could finally compose myself, I headed back to my room. My lovely roomies could tell something was wrong, and asked me what was up, and I told them little bits but tried not to break down into a big drama-queen "poor me" session. We had an interesting discussion on the topic of "is there a market for conventional fantasy", which left me feeling somewhat better--in a stunning coincidence, both Kim and Dorothy are fantasy novelists too, and both like (and read) conventional fantasy too. As I recall, the rest of that night was spent doing critiques and going to bed relatively on time. (One of the few times I did.)

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment in which our Heroine makes it through yet another one-on-one instructor critique, and emerges with a renewed sense of purpose!