The Power of the Critique

 

Short post this morning as much writing to do but I wanted to say well done to all of the lovely writers at Canvey Writers who took part in their first full-on crit session last night.

 

The table was set and we worked on three shorts and poems by five different writers…

 

I had provided some guidelines on critiquing and the work was shared a couple of weeks in advance… I said be kind, be honest, be constructive.

If done well then a good critique session will empower the writers…

But we must be mindful that we are all at different stages in writing but, as such, we can help one another AND  it really is the only way to grow. The group has been going for eighteen months now so it’s time to step up the game and learn.

I learned a lot about poetry crit from the wonderful Gini who led that session for us. Normally I would hold two groups, one for prose and one for poetry but this time we joined forces and that way I think we learn more!

Great evening and as usual we just about fitted it all into the two hours!

And now to write…

 

Canvey Writers July Meeting

Last night was the 7th meeting of the Canvey Writers and what a great meeting. As well as clocking up our recent member’s success with a 2-book deal from Pan McMillan for Fiona Cummin’s psychological thriller, member Margaret managed to crack the women’s magazine market with an acceptance by Women’s Weekly, and Jim managed to have his short story chosen by Gill for the new Bridge House Anthology 🙂 We have lift off now with our successes book. We also welcomed a lovely new member Bob who sees the release of his mystery thriller later this year.

When I think back to my old writing group, we were in a similar position with no successes when we first formed but slowly our members gained confidence and started to get their work out there, which I know is happening with our group. I can also see how friendships are now blossoming and the hope is we go from strength to strength. We are still going strong at over 20 members.

If you get the mix right and above all support one another, anything is possible. I am very proud to be part of this group and always delighted to see everyone.

Great night and thanks everyone.

If you find writing a lonely journey, look up a local writing group. It has to have an ethos of support, no matter the level I believe, and as I said in my first meeting, we leave our egos at the door. This is about support and nurturing, with the hope that as writers we grow and develop by helping one another to…

 

… see the rainbow

Last Writing Group

Quick post as lots to do but wanted to say how much I enjoyed my last writing group meeting (for some time anyway, until I start my own!).

And to say how the writing group has shaped my life here in Wales by not only providing support but friendships that I know will last forever.

It doesn’t have to be a lonely journey…

Workshopping

“Write this down,” I said, feeling like a school teacher dictating the words of Sir Terry Pratchett:

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

 

I have been to a number of workshops over the years, and some have been good, many mediocre and some not so good. Just because you can write does not mean you can critique well or teach well, and I have always been conscious of that. So I only ran short sessions in a couple of workshops for a while and often questioned how useful they were. Especially as I am not too hot on writing on demand myself. Yes the exercises get the juices flowing, but what do they teach?

So when I set up a series of Paws Workshops for children I decided to really look closely at what would be the best and most interesting ways to learn something; and not cover the same old ground but find a new perspective. For children I found showing them what makes a good story work with the story arc as a blueprint,  really helped direct their writing and came off curriculum too so was a different way of looking at things. We even had them acting in the manner of the word to illustrate showing and telling — describe how someone does something, don’t tell it. These workshops have been really successful, not that I do that many.

I was also asked to run a workshop after I won the Bath Short Story last year focussing on How To Write A Psychological Thriller and that was great as I could really look at one key genre and its expectations, while knowing that all of the principles for good writing apply to any genre but the short workshopping exercises were about creating a good premise for a thriller like this and then how to create tension.

 

Working them all hard, look at the concentration… oh and spot the supersize bookmarks!

Some time ago I also put together a more general workshop I did as part of a workshopping day with our writing group, but what I did on Saturday was another new workshop using some aspects of the others but switching the focus not so much on the nitty-gritty showing, telling, viewpoint, clichés (although we had that) but on how to think differently when we approach an edit and so what questions to ask. I put together a series of short writing exercises. The first was aimed at showing how we tend to write instinctively — which shows what our comfort zones are, asking do you know why you tend to use that voice or that tense and could you maybe try something else? That choice might work best for some stories, but all of them? Maybe not. I also created plot structures to work within as an illustration of how confining it can be when you already have a framework — which is exactly what you do when you edit a completed piece of work — hence sometimes the need to deconstruct to reconstruct. Something I have had to face with my edit of Isle of Pelicans recently.

We also looked at story arcs, themes, plots, structure etc and had an exercise to illustrate the importance of exposition (we told the antagonist’s story from the previous exercise) but then talked about how we are so tempted to tell a story with too much back story and the devices for trickling that in on a need-to-know basis.

 

 

On an aside the antagonist’s back story can be great fun because all evil has to come from somewhere (that’s if you have evil antagonists!) or as Stephen King puts it: “Before horror comes love.” I think the overall message is everyone has a story and what motivates action is important, builds reader empathy — but we don’t need all the details!

The final exercise was about how we write the dramatic moments — the climax of a story and how that’s when we usually (although these students were talented and didn’t!) tend to either gallop to the finish line or overload with the mind racing, heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through the veins clichés at this point.

The last section before the Q&A was the nitty-gritty stuff we usually see in workshops — and I also provided some copy editing notes that promoted quite a discussion on setting out dialogue and the different dashes!

Soon it was time to make our own dash! But the comments and the feedback since has been wonderful, so I think we can say it was a success and I want to do more of these. Yes workshops don’t work for all, some favour the more one to one approach, and if you’re new to writing it can be a little overwhelming and so might not work for you, but seems from the response it did work well!

The take-home message is that with the right feedback and supporting writer friends, writing does not have to be isolating.

Keep thinking…

I will be putting more information on my website soon and plan to offer workshops to writing groups for a set fee and happy to travel in the UK and also might arrange my own as one-offs or even a short course once I move back to Essex!

Email me if you think your writing group would be interested and we can talk fees and timings!

Dissecting Process to Learn

One of the things an MA taught me was to think closely about my own writing, why I choose a particular voice, tense, technique, am drawn to particular genres, what I want my work to say etc.

We don’t always think too closely about that, but I think understanding process is what helps us be better writers. How can we move on, learn, experiment, play with style if we don’t get why we do it that way in the first place?

I am thinking this as I plan my workshop on Saturday. I have been to many workshops over the years, some better than others and the ones that I got the most out of, were those where I came away seeing something in my work I’d not seen before. Most workshops tend to cover the same old, and it’s hard to get away from that as the showing/telling, meandering viewpoints, overwriting exposition, clichés, clunky phrasing are the kinds of mistakes we all make. So I have to cover those things too but the hope is the workshop allows us as the writer to be more discerning about our work — be able to get up close to it and dissect it to learn from it.

I know time will fly so we can not cover everything but I hope what we do cover is empowering and full of insights!

There are a mere 2 places left now so if anyone is in or near Bangor next Saturday there is still time!

Have a great day everyone! http://www.debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/Pages/Events.aspx

When Ideas Fall From The Sky

With my creative writing workshop looming, and having run a session recently, it reminds me that I am not that hot on writing on demand. You know that eerie silence when the leader of the workshop says you have fifteen minutes to write — ready, have an idea and… GO! Sounds of scratching pens burrowing into your soul?

Although, ideas do generally come, even if not good ones and what you write is so first draft you hope you’re not asked to read it out and show yourself for not being able to write at all, you still write something. Right? Of course you can write, it just doesn’t suit everyone writing on demand. I have sat on Arvon courses where people read these pieces that sound so polished I have to wonder if they’re just writing something they already had, bending it to fit the remit? Or they really are literary geniuses — closes notebook and pretends not to have written anything.

Some people do run with the ideas planted at workshops, so I do see their importance. I tend to use them in a workshop to get a feel for what people write (bearing in mind some, like me, don’t produce their best work that way) and it also helps me see what comfort zone they fall into. Yes, I did say comfort zone.

You see, the get set go thing has you writing what you know, there isn’t time for different. So it does show what we define as our comfort zones and prompts questions like — do you always use first person? Do you always use narrators like yourself? Do you always favour past tense? It’s actually quite a good way of seeing the ways we get set in, and suggesting come out of that and writing first person, present tense, child narrator instead of past tense, third person, elderly gentleman, might add new life to your writing. And it also shows us our weaknesses, the key being how to spot them. Writing books are great, but sometimes you don’t see the no nos, the head-hops and the telling in our own work, right?

I have some exercises in mind for my editing workshop that also show how we write, and how we define our viewpoint. And who knows where some of these prompts will lead, but what they really do is help us to look inside our own writing and ask of ourselves why we write like that. Because there lies the key to how to develop and not stay in the same place.

 

SO:

Is a great story one defined by a great idea, or can great writing carry a weak idea?

Now there’s a question and I hope you’ll answer — you need a great idea and great writing, right?  But great ideas do not come along that often, so we often have to settle for good ideas and amazing writing. Actually, as I have said here before, often the simplest story arcs and the neatest plot lines (before we get carried away with the embellishments) are often the best and the execution, in terms of how well the writer tells the story (shows the story should I say) is what will bring it to life. We can’t all have WOW ideas, but we can make a story feel wow by how well we tell it.

I am not so sure even the best writing can carry a weak idea too far though.

Take the literary story, where the character drives it, often these will make bad movies because the action might be in one room inside the head of one character, and it might be a simple conflict, making a decision to, say leave a husband? So it terms of plot and story this isn’t going to be up there with some of the plots that wow us, but give it voice, quirk (you know I love quirk) and execute it with skill and finesse and you have something special. These stories win prizes all the time.

Perhaps it’s just as well not all stories need the wow plot or we’d struggle. And anyway, I find just by being in the moment, just by showing up at my desk every day and writing, ideas do sometimes fall from the sky. My lovely little dog learned a long time ago that if she walks in the kitchen while her mum chops vegetables or slices bread, just sometimes, even when we’re not expecting it, good things sometimes fall from the sky.

Have a wonderful day everyone, always a moment away from a miracle…

Ps — still 4 places left on my workshop… so book now! http://www.debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/Pages/Events.aspx

Do you need an MA in Creative Writing to be a Better Writer?

Last week in Manchester I was on a panel talking about creative writing and whether you can teach it. How much do students need some inherent skill to hone in the first place or can anyone learn to write? I was asked specifically  if I think having a Masters in Creative Writing helped my career/taught me to be a better writer.

Now there’s food for thought and it is something I have addressed here before. Clearly we need to be taught the skills that will make us better in anything. People start from different places and some people find it comes more naturally but we can all learn to be better, right? If not then what are we doing here? Can you learn to have good ideas? Now that’s something to ponder. I would say the more I write the more the ideas come and it just seems to be part of the process. Having an idea on cue is not something I cannot do just like that. But since we all have something to say I guess we can all find a way to do it.

But do you need an MA?

There has been a lot of contention surrounding this issue, reports that MAs in Creative Writing are a good way for universities to make money, but then aren’t so many degrees? What I said last week and will say here is no you do not need an MA to be a better writer. What you need to be a better writer is to learn your craft from wherever you can get it; you need good constructive feedback — be that a professional critique, writing groups, courses, books on writing, reading (oh lots of reading ) — actually all of the above. For me the MA was one of the parts of this process where I got the feedback I needed (but not the only place I got it) and also something else. It taught me to look at my work critically and to think about why I was writing, and in that way and what question the writing was asking. So it did make me think about what I wanted to say as well as the techniques I used.

But did it make me a better writer?

The answer is yes and no. Not on its own, but it’s the sum of all parts. Take one or two away from the list and I think I would still be here, but maybe not so fast. And for me it does add credibility to my offers to help other writers through my professional editing and critiquing business. But it’s that old argument again — educated in the university of life, on the job or at a professional institution? I think both. I like to think when someone is thinking of hiring me they look to check I have the qualification and then they see that I can put my money where my mouth is and show it through my own writing successes. Prove knowing it translates into doing it, right?

But what do you think?

 

 

Have a fab day!

The Writer’s Journey

I have talked before about the importance for me of belonging to a writing group. I joined the Bangor Cellar Writing Group in April 2007 and somehow found myself in the chair in October of the same year (and for the next three years — now Vice Chair!). The time I joined the group was a difficult time for me, still coming to terms with losing Lee, BUT it opened up the world I so needed to be part of. It amazes me that since then I have had twenty stories published, won three competitions, been short-listed in many more and this week sees the launch of my debut novel! I am quite astounded! 

But this isn’t meant to brag, writing is a long and sometimes tough process, so I want to say that it proves with hard work and determination you can get there. Really. And so it will for those out there with the same dream and prepared to put in the hard work.

My writing group became a whole lot more than advice, ideas and inspiration — for me it is more about the personal support. It’s about the people who have been there for me and continue to be there for me and who I owe so much. They taught me above all that this journey we are all on, one that involves many hours spent alone at a computer, really doesn’t have to be an isolating one.

Tomorrow we have a showcase at the Bangor Museum, the very place I had my first ever book launch and where I dedicated my first ever reading to Lee — my story Jigsaw that was published in the Making Changes collection by Bridge House. The Showcase evening this week will allow members of the group to share poetry, short stories and novel extracts to the family and friends of group members and we hope some of the public too! I will give another reading from the book, might rehearse one I haven’t done yet as some of the same people were at the launch. And I have a few copies of the book to sign as well!  Other writers will also be signing  published work.

So five years to the week, after dedicating that first reading to Lee, I now launch my first novel, also dedicated to Lee. It feels right somehow.

So this journey has a circular feel and some of the bumps in the road are gone — but now I feel ready to pull out of the centripetal loop to take on what comes next. I can hear Lydia’s voice in my head as I think that — “You a big ol’ Catherine Wheel, girl, whizzing up a storm.”

I hope the book leaves a trail of fireworks.

Now is that odd time when I wait to see how it’s received and what kind of reviews I get. 

I was thinking about that last night when the first of my friends says she read the book this weekend. She said great things about it and asked me questions. She said she was really hooked. Phew.

But reviews are not like critiques.

I have learned to be really receptive to the kind of criticism a critique entails as it all feeds into the creative process of making your MS as good as it can be. Reviews, on the other hand, are criticism on a done deal. This book is finished and I can’t change anything. Some will love it, some will hate it — I just hope not too many are indifferent. Better to have an opinion than no opinion.

I think I need to learn how I will cope with bad reviews. Smile graciously I think is the only way because the very fact it was accepted and published shows someone loved it.

But let’s hope most of the people love it most of the time!

It’s a crazy journey — but a great one. Come along for the ride!

In the area? Come along!

 

Fingers in lots of pies …

Although I  see myself first and foremost as a writer, my editing and critiquing  job also plays very much into that and I am quite convinced that it has made me a better writer.

Editors  comes from all sorts of backgrounds, some have degrees in English, some studied journalism, some learned by being hired by a publishing house. And very much like writing, when I started to work as an editor I was lacking in self-confidence because a part of you always feels like a fraud! Am I really qualified to do this?

Scientific writing was very much a part of my job for a lot of years and creative writing was a hobby until the obsession took over. I learned to edit or perhaps first of all critique by being part of a group and later studying for my MA in Creative Writing. Working at Bridge House Gill kindly gave me free rein on a number of projects and taught me the basics of copy editing. I then did a course on copy editing and proof reading although ironically I found it hard to get the assignments done in time as I had too much copy editing and proof reading work! But the course taught me mostly what I’d already learned although the proof reading symbols were new and I often have to use with one of the publishers who hires me regularly.

I think the biggest validation has to be repeat business and I have so much of that both privately and with the small presses that hire me. My confidence has perhaps not soared to tackling a big publishing houses but then do I need to? I am a writer who edits and crits and publishers books and does workshops to fund the writing career and I don’t want a career solely as an editor.

I still feel like a fraud sometimes — as if I should have a degree in copy editing or something, if one exists, but I keep being re-hired so I guess the doing is the proof in the end. And like writing, I continually learn from the process.

I also worry about missing things but since I have also worked with an editor I see that to as humans we always miss some things. That’s why you have a copy editor and a proof reader and often you need more than one.

It is great though that so many clients say nice things — phew and of course a huge validation came from an agency’s approval of my work.

So I feel happy and confident in my role.

That said, I can not tell you how many times I have read the stories in the new Wild n Free book, even before the document went to the designer, to try to avoid lots of changes post design. I had another set of eyes on it as well and still when I read the PDF this weekend I found a fair few things I’d missed! And it also requires checking pagination, uniformity of headers, contents same headings with capitals in the same places throughout and in contents etc. There’s more to it than you realise! And I wonder if I looked at it all again today what else I might see? I hope nothing. But it went for the final stage with these corrections to the designer yesterday and I will have one final look before I sign off on it and send it to the printer! I worry about children’s names and check and double-check so many times it’s like checking you have your passport at the airport and I know the heart rate will be up when I finally press that button to upload the book and later when I accept the hard copy proof!

Sometimes I wonder about this phrase ‘jack of all trades’ and would love it if I could employ external editors and proof readers on projects like this where I am too close to be as objective as I might like. But since I lose money on this project usually I can’t afford to do that! I hope the end result will be perfect but I have  come to learn that nothing ever is quite perfect! Although I do beat myself up and have paid for revisions because I know there is a grammar error I missed!  I guess what being this ‘jack of all trades’ at least has taught me, on a small-scale anyway, is  how publishing works and I know this also helps a huge amount.

It is a busy old time for me as it seems there are FIVE titles out next month connected to yours truly! How’d that happen?

The biggie of course and enough in itself is the novel.

The same day I hope Wild n Free Too is out.

Around the same time I also hope the Springbok Anthology I co-edited and have a story in, is out.

Around the same time as well the eBook with my winning Bath Short Story (no not a story about a bath!) is out.

Oh and while it is supposedly out I am still waiting for my copy of You, Me and a Bit of We from Chuffed Buff Books that is out about now!

Woo hoo! November looks like one big launch party!

But I still have to work and do lots of marketing things and also at the moment, as well as sorting all the details for my launch events, our writing group has a showcase evening the week after my Bangor launch. So while I will take a lesser role and work with the team I did write a press release and am sorting copy for posters etc. And work out a running order for the event. It is all go but I love it!

Anyone who is in Wales or would like to come to my Bangor launch I am attaching the poster below. Also in Welsh on as I live in a bilingual society even though I have to confess to my Welsh being no more than a few diochs and panads! (Look it up!) So many thanks to a friend for the translation! Posters now in situ. A few more still to be walked around!

So yeah it is busy — but would I have it any other way? Of course I bloody wouldn’t!!! And Welsh friends — the Bangor Cellar Writing Group Showcase evening is October 30th, 7 pm at the Gwynedd Museum & Art Gallery (near the library) and all welcome to that as well! I will have a poster soon!

All this and I am also plugging the new Paws Competition! What fun!

 

Have a great week all!

 

 

Ps Essex people, the launch is on November 22nd a poster will be on here for that as well!

On Writing Groups …

Good or bad?

How much do you get out of yours?

I hear mixed things about writing groups and I know why. We met last night and we have a smashing group that appears to work — it gets people writing, entering competitions, sharing work and a large number of the group are published, competition winners or at least enjoying writing — and when it started in 2006 no one was — and a good number of these founder members remain.

I think the success of a group depends a lot on who’s running it and what the writers themselves want from it — being allowed to make suggestions and move it in the right direction. Feedback needs to be constructive, well given and all members need to know something about the others so when feedback is offered you know if it’s based on something solid — i.e. can you trust their opinion? Yes all opinion counts but it’s a bit like X factor — seeking the opinion most of Simon Cowell because he knows the business. ‘Oh I liked that’ is not enough.’ Don’t get me wrong, all opinion counts of course it does, but the really pull it apart, how to change it needs a little more! But as you work together you do refine this ability. And I should know! I now do it as a living!

What our writing group did, as it grew, now boasting close to 40 members, although we expect about 15 per meeting, was form satellite  critique groups so that those wanting it, could offer much more one to one, share work in advance type of feedback. My novel group closed at our faithful 4 members  and is amazing. It’s not about genre, we all write different things, so never think it has to be all the same genre — good writing is good writing, but the members need to be a similar standard if possible — that might be the hardest part to get right. I say this because otherwise you spend far too long on one person who gets the fundamentals wrong.  But there is a dichotomy there because you need someone with more experience to guide the group and learn from. But groups find their feet! Our group knows its stuff and that’s important to me. I need to know I really trust the opinion of the writers teasing my work apart. They are all published, one had an agent, 2 of us have MAs and all have attended numerous courses and know what we want. Others have joined and come and gone. But that’s because you must have the staying power and a novel, for its crit group to really work, needs people who come all the time otherwise you lose the continuity you need for critiquing a novel. How can you look at arc for example if you flit in and out. We’ve been going for a few years and several novels and when I move I will miss it.

The  main writing group is forming another novel group now as we had to close ours to new members.  I think you need to have about 4 members for it to work at its best or less as too many and you have issues with time, getting through them and the larger the group the more  likelihood that someone will be missing and if you haven’t looked at someone’s chapter for 2 months it’s hard to follow properly, so my feeling, or at least what worked for us, was small group, regular meetings, all similar ability (forget genre). And I’m sure the new group will find their feet — so long as they know something about novel-writing — this is the danger with anything of mixed ability — making sure the advice is solid. But we did okay and we learned a lot as we went along. And so will they, I’m sure.

We also have a great short story group I dip into once in a while, but I have to say not for a while but I tend to work Sundays when they meet — and a poetry group that does struggle for attendees and now tries to do it online.

We charge an annual sub of £10 which allows you access to the crit groups, pays for speakers etc and then £2 per night for the use of the room — a café that stays open for us. We meet in the evenings (which means we get people who work, day time groups tend to attract more of the retired folk — we get both!) and we meet once a month for the main meeting.

There, like any group, have been differences of opinion but as a rule it’s a great group and open to all suggestions and we often have guests or at least run little exercises or discussions — always trying to be flexible to meet members’ requests. And anyone is encouraged to run one of these ‘open forum’ sessions.

But I know of some groups you have to produce work and pass a test to belong to — er — how do beginners ever learn that way? Surely they need to work alongside the more experienced — at least in the main meetings anyway?

I guess for me what I get the most out of the group, since I don’t really need it to inspire me — because I will write, is the crit group for helping see what I can’t in my novel and the social aspect. The people in my group are my best friends — truly and the group rescued me at a tine when I needed someone. I was writing and needed feedback — sure, but I was also grieving after Lee died and suddenly this group became my life line — friendships that I know will last forever — beyond the writing meetings — so much more. Writing doesn’t need to be isolating is my message — loud and clear!  So if you can get the group dynamics right it will grow like a big pulsating mass spinning off the talent its nurtured! Now it sounds like a tumour — but you know what I mean, it’s something great and buzzy and happening — if you get it right!

If your group doesn’t work and there’s no flexibility then — join another.

We have structure to the meeting because you have to, but we are sometimes accused of a little too much chit chat. but I say this — since writing is something we do alone, then the meeting is more than a place to share ideas and work, it’s also a place to chit chat about writing too. The real work is what the meeting inspired you to go home and do — right? I can’t say that enough!

So what about you? What are your experiences?

Mary Ward, wonderful friend founded it in October 2006. I joined in April 2007 and then took over the chair in October 2007 until October 2010, now still Vice chair, but we have Daniel Dowsing  in the seat (following a year with writer Phil Thomas) and that’s about it. New leaders is essential for innovation or it stays in the same place. I hadn’t intended to be there 3 years but was voted in again but did decide 3 years was enough. Don’t want it to get stale.

I hope, when I move back to Canvey Island to start a writing group to meet like-minded people as they don’t seem to have one!

Thanks to Daniel our rather antiquated blog is now a proper website — take a look: http://www.bangorcellarwritinggroup.co.uk and we’re now a member of the National Association of Writing Groups so people can find us on their website too!

LINK

That’s all for today! Have a truly wonderful day! And remember to dance!