So for any of you loyal readers who have been checking the blog in the past few weeks, you may have noticed that the standing post has been about my massive computer failure. And for anyone tuning in after our recent trip to the AWP conference in Chicago, or being redirected from whatever strange powers the Internet possesses, that is still the case.
I am at the moment confined to my Dell notebook, which if any of you saw the commercials which showed an assembly line of computers being presented like candy, that is what this computer is. For those who are interested the color is an apple green. This may seem like a completely workable situation, but for a comparison you have to understand the machine I was working on before.
My PC was a heavily upgraded Asus machine. Though really the bare bones could have been anything. Now I won't stand here and try to state that my machine is the Lamborghini of the compute world because I am at present an unemployed teacher, and prior to being unemployed I was a student living on student loans. In fact, the only reason my computer was the beautiful piece of machinery it was is because of a rather large tax rebate.
Bear with me, I'm about to get to the writing part.
My computer was, however, heavily upgraded. A top of the line graphics card, a monstrous power supply that could have run three computers simultaneously, enough RAM to ensure that any time something went wrong with that computer there were only two culprits. Myself or Microsoft. I'm not going to start a flame war because I still love windows and would never switch to a Mac as far as PC's are concerned, but I knew that computer inside and out. It was not a laptop built for ease, nor a run of the mill PC for desk work. It was a power machine meant for playing the most graphically demanding video games while watching HD movies at the same time. And then it failed.
So how does this relate to writing? Firstly that you have to know what you need when you set out to write. A standard computer user would have been overwhelmed by machine and doesn't need everything it could do anyways. Similarly, in this fast paced writing world, if you're writing novels don't bother reading up on current poetic theory on an academic level. Or if you're trying to become the next great literary figure, stop worrying about people like Stephanie Meyer and pay attention to where the literary scene is headed.
But more than that it's a technical thing on a few levels. Firstly in how we as writers approach our writing. There are writers who would never consider writing a first draft on the computer. First they do a physical rough copy and only then do they transfer it to computers. Some people prefer the old typewriter (there's some interesting Bukowski writing about his inability to switch from the typewriter to the computer.) Some people are fine on a laptop.
I preferred my two monitors, spreading my work between flashdrives and harddrives, and generally having either a movie or music on the second screen not as something to distract me, but rather something to keep me focused. Similar to how right now as I type this the news is on the TV as background noise to keep out more distracting sources.
One thing we have to understand as writers is what works best for us as we set out to write, because if you hate the computer but find it's the only thing you can write on, you'll either need to suck it up and adjust or simply write sub-par work.
Alternatively, if life throws you a curve-ball you may find yourself having to scramble to recover. I certainly had to, figuring out ways to transfer documents stuck on my now unpowered internal hard drives and trying to remember all the sites I had bookmarked. Luckily this all came a couple of weeks before the AWP conference, so I knew I had some time to figure things out.
However this massive failure on my computers part has also reminded me of a very important lesson, one that can be evidenced in the film industry all of the time. Adversity breeds ingenuity.
Jaws would have been nothing more than a large budget gore film if the mechanical shark hadn't been a pain to work with. Star Wars would have been...well probably what George Lucas turned the latest three movies into if it hadn't been for time and budget constraints. From the literary world Bukowski's Post Office is a testament to fast paced desperation, having been completed in two weeks with the promise that Bukowski would never have to work in the post office again.
I could go on and on, but sometimes it's not ideal conditions that create great art, but the work it takes to make it work. Which is what I found after that massive computer failure. Though I was able to get all of my documents recovered, I also had to prepare new work for my writers group which consequently involved trying to rewrite what I thought were unaccesible works. Now, I've never found a rewrite to be "better" than the original, but those rewrites contained some integral ideas that the original would have been lacking. Not to the levels of adversity faced by other writers, but even on the small scale, sometimes a little kick in the pants can be enough to get something new going.
So I'm back, and will be doing my best to keep a regular update schedule moving as I work on getting a job, and the magazine as a whole gets to work on our spring and subsequent summer issue. In the coming weeks you can look for me to write about the AWP conference we recently attended, but that usual eclectic mix of topics relating to my own, and others obsessions.
Now for some shout outs. Obsession will be launching the spring issue on March 21st, but it's not too late to view the last issue at www.obsessionlitmag.com
Marathon literary review, a product of Arcadia University's new M.F.A. program recently put out its first issue which just happens to feature two works from your loyal author, and if you're looking for some good reads, or more importantly a good place to submit shorter works, check them out at http://blogs.arcadia.edu/marathon-literary-review/
My first round of AWP shout outs go out to two fantastic presses, one new to me and one who fascinated me last year as well.
Ghost Town Literary Magazine, who I encountered last year when I purchased a T-shirt featuring Kim Jong Ill holding a burning bush (just the type of strangeness I enjoy), once again were featured at AWP and I couldn't have been happier to see them. The issue of their journal I consumed from the last conference featured a varying mix of poetry and fiction, most of which was strange and experimental and all of which I found fascinating, to the point that if they hadn't given me a copy of their current issue for free at the conference, I would have bought it again. Check them out at http://ghosttownlitmag.wordpress.com/, and you can expect me to promote them again when they start taking submissions.
On the side of magazines I did purchase at the conference, Toad Suck Review drew me in with the Hypno Toad (all hail Hypno Toad) and went on to deliver a magazine that features just eclectic enough of a body of work, while never coming off as to snobby. Based out of Arkansas they have a section devoted entirely to work from Arkansas writers, but also featured a piece by Bukowski, interesting eco fiction, experimental fiction, and while I can't speak of the same obsession with each piece that I found in Ghost Town, it contained more home runs than it did pop outs. Check them out at http://toadsuckreview.org/ and again, expect more talk when they start taking submissions in the fall.
That's it for today, but I'll be delivering a new article on Friday going into detail what we experienced in Chicago, and how it differed from our experiences in D.C. the year before.
David is one of the co-founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine, as well as the head writer for the Obsession blog. His work has been featured in Marathon Literary magazine, and he has a forthcoming publication in Apiary magazine, both of which are based in the Philadelphia area.
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
February 8, 2012
Can Video Games Teach Us About Writing? Written by David
It's no secret that I'm obsessed with video games (though thankfully not addicted.) As I play through a new game for the first time I'm always on the lookout for what the game is doing to me, whether it be wracking my brain trying to figure out a puzzle, timing jumps perfectly to clear platforms over lava, or challenging me to make tough moral decisions. And yes, there are video games that make you do this.
But I'm not going to talk about those things today. The game I'm going to be talking about today is called Dead Space 2. Sequels in video games are about as common as sequels in movies, and as the years go by, books can quickly be added to this list. That's not a commentary on sequels though. There's no reason a sequel cannot be as good, if not better than an original composition. After all, there's a reason Beethoven has 9 symphonies.
Dead Space falls into the video game category of survival action horror, a category that is as hard to do right as horror movies and suspense novels. You may be wondering what this has to do with writing at this point, so I'm going to break it down into things this game does right, and how they impact writing. And not just for the next hopeful horror writer.
1. Timing.
As yesterday was Charles Dickens birthday, I feel an obligation to include him in this post. But one thing that Dickens did well was timing. Because he had to. He was writing his novels in sections and publishing them in sections in order to make a living. On the one hand this means that inherently his novels are shaped by a need to publish. But much as the starving artist archetype enchants us, as writers I'm pretty sure most of us don't actually want to live that lifestyle. So what did publishing in sections do?
It forced Dickens to right multiple climaxes into his story, so that the reader always wanted more when the next section was published!
One thing that Dead Space (both the original and 2) have done well is timing. This is not what people think of with video games where you run along guns ablaze, mowing down every enemy that comes in your path. Quite the opposite with Dead Space, actually. You don't generally see anything in your path until it's too late.
This is because Dead Space is employing one of the oldest horror trick in the book (don't quote me on that. I don't actually know how far horror traces back.) Suspense. And suspense is all about timing.
In Dead Space, enemies will pop out of the walls. They'll come when they're least expected. They will come out when it is least convenient for you and when it creates the biggest reaction, which in this game is fear. But to relate this back to Dickens, Dickens is doing the same thing. He uses story arcs to guide where your emotions go. He drops plot bombs when plot bombs need to be dropped, but he also leads you along with red herrings where herring needs to be sniffed. Dickens may not be going for the action that a video game is, but he knows that timing is how you work your audience.
Which is what any writer needs to do. I won't stand here and say there's a formula to timing (5 act structure aside) because for every formula there is a way to break it. But there is a science to this timing thing. In order to get the most impact from your audience you need to know when to pull them along with you and when to push them back. You need to know how to manage...
2. Suspense
Imagine a pond in the middle of a field. No wind blows. No sound is uttered. A single pebble falls from the sky, striking the water with a soft ploink sound. Imagine the ripples going across the water, soothing you.
KABLAM!
What I just did there was break the tension. Now, I meant to do it in a humorous way, which knowing my jokes has failed miserably but I'm still laughing. But the best way to picture tension while you're writing is with the pond approach. Better still is to imagine what you're writing is a slightly iced over pond. And everything you're writing is weight you're adding to that pond.
It's easy to tell when tension is being used in horror. Generally the soundtrack will fade away. Characters will be visibly agitated. It will have been a while since something scary happens. Horror is known for using this feeling to pull a fast one on audiences by then building the tension and letting nothing happen to allow the audience into a false sense of security.
Dead Space does the opposite. There is no moment to let the tension out (for the most part.) In most games, when you pause the game, the game is paused. In Dead Space, the only action that you as a character can do to stop the game is to bring up the game exit menu. When you access inventory, you're vulnerable. When you save, vulnerable. Everything leaves you open, which means the tension is always there.
What's more, Dead Space combines two great elements into one package. In most horror games, darkness is used extensively to limit vision. Dead Space combines the flashlight with the gun, so every time you try to see better, you are also visually prepared for combat. However, what happens here is that by bringing in the unnerving element of darkness, with the necessity to raise your gun to see, you focus in. Anything that crosses your screen could be an enemy and by looking you are aiming. It also lowers your awareness by forcing you to resist pulling the trigger and waste precious ammo, so that when something breaks through the darkness you falter.
Notice that last word. Hesitate. Horror movie characters don't generally falter. They hold back, but they don't actively stall like deer in headlights. But this is what you need your audience to do, and again I don't just mean in horror. Let's look at a classic, so that when I spoil the ending I don't violate the general rule of not spoiling material.
Anyone not read Where The Red Fern Grows? Then ignore this paragraph. But for those of you who did, how many of you physically faltered while reading the last section of the novel. Did you want to believe what was happening? Did you want to read on, even when you knew what was happening? And most importantly, did you know it was going to happen and find yourself torn anyways?
Maybe it was just my experience there, but even suspecting the ending I was surprised and emotionally jarred by it. And most importantly, I found myself hesitating to read it. This is not a bad thing! Hesitation is not a bad thing! It means that we're surprised and don't know how to react. Which leads to my next point.
3. Fluidity
Great video games are well known for this trait. This is because despite a lust for plot, a video game can be just as entertaining with no plot at all! (Can anyone, gamer or otherwise, tell me the plot of the original Mario game? If you find that too easy, what about Pac Man?) Yet as video games became grander in scale, they began to become grander in plot. So how do you blend plot and game play seamlessly?
If you're looking at Dead Space, pretty seamlessly. This is because the game play is part of the plot! When you wander through an empty room, as a gamer you are doing it to get to the room where your next enemy awaits. But as a story, that empty room is filled with subtle cues that do just as much to tell the story as those little cut scenes.
As an example, the last section of the game I played took me through an apartment building. In one room I found a body watching a projection which was a commercial for the church which brought on the madness that is happening in the game. In the bed there was another body, and after looking around the room I begin to piece together that this was a happy family whose lives have been ruined by the events here. There are still family pictures on the wall. I can tell they had a modest living by the abundance of books and other items in their apartment.
Without the game saying a word or forcing any combat, I am learning more about the story.
As a writer, it is often easy to focus purely on plot and ignore things like setting. Even then, it is easy to overlook the fact that your setting can tell as much of the story as the plot! Here's two less disturbing examples. I want you to see if you can tell the plot of these two stories despite the fact that I mention none of it.
Ex 1: The woman's room was empty, save for the bed she lay upon, and the machines which did the job of living for her. Every breath was accompanied by the wheeze of accordioning plastic. A steady beeping reverberated off of the mute white walls. The nurse entered the room slowly, closing the door behind her with the smallest of clicks. The steel chair that she had occupied the previous day still sat next to the bed, the red cover of the book she had left upon the cushion was the only color interrupting the stillness of the room.
Ex 2: Susan looked around Claire's room with tears in her eyes. A ragged stuffed dalmatian lay on its side across the bed, seeming to blend with the pure white covers. The desk sat covered in dust, a few rectangles of clean wood standing out from the fuzz. Susan trailed her fingers through the dust, before turning to the walls which offered no solace. Tape marks scoffed the walls where posters had once hung. A few nails here and there reminded Susan of spelling bee's, dance competitions, and one glorious concert. She knew, the room would never be the same.
Ok, so there's a few ways these stories could go, but aside from providing a way to invent the word accordioning, I hope you were able to catch how the setting affected the story. How would example one change if the dying woman was surrounded by flowers and pictures? What if she were only sleeping rather than hooked up to machines? What does it say about the nurse that the book is part of the scenery and not part of her action? I'll let you ask the same questions for example two, but I hope you see my point.
Fluidity is not just seamlessly blending together two scenes. Fluidity is connecting every moment of your story, every description of your story. When we break tension we want it to be intentional, not because the weight of the plot is too heavy to stand on the thin ice. The more detail you add, the stronger your ice becomes (though too much detail and it also becomes impossible to break.) In essence, it all becomes a balancing act.
I could go into further detail but I think three examples is enough to show how at least this video game can show writers some techniques they might employ in their own writing. The elements I've described are crucial for anything dealing with horror, but we should always remember that horror is not just hack and slash, it is at its core emotional manipulation. This examples can easily be applied to romance, mystery, political intrigue, or just a story about a man who grows flowers. But if you utilize these elements you may just find that your reader is more than just reading. They're becoming engaged. Because it may not be the death of a novel for a reader to not be engaged, but it is the death of a video game when your audience is disengaged.
David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.
But I'm not going to talk about those things today. The game I'm going to be talking about today is called Dead Space 2. Sequels in video games are about as common as sequels in movies, and as the years go by, books can quickly be added to this list. That's not a commentary on sequels though. There's no reason a sequel cannot be as good, if not better than an original composition. After all, there's a reason Beethoven has 9 symphonies.
Dead Space falls into the video game category of survival action horror, a category that is as hard to do right as horror movies and suspense novels. You may be wondering what this has to do with writing at this point, so I'm going to break it down into things this game does right, and how they impact writing. And not just for the next hopeful horror writer.
1. Timing.
As yesterday was Charles Dickens birthday, I feel an obligation to include him in this post. But one thing that Dickens did well was timing. Because he had to. He was writing his novels in sections and publishing them in sections in order to make a living. On the one hand this means that inherently his novels are shaped by a need to publish. But much as the starving artist archetype enchants us, as writers I'm pretty sure most of us don't actually want to live that lifestyle. So what did publishing in sections do?
It forced Dickens to right multiple climaxes into his story, so that the reader always wanted more when the next section was published!
One thing that Dead Space (both the original and 2) have done well is timing. This is not what people think of with video games where you run along guns ablaze, mowing down every enemy that comes in your path. Quite the opposite with Dead Space, actually. You don't generally see anything in your path until it's too late.
This is because Dead Space is employing one of the oldest horror trick in the book (don't quote me on that. I don't actually know how far horror traces back.) Suspense. And suspense is all about timing.
In Dead Space, enemies will pop out of the walls. They'll come when they're least expected. They will come out when it is least convenient for you and when it creates the biggest reaction, which in this game is fear. But to relate this back to Dickens, Dickens is doing the same thing. He uses story arcs to guide where your emotions go. He drops plot bombs when plot bombs need to be dropped, but he also leads you along with red herrings where herring needs to be sniffed. Dickens may not be going for the action that a video game is, but he knows that timing is how you work your audience.
Which is what any writer needs to do. I won't stand here and say there's a formula to timing (5 act structure aside) because for every formula there is a way to break it. But there is a science to this timing thing. In order to get the most impact from your audience you need to know when to pull them along with you and when to push them back. You need to know how to manage...
2. Suspense
Imagine a pond in the middle of a field. No wind blows. No sound is uttered. A single pebble falls from the sky, striking the water with a soft ploink sound. Imagine the ripples going across the water, soothing you.
KABLAM!
What I just did there was break the tension. Now, I meant to do it in a humorous way, which knowing my jokes has failed miserably but I'm still laughing. But the best way to picture tension while you're writing is with the pond approach. Better still is to imagine what you're writing is a slightly iced over pond. And everything you're writing is weight you're adding to that pond.
It's easy to tell when tension is being used in horror. Generally the soundtrack will fade away. Characters will be visibly agitated. It will have been a while since something scary happens. Horror is known for using this feeling to pull a fast one on audiences by then building the tension and letting nothing happen to allow the audience into a false sense of security.
Dead Space does the opposite. There is no moment to let the tension out (for the most part.) In most games, when you pause the game, the game is paused. In Dead Space, the only action that you as a character can do to stop the game is to bring up the game exit menu. When you access inventory, you're vulnerable. When you save, vulnerable. Everything leaves you open, which means the tension is always there.
What's more, Dead Space combines two great elements into one package. In most horror games, darkness is used extensively to limit vision. Dead Space combines the flashlight with the gun, so every time you try to see better, you are also visually prepared for combat. However, what happens here is that by bringing in the unnerving element of darkness, with the necessity to raise your gun to see, you focus in. Anything that crosses your screen could be an enemy and by looking you are aiming. It also lowers your awareness by forcing you to resist pulling the trigger and waste precious ammo, so that when something breaks through the darkness you falter.
Notice that last word. Hesitate. Horror movie characters don't generally falter. They hold back, but they don't actively stall like deer in headlights. But this is what you need your audience to do, and again I don't just mean in horror. Let's look at a classic, so that when I spoil the ending I don't violate the general rule of not spoiling material.
Anyone not read Where The Red Fern Grows? Then ignore this paragraph. But for those of you who did, how many of you physically faltered while reading the last section of the novel. Did you want to believe what was happening? Did you want to read on, even when you knew what was happening? And most importantly, did you know it was going to happen and find yourself torn anyways?
Maybe it was just my experience there, but even suspecting the ending I was surprised and emotionally jarred by it. And most importantly, I found myself hesitating to read it. This is not a bad thing! Hesitation is not a bad thing! It means that we're surprised and don't know how to react. Which leads to my next point.
3. Fluidity
Great video games are well known for this trait. This is because despite a lust for plot, a video game can be just as entertaining with no plot at all! (Can anyone, gamer or otherwise, tell me the plot of the original Mario game? If you find that too easy, what about Pac Man?) Yet as video games became grander in scale, they began to become grander in plot. So how do you blend plot and game play seamlessly?
If you're looking at Dead Space, pretty seamlessly. This is because the game play is part of the plot! When you wander through an empty room, as a gamer you are doing it to get to the room where your next enemy awaits. But as a story, that empty room is filled with subtle cues that do just as much to tell the story as those little cut scenes.
As an example, the last section of the game I played took me through an apartment building. In one room I found a body watching a projection which was a commercial for the church which brought on the madness that is happening in the game. In the bed there was another body, and after looking around the room I begin to piece together that this was a happy family whose lives have been ruined by the events here. There are still family pictures on the wall. I can tell they had a modest living by the abundance of books and other items in their apartment.
Without the game saying a word or forcing any combat, I am learning more about the story.
As a writer, it is often easy to focus purely on plot and ignore things like setting. Even then, it is easy to overlook the fact that your setting can tell as much of the story as the plot! Here's two less disturbing examples. I want you to see if you can tell the plot of these two stories despite the fact that I mention none of it.
Ex 1: The woman's room was empty, save for the bed she lay upon, and the machines which did the job of living for her. Every breath was accompanied by the wheeze of accordioning plastic. A steady beeping reverberated off of the mute white walls. The nurse entered the room slowly, closing the door behind her with the smallest of clicks. The steel chair that she had occupied the previous day still sat next to the bed, the red cover of the book she had left upon the cushion was the only color interrupting the stillness of the room.
Ex 2: Susan looked around Claire's room with tears in her eyes. A ragged stuffed dalmatian lay on its side across the bed, seeming to blend with the pure white covers. The desk sat covered in dust, a few rectangles of clean wood standing out from the fuzz. Susan trailed her fingers through the dust, before turning to the walls which offered no solace. Tape marks scoffed the walls where posters had once hung. A few nails here and there reminded Susan of spelling bee's, dance competitions, and one glorious concert. She knew, the room would never be the same.
Ok, so there's a few ways these stories could go, but aside from providing a way to invent the word accordioning, I hope you were able to catch how the setting affected the story. How would example one change if the dying woman was surrounded by flowers and pictures? What if she were only sleeping rather than hooked up to machines? What does it say about the nurse that the book is part of the scenery and not part of her action? I'll let you ask the same questions for example two, but I hope you see my point.
Fluidity is not just seamlessly blending together two scenes. Fluidity is connecting every moment of your story, every description of your story. When we break tension we want it to be intentional, not because the weight of the plot is too heavy to stand on the thin ice. The more detail you add, the stronger your ice becomes (though too much detail and it also becomes impossible to break.) In essence, it all becomes a balancing act.
I could go into further detail but I think three examples is enough to show how at least this video game can show writers some techniques they might employ in their own writing. The elements I've described are crucial for anything dealing with horror, but we should always remember that horror is not just hack and slash, it is at its core emotional manipulation. This examples can easily be applied to romance, mystery, political intrigue, or just a story about a man who grows flowers. But if you utilize these elements you may just find that your reader is more than just reading. They're becoming engaged. Because it may not be the death of a novel for a reader to not be engaged, but it is the death of a video game when your audience is disengaged.
David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.
January 23, 2012
Five Reasons Why You Should Join a Writers Group: Written by David
Last week I gave you a little history lesson, discussing some famous writers groups that changed the face of writing. This week I'm going to get a little more personal. I'm going to give you 5 reasons how a writing group can change the face of your writing.
Before I get into that I just want to clear one thing up. It's not necessarily that a writing group will do all of these things. As with any writing endeavor, part of what's going to help you succeed is your own drive. The other is the groups drive. If, however, you find a keeper, you'll find that your writing only improves due to your choice of committing to a group. But why even give a writering group a shot?
1. Fresh Eyes
I don't know what your process is like, but mine generally involves writing a poem, obsessing over it for a few weeks, and then I shelve the piece for a bit so I can approach it at a later date with fresh eyes. Now, this is not the most time effective approach to writing, so imagine my surprise at my discovery that presenting pieces to my writing group speeds the whole process up!
In a writering group, especially one consisting of multiple opinions and/or genres, your piece is immediately getting a fresh look which will often draw out discussions on parts of your writing that you wanted to discuss, and maybe even parts you didn't even notice. Ever written a really killer story but then had someone look at it and ask "Yeah but who's the main character?" only to realize you never defined them? It won't always be something as big as this, but you may find pieces of your story are missing that you didn't even notice because in your head they were always so clear!
My point is that having a group of writers critique you can give you that immediate feedback that you need to continue your writing process rather than having it sit around for a bit, or read it fifty times to notice those few details. But that seems a minor thing when compared to...
2. Fresh Ideas
When my writers group and I presented at the Montgomery Community College Writing Conference on the advantages and disadvantages of writing groups, we had a member of the audience who was very hesitant to let someone else view her work because she was afraid that it would tarnish her hand in the piece. As I discussed last week, this is definitely not the case, but it's not just editing that you can get from a writers group.
When you have several different types of minds looking at your piece you may find that they notice elements that you may not have been aware you put in (as a writing teacher of mine once said though, whether you are aware of it or not it's never just luck.) These elements may prove even more interesting than the ideas you were focusing on (your secondary character is more moving than the main character, that side story has the potential to add a whole different layer to your story, a simile that you didn't even notice would be stronger throughout the poem, etc.) If you're like my group it may come down to something as seemingly small as word choice (something I have a knack for helping my group out with.)
Certainly editing can bring up some fresh thoughts, but I'm talking about so much more here. Being among a group of writers it is only inevitable that you are going to get ideas from their successes and failures. As the quote goes "Good artists copy, great artists steal." I'm not saying that you'll steal all of your colleagues ideas, but you will find inspiration from them. I'll give you two examples from my own group experiences.
First is my favorite poem that I've written. A fellow student back when I was in a group editing style class wrote two poems that didn't work within a week. One was about being awake at 3 am, which was supposed to be about being unable to sleep but didn't go far enough. The other was a poem about the Mariana trench. In those two failures though, I found that the second idea was meant to be combined with the first! I combined the two ideas, put them in my own language, and wrote a poem about how the it feels like you're descending into the Mariana trench when you're deeply tired but can't sleep.
The second example is the novel I'm writing. It began as a short story long ago that went into the folder of unsuccessful ideas and just stewed there. Up until one of the members in my writing groups started presenting chapters of the novel he was writing. Now, there was no similarity in the ideas. His is a satire on religion, mine is about a tree that defies the laws of reality. But in going to that group week after week and helping to edit one novel, I found my inspiration to write my own. And now, as it nears completion, I know I never would have gotten so far if not for the group.
3. Practice
Much as with any other art, practice makes perfect. However, we have few ways to practice our craft in the way that a musician can hear what doesn't fit in a composition or an artist may see where the colors don't blend. Sure, while writing you can see your spelling/grammatical errors, but how can you tell when stylistically you're off? How do you practice editing?
There's certainly some strange ways. Hunter S. Thompson retyped A Farewell to Arms (I believe) and The Great Gatsby before he set out to do his own writing. I'm not suggesting everyone do this, but a good exercise as writers is to think how we might change the books we read to satisfy our own style and expectations (steer clear of Twilight though, it'll make you hate yourself.) But this can only push you so much.
Part of being in a writing group is that you are also helping edit other peoples writing. After all, you can't expect other writers to give your writing the attention it deserves if you aren't willing to do the same (this is one of the things to watch out for when searching for a writing group and one I'll talk about next week.) By practicing our editing of other peoples work, we'll find that our critical eye for our own work will be better tuned to notice the finer details. This doesn't mean that you will eventually run through your need for a writing group. In fact, the opposite. If your group progresses the same as you, you'll find that your works begin improving all the better and you as a group are able to focus on fine tuning pieces instead of overhauling.
4. Motivation
I didn't start writing until I was in college and was in writing courses. I read a whole lot, but as far as writing goes, I never went past the terrible poetry that high schoolers are oft to write and oft to assume is the most poignant writing to grace the page (but is the type of melodrama that makes you gag years later when you read it again.) However when I entered into a poetry course that had me writing at least one poem every week I started producing dozens a week, forcing myself to write and write and write some more. Then I graduated.
And for a year...I wrote a poem or five.
Now, there were a lot of other reasons behind my ignoring my writing, but we won't get into that. Instead we'll focus on what happened after I happened to get invited into a writing group after presenting a poem to a Renaissance Literature class. I started writing again. I started producing on the level I had been in my college course. And I started doing something I'd never done before. Editing.
Whether you find a group that meets weekly, monthly, or however often they'd like, having that knowledge that you should have something for a specific day will push you to make sure you have something written for that day. It will push you to edit to present quality pieces to your group. If you're competitive like me, it will push you to try to go beyond your own levels so that you impress your colleagues.
You see what I'm getting at here. A writing group will drive you. If you already had the drive you may find that it pushes you in different directions. But it is far easier to be motivated with others than to motivate yourself.
5. Community
This one should be obvious but I find that it is often an overlooked element of the group. This part I can't talk technical truths because most of the advantages will depend on the composition of the group. I can only tell you what I've experienced in my own group.
The members of my writing group have become more than just fellow writers. They're business partners now, as we venture into running an E-zine. They're co-workers as we prepare for our trek to the AWP conference in March. They're the people that I trust to be references for me as I venture into getting a job. They're the people I trust to help edit my writing.
And they're my friends.
I know some groups will meet for dinner and editing. However the group I'm a part of has tried that and realized it's better not to mix business and pleasure. It is my advice that you edit first and then eat. Otherwise you're generally more focused on eating than editing.
But if you find a truly great group of writers than the best advice I can give you is to sometimes meet and don't discuss writing at all! Myself and the members of my group meet for lunch. We go to each others parties. We're honored guests at each others weddings. We are a group but we are also extremely close friends. Which helps us in the writing aspect of our group because we are comfortable enough with each other to propose radical changes, put forward extreme ideas, and argue until our faces turn blue. And I don't mean with the person who wrote the piece!
If you payed attention last week, the friendship aspect of the group shouldn't be that surprising. Those great writing groups of the past I talked about? They were more than just writing groups. They were circles of friends.
So there you have it. There's certainly more reasons that you could think of for why to join a writing group, but those are my five most important. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Next week I'll discuss some of the reasons why a writing group might not be working out and how you can help yourself solve those issues.
David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.
Before I get into that I just want to clear one thing up. It's not necessarily that a writing group will do all of these things. As with any writing endeavor, part of what's going to help you succeed is your own drive. The other is the groups drive. If, however, you find a keeper, you'll find that your writing only improves due to your choice of committing to a group. But why even give a writering group a shot?
1. Fresh Eyes
I don't know what your process is like, but mine generally involves writing a poem, obsessing over it for a few weeks, and then I shelve the piece for a bit so I can approach it at a later date with fresh eyes. Now, this is not the most time effective approach to writing, so imagine my surprise at my discovery that presenting pieces to my writing group speeds the whole process up!
In a writering group, especially one consisting of multiple opinions and/or genres, your piece is immediately getting a fresh look which will often draw out discussions on parts of your writing that you wanted to discuss, and maybe even parts you didn't even notice. Ever written a really killer story but then had someone look at it and ask "Yeah but who's the main character?" only to realize you never defined them? It won't always be something as big as this, but you may find pieces of your story are missing that you didn't even notice because in your head they were always so clear!
My point is that having a group of writers critique you can give you that immediate feedback that you need to continue your writing process rather than having it sit around for a bit, or read it fifty times to notice those few details. But that seems a minor thing when compared to...
2. Fresh Ideas
When my writers group and I presented at the Montgomery Community College Writing Conference on the advantages and disadvantages of writing groups, we had a member of the audience who was very hesitant to let someone else view her work because she was afraid that it would tarnish her hand in the piece. As I discussed last week, this is definitely not the case, but it's not just editing that you can get from a writers group.
When you have several different types of minds looking at your piece you may find that they notice elements that you may not have been aware you put in (as a writing teacher of mine once said though, whether you are aware of it or not it's never just luck.) These elements may prove even more interesting than the ideas you were focusing on (your secondary character is more moving than the main character, that side story has the potential to add a whole different layer to your story, a simile that you didn't even notice would be stronger throughout the poem, etc.) If you're like my group it may come down to something as seemingly small as word choice (something I have a knack for helping my group out with.)
Certainly editing can bring up some fresh thoughts, but I'm talking about so much more here. Being among a group of writers it is only inevitable that you are going to get ideas from their successes and failures. As the quote goes "Good artists copy, great artists steal." I'm not saying that you'll steal all of your colleagues ideas, but you will find inspiration from them. I'll give you two examples from my own group experiences.
First is my favorite poem that I've written. A fellow student back when I was in a group editing style class wrote two poems that didn't work within a week. One was about being awake at 3 am, which was supposed to be about being unable to sleep but didn't go far enough. The other was a poem about the Mariana trench. In those two failures though, I found that the second idea was meant to be combined with the first! I combined the two ideas, put them in my own language, and wrote a poem about how the it feels like you're descending into the Mariana trench when you're deeply tired but can't sleep.
The second example is the novel I'm writing. It began as a short story long ago that went into the folder of unsuccessful ideas and just stewed there. Up until one of the members in my writing groups started presenting chapters of the novel he was writing. Now, there was no similarity in the ideas. His is a satire on religion, mine is about a tree that defies the laws of reality. But in going to that group week after week and helping to edit one novel, I found my inspiration to write my own. And now, as it nears completion, I know I never would have gotten so far if not for the group.
3. Practice
Much as with any other art, practice makes perfect. However, we have few ways to practice our craft in the way that a musician can hear what doesn't fit in a composition or an artist may see where the colors don't blend. Sure, while writing you can see your spelling/grammatical errors, but how can you tell when stylistically you're off? How do you practice editing?
There's certainly some strange ways. Hunter S. Thompson retyped A Farewell to Arms (I believe) and The Great Gatsby before he set out to do his own writing. I'm not suggesting everyone do this, but a good exercise as writers is to think how we might change the books we read to satisfy our own style and expectations (steer clear of Twilight though, it'll make you hate yourself.) But this can only push you so much.
Part of being in a writing group is that you are also helping edit other peoples writing. After all, you can't expect other writers to give your writing the attention it deserves if you aren't willing to do the same (this is one of the things to watch out for when searching for a writing group and one I'll talk about next week.) By practicing our editing of other peoples work, we'll find that our critical eye for our own work will be better tuned to notice the finer details. This doesn't mean that you will eventually run through your need for a writing group. In fact, the opposite. If your group progresses the same as you, you'll find that your works begin improving all the better and you as a group are able to focus on fine tuning pieces instead of overhauling.
4. Motivation
I didn't start writing until I was in college and was in writing courses. I read a whole lot, but as far as writing goes, I never went past the terrible poetry that high schoolers are oft to write and oft to assume is the most poignant writing to grace the page (but is the type of melodrama that makes you gag years later when you read it again.) However when I entered into a poetry course that had me writing at least one poem every week I started producing dozens a week, forcing myself to write and write and write some more. Then I graduated.
And for a year...I wrote a poem or five.
Now, there were a lot of other reasons behind my ignoring my writing, but we won't get into that. Instead we'll focus on what happened after I happened to get invited into a writing group after presenting a poem to a Renaissance Literature class. I started writing again. I started producing on the level I had been in my college course. And I started doing something I'd never done before. Editing.
Whether you find a group that meets weekly, monthly, or however often they'd like, having that knowledge that you should have something for a specific day will push you to make sure you have something written for that day. It will push you to edit to present quality pieces to your group. If you're competitive like me, it will push you to try to go beyond your own levels so that you impress your colleagues.
You see what I'm getting at here. A writing group will drive you. If you already had the drive you may find that it pushes you in different directions. But it is far easier to be motivated with others than to motivate yourself.
5. Community
This one should be obvious but I find that it is often an overlooked element of the group. This part I can't talk technical truths because most of the advantages will depend on the composition of the group. I can only tell you what I've experienced in my own group.
The members of my writing group have become more than just fellow writers. They're business partners now, as we venture into running an E-zine. They're co-workers as we prepare for our trek to the AWP conference in March. They're the people that I trust to be references for me as I venture into getting a job. They're the people I trust to help edit my writing.
And they're my friends.
I know some groups will meet for dinner and editing. However the group I'm a part of has tried that and realized it's better not to mix business and pleasure. It is my advice that you edit first and then eat. Otherwise you're generally more focused on eating than editing.
But if you find a truly great group of writers than the best advice I can give you is to sometimes meet and don't discuss writing at all! Myself and the members of my group meet for lunch. We go to each others parties. We're honored guests at each others weddings. We are a group but we are also extremely close friends. Which helps us in the writing aspect of our group because we are comfortable enough with each other to propose radical changes, put forward extreme ideas, and argue until our faces turn blue. And I don't mean with the person who wrote the piece!
If you payed attention last week, the friendship aspect of the group shouldn't be that surprising. Those great writing groups of the past I talked about? They were more than just writing groups. They were circles of friends.
So there you have it. There's certainly more reasons that you could think of for why to join a writing group, but those are my five most important. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Next week I'll discuss some of the reasons why a writing group might not be working out and how you can help yourself solve those issues.
David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.
January 17, 2012
A Brief History of Writing Groups: Written by David
As a member of a writing group, and having helped deliver a panel on managing a writers group at the Montgomery Community College Writers Conference, it's no surprise that I have a lot to say on the advantages and disadvantages of a writers group. Today I'm going to launch a series on writers groups that will encompass topics such as why we have them, how to form and maintain one, dangers of the writers group, and whatever else I can think of before I decide to write about something else. For today, let's just discuss if writers groups are even something to be considered as legitimate tools for writers.
There are two types of views towards writing groups in the writing world. Or should I say, there are two types of views towards letting other people help you write your work.
On the one side is that legendary image of the isolated writer alone in one's room, creating masterpieces untouched by others hands, the purest of art.
On the other hand is the group of writers helping each other go above and beyond their individual abilities in order to create art. It is my perspective that this is the type of writing which truly works, and that the amount of writers who never let anyone help them write are few and far between.
But don't take my word for it. Let's look at a few examples. I'll only go back to Romanticism.
Coleridge had Taylor, which set off an entirely new type of writing that revolutionized perceptions of what writing should aim to achieve. Through correspondence, other Romantic writers formed relationships with each other that certainly influenced their works, if not editing back and forth.
In Victorian times, Dickens had Wilkie Collins, both working together. The Bronte sisters must surely have relied on each other, else why bother having sisters at all? Emily Dickenson, though a classic example of the isolated writer, also sent poetry around through correspondence valuing the input and opinions of several mentors and other poets.
When we get to Modernism we have the Algonquin round table. Pound, Eliot, Doolittle, Joyce, Hemingway, etc. These writers edited together. They published together (often taking advantage of the magazine that Pound ran.) They wined and dined together. They were not only a group of writers, they were a group of friends (and in some cases such as Pound and Doolittle, more than that.) And they were unafraid to edit each others works, some of which we consider some of the pinnacle of art from the 20th century.
If you get the chance, find a copy of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot that contains the edits that went into it becoming the poem we know today. Originally it was to be titled He Do the Police in Different Voices to which I can only say...why? Eliot certainly did a lot of editing his own, but the poem that we know and love (or hate) would not have been possible without Ezra Pound. Through the influence of Pound the poem has become a standard part of English curriculum as opposed to what it could have been, which would have been nothing.
This raises the question of who wrote The Waste Land, Pound or Eliot? I'll leave that decision up to you.
From Modernism we see the Beats, who did much the same as the Modernists except with drugs. From there we see various schools of writing (schools in the sense of styles, not actual schools) that write in similar styles and generally have writing groups in order to encourage those styles to flourish.
Long story short, writers groups are not some sort of recent development threatening the sanctity of art. They have existed a long while and have influenced some of the greatest writers of their times. Are they a threat to the sanctity of art? That all depends on your views. But they're certainly not something dirty to the writing world as a whole.
Next week I'll discuss something a little closer to our concerns as future writers. Is a writing group right for you, whether you've been part of one for years, or have never considered one before today.
David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.
There are two types of views towards writing groups in the writing world. Or should I say, there are two types of views towards letting other people help you write your work.
On the one side is that legendary image of the isolated writer alone in one's room, creating masterpieces untouched by others hands, the purest of art.
On the other hand is the group of writers helping each other go above and beyond their individual abilities in order to create art. It is my perspective that this is the type of writing which truly works, and that the amount of writers who never let anyone help them write are few and far between.
But don't take my word for it. Let's look at a few examples. I'll only go back to Romanticism.
Coleridge had Taylor, which set off an entirely new type of writing that revolutionized perceptions of what writing should aim to achieve. Through correspondence, other Romantic writers formed relationships with each other that certainly influenced their works, if not editing back and forth.
In Victorian times, Dickens had Wilkie Collins, both working together. The Bronte sisters must surely have relied on each other, else why bother having sisters at all? Emily Dickenson, though a classic example of the isolated writer, also sent poetry around through correspondence valuing the input and opinions of several mentors and other poets.
When we get to Modernism we have the Algonquin round table. Pound, Eliot, Doolittle, Joyce, Hemingway, etc. These writers edited together. They published together (often taking advantage of the magazine that Pound ran.) They wined and dined together. They were not only a group of writers, they were a group of friends (and in some cases such as Pound and Doolittle, more than that.) And they were unafraid to edit each others works, some of which we consider some of the pinnacle of art from the 20th century.
If you get the chance, find a copy of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot that contains the edits that went into it becoming the poem we know today. Originally it was to be titled He Do the Police in Different Voices to which I can only say...why? Eliot certainly did a lot of editing his own, but the poem that we know and love (or hate) would not have been possible without Ezra Pound. Through the influence of Pound the poem has become a standard part of English curriculum as opposed to what it could have been, which would have been nothing.
This raises the question of who wrote The Waste Land, Pound or Eliot? I'll leave that decision up to you.
From Modernism we see the Beats, who did much the same as the Modernists except with drugs. From there we see various schools of writing (schools in the sense of styles, not actual schools) that write in similar styles and generally have writing groups in order to encourage those styles to flourish.
Long story short, writers groups are not some sort of recent development threatening the sanctity of art. They have existed a long while and have influenced some of the greatest writers of their times. Are they a threat to the sanctity of art? That all depends on your views. But they're certainly not something dirty to the writing world as a whole.
Next week I'll discuss something a little closer to our concerns as future writers. Is a writing group right for you, whether you've been part of one for years, or have never considered one before today.
David is one of the founders and editors of Obsession Literary Magazine and the maintainer of Obsession's blog.
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