 In a workshop environment, where aspiring writers are hearing a lot of repeated generalizations flying by, it is easy enough to acquire a set of “rules” for writing.
Show, don’t tell. Write what you know. Use complete sentences. Avoid brand names. But rules aren’t as helpful for creating original work as one might hope when one is floating in the murk of one’s own ideas and hoping for some formula for making a story work. Other frequently cited complaints (i.e. “I didn’t understand this scene”) lead to other unstated rules that could be considered just plain wrong (i.e. explain your scenes). And yet, if the formulas are wrong–if the best work has to circumvent them to create its own internal rules–are there no insights that we can apply to our own and each other’s work? Is workshop of no use at all? Filters, rather than formulas, can indeed be useful. When I engage in revision or editing, I test the strength of the verbs and the structure of the sentences. I track the expectations that arise in me as a reader and note how the piece fulfills or surprises them. In other words, I understand some of the structures of story and plot, some of the ways that craft functions, and I do, eventually and sometimes immediately, run my work through those filters. But my first job as a writer is to listen to my storyteller. I may have prepped my storyteller with exercises or planning, but when I am committed to the blank page, the key is to trust the storyteller, to be willing to get it wrong in order to get in down and sometimes in order to get it new. And my first job as a reader is to pay attention to my pleasure and questions and worries–without assuming that questions or worries indicate a problem. Questions and worries drive us on through a story and only the reader’s experience can be offered back to the writer in a workshop in order that the writer may think through the effects of the piece and its intentions.
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Testing the Newsletter Integration
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