Writing Workshop
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G-Man
- Made Man
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Writing Workshop
My daughter and I are going to do a one-on-one writing workshop this summer. Any resource suggestions so we can push each other rather than just love each others work because we're family?
Re: Writing Workshop
Depends largely on what you mean by workshop. Is it a monthly set of challenges/prompts?
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G-Man
- Made Man
- Posts in topic: 2
- Posts: 7589
- Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 10:13 pm
- Location: Pennsylvania
- Contact:
Re: Writing Workshop
No. Basically, I'm going to challenge her to write a short story and I will do the same over the course of the summer. Each week, we'll add a few hundred words, trade documents, and offer feedback.
Re: Writing Workshop
Okay. If you don't have a writing coach/editor in your life that can help, the easiest way to maximize benefit is to have a sit-down beforehand and establish exactly what it is you individually think you're weakest in and how you plan to use the short story to work on it. E.g., if you feel your dialogue is your weakest element, then you could focus on a dialogue-heavy short story. This gives the other person a very clear metric to judge: What did they think about that aspect of the story? Did it accomplish what the author hoped for? Was it enjoyable and technically sound? Is it comparable to anything they've read on the market?
One way of getting around the issue of familial bias is for the writer to not disclose information beforehand. Put the spotlight on the reader instead and ask them questions like "What do you think the message of the short story was?" or "What was [Character]'s narrative arc in this story?" This works because the reader can't just say "great job!" and call it a day; they're forced to critically assess the work and offer an opinion. It also provides an extra avenue for constructive feedback: if the reader gets it completely wrong, then the writer knows that they likely made an error somewhere and it's something to work on and revise.
This is a very technical approach, but it'll accomplish using it to improve both your craft.
On a more micro scale, if you want feedback on the way your sentences and paragraphs are formed, it can help to pick a few published novels you like that you enjoy the writing style of, and then you can compare your writing next to them. You can assess sentence variation, how words are used, and how the lengths of paragraphs can be manipulated to speed up or slow down the reader. Unpracticed/young writers use the same sentence structures repeatedly, often right next to one another, reducing variety and making the writing quite stiff. If you have a more professional work to consult, you could do exercises like rewriting a specific section of your own story to emulate the cadence and syntax of a great passage from a book you enjoy. It forces you to really pay attention to how sentences are put together and how they influence the reader. It also breaks your weaker habits when writing and puts you in a position where you're more inclined to experiment with how you're putting together a scene.
One way of getting around the issue of familial bias is for the writer to not disclose information beforehand. Put the spotlight on the reader instead and ask them questions like "What do you think the message of the short story was?" or "What was [Character]'s narrative arc in this story?" This works because the reader can't just say "great job!" and call it a day; they're forced to critically assess the work and offer an opinion. It also provides an extra avenue for constructive feedback: if the reader gets it completely wrong, then the writer knows that they likely made an error somewhere and it's something to work on and revise.
This is a very technical approach, but it'll accomplish using it to improve both your craft.
On a more micro scale, if you want feedback on the way your sentences and paragraphs are formed, it can help to pick a few published novels you like that you enjoy the writing style of, and then you can compare your writing next to them. You can assess sentence variation, how words are used, and how the lengths of paragraphs can be manipulated to speed up or slow down the reader. Unpracticed/young writers use the same sentence structures repeatedly, often right next to one another, reducing variety and making the writing quite stiff. If you have a more professional work to consult, you could do exercises like rewriting a specific section of your own story to emulate the cadence and syntax of a great passage from a book you enjoy. It forces you to really pay attention to how sentences are put together and how they influence the reader. It also breaks your weaker habits when writing and puts you in a position where you're more inclined to experiment with how you're putting together a scene.
Spoiler: show