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Tonight's meeting of the writers group at the book store was about like the last one. There were four people there I'd never seen, one of whom said he was new, but several of them already knew him because he was a returnee from two years ago. Another was a youngish guy who apparently just started college.
I'm still trying to get a "feel" for how the group dynamics work. How they critique. How they take critique. I haven't said much, because most of my commentary is about not being able to figure out what the story is about because I have only seen part 7 or chapter 9 or the epilogue.
Next week, I'm taking the first half of one of my short stories to them and I'll get a first-hand look at what they're all furiously writing on the paper as the writer is reading. Then I'll have a better idea.
In one way, tonight didn't bode well because the story I least liked garnered the highest praise. "Great word choice," commented Charlie, but what I was thinking was, "I hated the artificial way his characters spoke." I was confused as to who the main character was and who the antagonist was, but everyone else seemed to follow it. <sigh> Second part of four. Maybe all that was explained in the first part.
Then another of the new-to-me guys presented what looked like a script, but was, in fact, the design for a graphic novel. The "stage direction" described the action in the pictures; the things like "INT: Space Station Alpha Seven" describe the backdrop; and the dialog that will eventually go in the "speech bubbles" once the drawings are done was written just like you would write dialog in a script.
It was easily the best thing of the evening, with a surprise twist at the end of what he brought (part 2 of some unknown number of parts) that caught every single one of us by surprise.
I'm taking something that I know has some weaknesses to see if they hone in on the ones I know and—I hope—point out some I've missed. Because I'm still "feeling them out." :)
The group is as wildly varied in genre as I could want. Romance, Christian, Dark Fantasy, three different levels of Children/Young Adult, Historical, Science Fiction (including the graphic novel guy), Ecological Disaster, poetry, and something I don't know how to classify just yet. The group moderator just had two agents ask for a look at his first novel and a third one ask for a summary. So that sounds promising.
I can already tell there are two people whose critiques I'm going to take with a grain of salt because one wants to suggest ways of rewriting it so it's a totally different story (like the one she would write), and another wants every possible question answered by part 2 of 7 without having seen part 1 or waiting for parts 3 through 7. I may be a novice, but even I know that you don't wrap up every loose end in the story 1/3 of the way in.
So...we'll see. :)
I'm still trying to get a "feel" for how the group dynamics work. How they critique. How they take critique. I haven't said much, because most of my commentary is about not being able to figure out what the story is about because I have only seen part 7 or chapter 9 or the epilogue.
Next week, I'm taking the first half of one of my short stories to them and I'll get a first-hand look at what they're all furiously writing on the paper as the writer is reading. Then I'll have a better idea.
In one way, tonight didn't bode well because the story I least liked garnered the highest praise. "Great word choice," commented Charlie, but what I was thinking was, "I hated the artificial way his characters spoke." I was confused as to who the main character was and who the antagonist was, but everyone else seemed to follow it. <sigh> Second part of four. Maybe all that was explained in the first part.
Then another of the new-to-me guys presented what looked like a script, but was, in fact, the design for a graphic novel. The "stage direction" described the action in the pictures; the things like "INT: Space Station Alpha Seven" describe the backdrop; and the dialog that will eventually go in the "speech bubbles" once the drawings are done was written just like you would write dialog in a script.
It was easily the best thing of the evening, with a surprise twist at the end of what he brought (part 2 of some unknown number of parts) that caught every single one of us by surprise.
I'm taking something that I know has some weaknesses to see if they hone in on the ones I know and—I hope—point out some I've missed. Because I'm still "feeling them out." :)
The group is as wildly varied in genre as I could want. Romance, Christian, Dark Fantasy, three different levels of Children/Young Adult, Historical, Science Fiction (including the graphic novel guy), Ecological Disaster, poetry, and something I don't know how to classify just yet. The group moderator just had two agents ask for a look at his first novel and a third one ask for a summary. So that sounds promising.
I can already tell there are two people whose critiques I'm going to take with a grain of salt because one wants to suggest ways of rewriting it so it's a totally different story (like the one she would write), and another wants every possible question answered by part 2 of 7 without having seen part 1 or waiting for parts 3 through 7. I may be a novice, but even I know that you don't wrap up every loose end in the story 1/3 of the way in.
So...we'll see. :)
