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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. :)
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And can you describe this something you don't know how to classify yet? What were the characters like? What was the conflict? Did it involve tentacles?
And are you at all familiar with Dramatica (http://www.dramatica.com/)? It's complicated, but it is a good and interesting way of looking at a story's structure. Or painfully glaring lack of it.
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As for Dramatica, I recently heard of it and will be taking a closer look as I find the time.
The thing I don't know how to classify is probably the genreless "Fiction" that books end up in if they don't fit one of the other genres. A husband and wife are growing farther apart because of their different ways of coping with the death of their baby. In another one, a woman and man who are deeply scarred both emotionally and physically are trying to overcome their own problems to try to come together and try out this thing called "love" that they've been hearing about. :)
Like that.
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Those are called 'dreck'.
:)
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It's a dude writing it, and I've only heard the first third of the last piece of the last chapter. Sounds like it's all about a battle for control of resources in a small town in Georgia. But if I hear anything about Evil Corporations, I'll thwack him. :)
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Just once, I'd like to hear Oprah say, "This month's book is going to be departure for us. I'm reading Scott Sigler's novel Infected, and I'm completely hooked!" Infected is a hard-science, alien-invasion(-ish) horror novel.
Oprah needs to get away from the touchy-feely, three-boxes-of-Kleenex tear-jerker and go for something more juicy.
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But I do like stuff set locally, so don't whack him too hard. :)
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Unless someone can "turn her" to the side of reason and skepticism, of course. :)
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Bzzzzzt! They've already called the schoolteacher lady to task on that one for presuming that a Virginia neighborhood would have only one Christian family and that the daughter being one would scandalize her friend(s). I'd believe it if "Christian" were replaced by "Druid" or "Muslim" or "Atheist," but not the way it stands. There are too many of them around, especially in Virginia, for that plot point to make sense. So she's gotta go back to the drawing board on that one.
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Bleh. The "tear-jerker."
The main character is most likely a "be-er" (passive resolution technique) using "female mental sex" (holistic, non-linear thinking), the domain of the objective story is "Mind" (everyone is dealing with static internalized issues), I'm guessing that each action is driven by some sort of decision, and I just bet the climax is an "optionlock" (there's no particular time limit, they just run out of things they can do). Sounds like a perfectly dreary little recipe. Misery a la angst. Men are genetically predisposed to hate a story like that.
And consider this your introduction to classic Dramatica technology. I just haven't enjoyed it as much since they introduced those wussy alternate terms. While on that site, be sure to check out their analysis of Planet Terror and Death Proof.
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I couldn't begin to tell you much more because that's all I got from the four pages I saw (which is from a point 1/3 of the way through the novel) and his rather lengthy expository introduction before the reading.
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That's what "he" told you, eh?
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And he definitely wrote it. No one could geek for that long on a story without having actually written it.
Or being a really, really big fan of it, like Babylon 5 or something. :)