Structure thoughts, workshops

I have been on a couple of writer's workshop panels at various conventions. I stopped doing them for a couple of reasons, but the biggest one is this: I find it very difficult to evaluate a partial novel, a partial story in a way that I personally feel will be useful to the writer. So: this doesn't mean that workshops at conventions or other places are useless--far from it. It simply means that I don't feel that I can do my best review work in the context of a workshop.

It's hard for me to give feedback within the context of most workshops, because most adopt a specific set of rules--which totally make sense, I hasten to add. In these workshops, I will have read the partial before the workshop begins, I will show up at the workshop, I will give feedback on it, and the writer who is receiving the feedback will say... nothing. They're not allowed to talk.

Different writers respond to critique differently. But in the beginning, the urge to defend the work causes many to become defensive. So without rules like this, things could easily devolve into the personal or the strong button-push knee-jerk defensiveness. If the rules are established at the outset, if everyone in the room understands them, they're one step removed from the personal. These are the rules. We are all expected to follow them. You will listen to the feedback given. Your chance to speak comes after all of the writers have given their feedback.

My problem, then, is almost like a process problem. I have read partials--I mean, if I'm alpha reading for Tanya Huff, I'll generally have read six or seven, all starting from page one again--but not within the context of a workshop environment. And years of friendship mean the author is accustomed to both me and what the weight of my words might be. I've started with Tanya as an example, so let me continue with that for a bit.

With Tanya, she will send a partial if she's not happy with where the book is going. I might get 30k words. I will read every single one of them. I will tell her to keep going. I almost never have questions for her; I want to read the book. If she had sent me all of the book, I'd have just kept going until I reached the end. Which she didn't send. Because she hadn't finished it. I'm not bitter.

All I can tell her, however, is that I want to finish this book.

She will keep writing. She will realize things about the book she's writing. She will go back and revise everything and add elements that serve a structural purpose for the book - which I can't see from where I'm reading, because the book isn't finished. To her, then, the need for those specific revisions come about as she continues to write. They make sense to her because she has a clearer idea of where the book is heading.

But they don't make a difference to me because I have no idea where the book is heading. What I know is: I read version two, and I like it, and I'd finish it - if I had the whole book. Which, again, I don't.

I finally said that to her: I would finish any version of this book you've sent me so far. That's it. That's the sum of what I can offer her as a reader. I can't see the flaws - if there are any, and frequently I have my doubts - that she can see because she's looking forward, and I'm looking at what's on the page.

If she needed actual input or feedback beyond that, I would need to know exactly where she thinks the book is going. I would need to ask all of the relevant questions I'd have as a reader, and I'd need some actual answers, because the evaluation at that point would shift into structure. And I can't evaluate structural weakness when I can't actually see the architecture of what's being built.

This isn't a problem for Tanya and I. She's going to write the book. She's going to curse the book. She's going to love the book. Same as any other author, really. I don't need to ask those questions because I'm going to eventually read more; I'm going to see the ending. Unless she's fully hit her stride and doubt of any kind is not a problem. Then I get to read the book when almost everyone else does >.<

In a workshop environment, however, this won't be the case. The authors who have presented their work to theoretical experts or at least people with greater experience stubbing their toes over book rocks and whining a lot (i.e. me) are not people I've known since 1986; they are not my friend or my best friend; they are strangers who share one strong interest in common with me: they write. They struggle with writing.

So when I read a partial, I have two modes: I would finish this book if I had the whole thing. I would not finish this book if I had the whole thing.

And that's not terribly helpful. I can then be a bit more granular; I can talk about, say, clarity of prose, presentation of character, my personal sense of suspended belief. (If I have to talk about punctuation that is bad enough that I have to constantly reread a sentence to even parse it, this will not be useful.)

But... I can't speak of the problems or pitfalls something might have if I don't understand the intent or the direction. If I ask a writer why they wrote a specific scene, if I ask what the scene is meant to start or support, the feedback I might offer will be - imho - more useful; I'll have a clearer sense of whether this particular attempt serves a structural purpose. Or perhaps I'll just have a much better sense of how it either succeeded or failed in the greater context.

The last bit is both painful and useful. I can't tell anyone how to write. I know that every writer approaches writing in a unique way. There's no right way. What I can do is gauge success. I can look at the words on the page and the elements that lay behind those words to see if they worked--but inherent in that "did this work" is the additional: for me.

Because readers, like writers, are pretty individual in what they like or don't like, in what they respond to or don't respond to. The difference, then, is that I can be precise--note, I did not say concise--about why something succeeded or failed for me as a reader.

But I've been in workshops where, since I was not the author, I could actually speak to the critique that was being offered - and I strenuously disagreed with about 75% of that critique. Just as no two authors are the same, no two readers are the same - I think there's more overlap, but reading is largely personal. It's you, and the book.

So in an environment where I cannot question intent, which is, in the end, not about the writing that is already on the page, I feel hampered. My particular viewpoint, my particular competencies, can't be leveraged properly.

There are writers who are stunningly effective and helpful in that environment - I listen to their take, and I feel even lessuseful, because their focus, and their strengths, are not mine, and their advice is far better suited to that environment. Michelle the underachiever >.<

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This post is mirrored from https://michellewest.ca/

I find it hard to have a conversation on Patreon, and have created a WordPress Patreon only blog to make it easier for me to find new comments and respond to them, sometimes at length.

This post is https://michellewest.ca/2022/01/26/structure-thoughts-again/; you should be able to hit Login with Patreon, and should be able to read posts there at the same levels you can read them here.

I'll answer comments here as well if this is your preferred format, but probably not as expansively (which might be a good thing!).