6.2 KiB
6.2 KiB
%title RAWR day 1
Administrator lecture
- History
- Goal:
- Bring everyone together
- Lean on instructors and others
- Structure:
- Morning: Lecture:
- In the drive, lectures are explained in EVENTS
- Living schedule
- Reading:
- Monday/Wednesday
- Reading/critique of stories:
- Discussions just talking about stories
- Critiques have specific structure.
- Critiques need to be in before session.
- Coaching:
- Entitled to single session with each instructor
- Aim for doing after critique
- Morning: Lecture:
- Code of conduct:
- Don't be a jerk
- Conversation, not a shouting match
- If something makes you uncomfortable, say something
- Put TW/CWs on work (updated documents for such)
- Harassment policy:
- If you feel someone's conduct is inappropriate
- Let either the other person or an instructor know
- Feedback and complaints:
- Lean on email - Alkani
- Survey after
- Post event:
- Survive the Crucible - very compressed event
- Emails will be transferred to alumni list
- Slack after
- ReRAWR
- 50% discount for Archivos tool - mindmapping, cloud-based, etc.
Instructors' lecture
- Staff and Instructors:
- Kyell Gold:
- Been doing it for about 6 years, Alkani runs logistics
- Weird doing it in person, hang out online!
- BG:
- Attended Clarion 10 years ago
- Writing for a long time, hope to share
- Dayna Smith:
- Met Kyell at novel workshop
- Lecture given elsewhere (Wiscon, etc).
- Read "Hangdog"
- BG:
- Clarion 6 years ago
- Mostly novels, but also writing for Lovestruck (app)
- Suggestions:
- Hang out in common room often to learn from each other, etc
- Learn from each other, take chances
- Stay in touch, use alumni network
- The story that we produce will be a first draft, nothing needs to stay secret, don't worry about making it polished
- All of us help each other become better storytellers - no one wins the workshop, or rather, all of us win it
- Kyell Gold:
- The Story:
- One thing we will be doing here is creating something wholly new
- That will be Th critiques
- From Julia Rios (started at Strange Horizons, moved to Uncanny)
- "Come up with something new, doesn't have to be long (follow RAWR guidelines), but it has to be complete"
- Don't freak out - you get out of it what you put into it
- Know what you can do on the fly, so this shows what you can do, have fun
- Useful if you have a deadline if you're prone to overthinking
- Critique:
- The better you learn how to critique, the more you learn about your own writing, let you critique your own as you work
- The point is to help the author improve the story, how to make it more effective
- Author is always free to reject a critique, but every critique is valid
- How:
- Read it through once to get a sense of the story, let it work its magic
- Go back with 'red pen', what worked, what didn't work, where did we fall away, what was exciting, characters, what to see more of, what to see less of, etc
- First readthrough shows where the author is going so you can see early setups pay off
- First time, author just listens
- Mechanics:
- Make notes with whatever program
- Written critique - basically an essay about feelings of story:
- Was the story engaging? Was there a point where it lost you/you got bored? (MEGO - my eyes glazed over; red line through story where it stopped being engaging)
- Story components:
- Setting (add to the story)
- Characters (interesting)
- Description (clear and enjoyable picture)
- Language (nice to read)
- Dialog (flow, not too realistic, more like movie dialog)
- Story and plot (satisfying, useful structure)
- Highlight both good and improvement
- A few minutes to read through essay during critique (or bullet points)
- Instructors will have longer critiques
- Critique story, not author (don't hearken back to other stories, etc)
- What was intended, how effective was that
- Positive, yet constructive:
- even if it doesn't work for you, find positivity
- Helps for saying nice things about your own story
- Aim for 'improvement' rather than just 'didn't like it'
- Don't try and rewrite:
- "If this were my story, I might do..."
- not "You should do this"
- If multiple people say that something didn't work, they're probably right, but if they tell you how, they're probably wrong
- Author can ask for that during dialog after silent listening
- tally mark of confirmation is fine, don't need to hammer in a point someone already said ("ditto x" or "I disagree with x")
- Receiving critique:
- Be prepared for folks to tell you what's wrong with the story (compliments make it easier)
- Take a lot of notes (make sure to write down praise, very easy to forget praise, important to have sense of what you do well)
- Every critique is valid, but you'll never get 100% agreement, up to you to decide if you'll tweak
- When brought into the discussion, that's when you can ask questions
- From both sides, trying to make the story better, so accept critique in that spirit
- If you're writing about something personal, let folks know if we're prancing around on sore spots
- Feel free to write personal stuff, experiment, etc
- Introductions:
- Alkani (they/he)
- Dayna (she/they)
- Kyell (he/him)
- Makyo/Maddy (she/her)
- Kiri (she/her)
- Al (he/they)
- We'll have a common room that's mostly w/o instructors in order to get some space to chat or work together (can ask for that)
Assignment
- ASSIGNMENT: Read stories in drive (links/PDFs provided) for discussion tomorrow.
- "Guide to Working Breeds" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
- "A Soft White Damn" by Ryan Campbell