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
• 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
• 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