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Fiction Workshop for
One
By Sherry D. Ramsey
You know that great story, the
one you love and you know has potential, but somehow, it's just
not working? Maybe you've just finished
it or maybe it's done the submission boomerang a few times, but
it has problems. You know it, and the editors who have rejected
it know it (even if they aren't telling you what those problems
are). You've done a little revising here, a little tinkering there,
but it's still wrong and you don't know how to fix it.
Many writers
tout the benefits of work shopping your manuscript: letting other
writers read it, critique it, suggest changes and improvements,
and basically work with you to renovate and rebuild your story.
Writer's groups meet in person and online to share the work shopping
experience. But what if there aren't any writing groups in your
area, and for reasons of your own, you don't want to workshop
your writing online. Do you have any other choices?
In fact, you do. You can conduct
a "workshop for one," and subject your manuscript to
the same kind of in-depth scrutiny it would get from multiple
readers. Since you're intimately acquainted with the story, it
may be difficult for you to see its flaws, but it's not impossible.
The key to successful self-work shopping lies in breaking the manuscript
down and evaluating its constituent parts one at a time.
We'll go through the process step by step.
It's a challenge
to do this with your own work, so the first two requirements for
this workshop are a willingness to make changes and the ability
to look at your work with a critical eye. If you don't have these
two things, this method won't work for you. It's also going to
take hours or days to do a thorough job, depending on the length
of your story and the amount of reworking it needs. Recognize
that this is a time investment; you can't do it in half an hour.
There are workbooks and software
programs you can buy to help you identify problems with manuscripts,
but for our workshop we're going to assume a zero investment,
except for our time and a bare minimum of supplies: a dictionary,
a thesaurus, a style guide (all of which are available for reference
online, if you don't have them sitting on your bookshelf), some
colored pens or pencils, blank paper, a quiet spot, and a copy
of your completed story (this doesn't work in theory, you must
have a story to work with). If you've received any outside comments
on your story, have those handy, too.
It's best to
start this exercise at least several days after you've completed
your story. Personally, I like a minimum of two week's distance.
You don't want to do it when the story is still very fresh in
your mind, or when you haven't had time to fall out of love with
it yet! You want to be able to come to the story with as fresh
a perspective as possible.
What you're going to do is read
through your manuscript several times, concentrating on a different
aspect of the writing each time and making notes and corrections
as you go.
The
First Pass
The first time,
pay attention to the structure of the story. Try to answer the
following questions (and don't skip any! If they're difficult
to answer, it may indicate a problem area):
Have you presented
an arresting opening scene? (It doesn't need fireworks, but it
must be interesting.)
Identify each
scene in your story. What is each one's purpose?
Does the action
flow logically from scene to scene?
Do scenes vary
in pace so that the story flows smoothly from start to finish?
Is the story
firmly grounded in time and space?
Is viewpoint
established and consistent?
Does the story
build progressively on what has gone before?
Are there scenes,
action or information that could be eliminated or combined without
damaging the continuity of the story?
Does the story
come to a believable conclusion?
Are all story
lines and loose ends resolved?
Mark up all your
structural changes with a single color, and make lots of notes
to yourself. If there's something that you think works particularly
well, mark that, too, with an explanation of why you think it
works. There's always room in a workshop for a few pats on the
back.
When you're done,
take a break. Go out for coffee, take a walk, stare out the window,
watch tv.
That's all you're going to do this session. On the next read-through,
you're going to be concentrating on something else, and you want
to clear your mind before you do so. At the very least, don't
look at your manuscript again until you've done something else
for several hours. Don't be in a rush. In a workshop for one,
you're not on any deadline except your own.
If you've made
significant changes to your story at this point, you may want
to rewrite it with those changes and start the next workshop session
with a clean copy. Go ahead. It's your workshop. Be sure to save
your marked-up copy, though, because we're going to use it again
later. If you haven't changed much, use the same copy for the
next section.
The
Second Pass
The second time
through, you're going to concentrate on your characters. Consider:
Who are the main
characters?
Who are the secondary
characters?
What do you know
about each of them?
Why are they
doing and saying those things?
Have you told
the reader enough about the characters to make their actions make
sense?
Are their names,
voices, and knowledge suitable for the time and place of the story?
Have you kept
to consistent viewpoints?
Are the characters
unique and believable? Does each character have his or her
own voice?
Have you portrayed
them through their actions, words, habits, abilities and background?
Underline each instance.
Are there "extras"
cluttering up the stage whom you could eliminate or combine?
Mark up all your
character changes, and things you think you did well, with a second
color.
Whew! Take another
break. Walk away from the story, see a movie, read a magazine,
take a nap. You're halfway through! Rewrite your changes if you
want, or wait until after the next session. If your manuscript
is getting so colorful that it's distracting, it's a good time
to rewrite. Remember to save your marked-up pages.
On the next reading
you're going to be starting to look at the details of your writing,
and checking your technique.
The
Third Pass
Read with an
eye to grammar and punctuation Check punctuation rules for common
problem areas such as quotation marks, comma use, colons and semicolons,
and dashes and ellipses. Even if you think you're doing all this
right, it doesn't hurt to check.
Crack open that
dictionary if you've used a word that you're even slightly uncertain
about, or that's outside your normal vocabulary.
Don't trust that
your spell checker has caught all errors -- look it up! Remember,
too, that it doesn't catch all typos or improperly used words.
Delve into the
style guide to make sure you're following the rules.
Read all your
dialogue out loud. Mark up and improve awkward speeches.
Look for long
paragraphs and sentences that need further breaking up.
Consider sentences
for brevity, clarity and energy. Do you alternate sentence patterns
to keep reader interest high?
Change passive
voice to active wherever possible.
Look for awkward
scene transitions or confusing flashbacks.
Use a third color
to mark up your changes. Then walk away again for a while.
The
Final Pass
The last stage
of our workshop for one is probably the most difficult, because
you're going to be evaluating your writing style. For this you
want to start with a clean copy of your manuscript that incorporates
all the changes you've made so far. Now is the time to really
apply your effort and determination, because these can be the
most difficult changes to make. Keep your thesaurus handy. You're
looking for:
dull
word choices
clichés
and common phrasing
missed
opportunities to include sensory appeals (you should have at least
one appeal to vision, hearing, smell, taste, or touch on every
page)
awkward
or too unusual word choices or phrases
lackluster
description
over-description
(purple prose)
wordiness
(watch especially for redundancies, qualifiers, and weak adverbs)
improperly
used or too much jargon
any
other opportunities for stylistic improvements
You're going
to have to question every word you've written so far, which is
what makes this section especially difficult. But you must make
yourself work at it, because your goal is to make your story the
best it can be. Your words are not written in stone. Writing a
story is easy, but writing and perfecting a saleable story is
lots of hard work.
Once you've made
this final run through your work and incorporated all your changes
into your new and improved version,
set it aside again for a while. When you think you have some distance,
re-read it once more before you put it in that envelope and send
it out into the world. If you took your work shopping seriously,
you should be surprised at the improved flow, consistency, tone
and vitality of your story.
Why were we saving
those marked-up copies? Take a quick look over all the changes
you made. Which color appears most often? That's the aspect of
your writing (structure, characterization, technique or style)
that seemed to need the most work. This knowledge can alert you
early to possible problem areas when you're tackling your next
story, or help you choose topics for further instructional reading.
If you didn't understand what to look for or how to improve it
for any work shopping topic, look for print or online articles
that further explain those points.
Work shopping
your own fiction is a big job, a time-consuming job, and one that
makes you question most of the choices you have made with a particular
story. Self-editing and critiquing, however, are skills that most
established professional authors have learned, and apply to their
work on a regular basis. Learn to view your own work with that
same critical eye, and your fiction will be stronger for it.
Workshop
for One Do's
Do
complete each part of the workshop. A thorough job means a stronger
story.
Do
tackle your work with effort and determination. Give yourself
permission to make changes.
Do
accept that changes are necessary to perfect your story.
Do
consider any comments you may have received from other readers.
Do
save copies of your work at different stages. You may change your
mind about some alterations as you proceed through the workshop.
Workshop
for One Don'ts
Don't
skip aspects of your story or parts of your story which you think
are already as good as they can be. There's almost always room
for improvement.
Don't
rush. There's no deadline but your own.
Don't
think you have to change everything. Maybe some of your story
is already excellent. Just be sure to examine everything critically
before deciding what to change and what to leave as it is.
Don't
hesitate to look for more information on certain aspects of
story improvement, even in the middle of your work shopping effort.
Don't
try to workshop more than one story at a time!
This Article was found at: http://www.articleblast.com/
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