Below are thirteen story beginnings of less than sixty words all from award-winning stories.  Which engages you the most and makes you want to read on?  Which engages you the least?  Analyze why, to find principles applicable to your own writing.

All stories are available for free at www.storyinliteraryfiction.com.

1. After a six-hour drive north from Toronto, John Hampton arrived at the family home of his departed wife, Grace, and her daughter Candy, both dead six days.  The house was dark; his sister-in-law, Ruth, greeted him in a nightgown and robe, and knee-length woolen socks . . . she led him toward an attic room.   Speaking of the Dead

2. His sweet troubled son, alone in his second-floor room, he and his wife sitting downstairs irritated by the bass thrust of the loud music.  They didn't know he had taken a loaded shotgun and while sitting on the bed, placed the barrels under his chin and pushed down on the trigger.  Dilemma

3. My one unbreakable rule was never pick up a hitchhiker.  And never at night.  But at the far edge of the headlights this girl showed up in the breakdown lane near mile maker 381, kind of humped over as if she didn't even know I was bearing down on her . . .  Inside the Matryoshka

 4. Most of the lawn-party guests at the country club were Jean’s friends from childhood, and we knew from her brittle greeting and fixed smile that she was upset.  My God.  Most of us would have been weeping behind a locked bathroom door.  She welcomed us alone–although the invitations read “Hosts: Jean and Tim”—without a word about Tim’s whereabouts.  The Golden Flute

5. In 1959, a week after her seventeenth birthday, Catherine missed her period in February, and then in March.  By late April she was not sleeping well and most of her waking hours were spoiled by nausea and hating everything she ate.  Her mother Agnes made an emergency appointment with Dr. Crowder.  The Gift

 6. One summer when I was eight the dead flies were so thick on Grandma’s porch that Mom swept them into piles and shoveled them into large plastic trash bags.  “They’re a danger.  Think of the disease,” Mom said.  The War of the Flies

 7. The wind gust between the walkway and the airplane door chilled Father Ryan as he waited for Bishop Henley to move into the cabin.  Father Ryan’s hand swept across his rustled thick head of light brown hair as the flight attendant smiled and turned to open a can of tomato juice in the galley.  Father Ryan

 8. My Auntie Caroline drove my dead mother’s plum red van on the way to the courthouse.  Aaron, my older brother by two years, sat unstrapped on the passenger side in what my mother used to call the death seat; Patsy, my seven-year-old younger sister, and I were in the back.  Dr. Greiner's Day in Court

9. I was fifteen, never in love, and yearning to leave home when a red, two-seated convertible drove up to our gate.  The driver’s door opened, and a girl of twenty-two with a perfectly shaped, light-skinned body emerged in a see-through dress that showed almost everything, and I imagined the rest.  The Stonecutter

 10. Associate Professor William Possum was looking for student Denise Witherspoon, this attractive, slightly overweight, moderately intelligent woman who was destroying his class.  Denise had caused five angry letters, two dropouts, and a formal complaint that said she “made an evening of anticipated learning a dreadful experience.”   The Perennial Student

 11. “I ain’t going to stand for it,” Mama said.  She said this often.  She held a small dead human about as long as an ear of corn.  Even though the head was too big, the hands too small, you could tell it might have been somebody.  The Activist

 12. In college, I had been attracted to my roommate, Peter Townsend.  But after fifteen years of marriage to Amanda, my thoughts of Peter had faded, until I heard a rumor that he would interview for Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University where I was a professor of botany.  Curse of a Lonely Heart

 13. My life at twenty-one was never in tune–like a D-string on an antique Gibson with a peg that wouldn’t hold–and I’m walking up this two-lane side road about ten miles West of Canton and North of Jackson where I have just come from.   On the Road to Yazoo City

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Tags: beginnings, fiction, literary, story beginnings, storyinliteraryfiction.com, William H. Coles

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I write scientific papers and textbooks, so I thought my dream of writing a famous fiction story was little more than a modest veering from my career path.  I wrote a few short stories for practice to a point where I was comfortably convinced of publication success. With no expectations of failure, I signed up for a writing course at a college with a credible reputation for publishing a respected literary journal. I workshopped where fellow students critiqued my story with, in retrospect, almost zero insight into creating fiction.  But I meticulously incorporated all the student-workshop comments as corrections into my manuscript, and expectantly sent off my story to the college's literary journal, my workshop attendance dates (in bolded italics) informatively placed at the top of my submission cover letter to assure success.

Five months and twenty-two days later, my response arrived. "Your story does not meet our needs." was printed on a four by three inch slip of buff paper, and on the back hand-scratched in pencil were these words: "You have no concept of what a story is, or what a story can do." I was depressingly discouraged–well, in truth, I was hurt and devastated.  But I soon rallied.  I assumed that my story, indeed my talent and intellect, had been sorely misread. I'd get an agent!

Agents, it turned out, failed to see my potential.  I would do better writing a memoir about my teenage struggle with psoriasis, or a love story with breast-feeling detail.  And true gold was in children’s and YA stories that any editor would buy sight unseen. But why deal with agents?  Unlikeable really.  I needed new direction.  I would deal directly with editors, convince them of my quality and talent, still woefully unappreciated and unrecognized.

I went to a writing meeting where conferences with editors were offered and was amazed at my success. A senior editor at one of the top two publishing houses in the country was assigned to me!  Now we're talking.  He advised me with us both sitting on opposite sides of a three-foot-round overstuffed ottoman in a overcrowded hotel lobby–impossible to sit side-by-side–where we both had to look behind us to carry on a side-mouthed conversation. He said he had read my submission on the elevator on his Android.  "We got to get you published," he said. "Try Anstel Aster Hodman."  Holy Cow!  I'd been on the wrong track for so long.  Agents were the way after all.

Next day, my work went Priority Mail to my new friend, Anstel, who responded by email in no less than fourteen hours–obviously not needing time to craft a carefully worded rejection. Great! He knew of my editor . . . but . . . had never met him . . . and . . . he didn't take on fiction of my type for his "list."  Frequent failure loomed. Anstel would make no recommendations and repeated emails over many months to my most-cherished editor-connection went . . . well . . . unanswered.  I felt spammed.

Twelve months later the yearly electronic alumni newsletter of my Midwest college published my now abridged story (required as being outside the five-hundred word limit) and my church-diocese monthly bulletin did a review.  I wasn't flushed with pride, but that did not stop me from tweeting, "Published at last!" with no specific details.

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Tags: author, cover letter, essay, fiction, publication, writing

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More than a few editors see stories with second-person narration as trendy these days.  You enter the church; you kneel at the alter.  You stare into the downcast eyes of the statue of The Virgin, and you wonder if she's listening. Some readers accept this without question as good, and innovative writing. 

Others find it irritating.  Rob Spillman, Editor of Tin House, said: "I have a pet peeve against the second person that I call the second–person accusatory: 'You are walking down the street.'  I go, 'No, I am not walking down the street!'"[1]  Spillman reflects the views of many.  Using the second person the author constantly confronts the reader assuming the reader will react positively, presumably thinking the reader will be drawn into the story, but requiring increased suspension of disbelief (for narrator credibility and accuracy) for the reader to actually enjoy the story.

David Lynn, Editor of the Kenyon Review, recently presented [2] an erudite explanation of the use of second person in a story he was proud to have selected for publication.  “Ezekiel” by Segun Afolabi.  It starts:

You sail at dusk, not knowing one from the other. Moonlight leaks across the water like an oil spill. You see their faces bathed in the greasy glow: children, infants, women, mostly men. You cannot count how many people are in the boat, but you estimate at least thirty, perhaps forty. When it lay near-empty you couldn’t imagine how all of you would fit inside. But here you are, bumper to bumper, as Gertrude says of the downtown Dakar traffic, its hot-city stink, the sweat of a million bodies. “Move your leg,” the woman beside you says in English. She sits, knees akimbo, sheathed in a wrapper the color of flowering pineapples. She wears a mauve shawl tugged up to her neck as if the sea breeze is too much of a balm for the heat. The shawl fails to mask the extent of her condition—six or seven months, you think. You couldn’t envisage Gertrude like this. You wouldn’t allow it. Not on this boat, alone, without her people around her. Then you remember—it will be roughly only one week before you reach dry land; this woman will not give birth between now and then.

Mr. Lynn confesses usual dislike with the use of second person as a narrative choice but provides a number of interesting observations on second person narration, ideas that may be held by many academicians.  (Quotes extracted from David Lynn's analysis of "Ezekial.")

The second-person narrative successfully emphasizes his lack of being a full, mature “subject” capable of first-person story making. The “you” sets him apart, an object, not in control of this his own narrative.

“You sail at dusk, not knowing one from the other.”  Such syntax could, of course, be a sign of mere clumsiness or lack of authorial skill. Or, as soon becomes evident in this story, it may be perfectly appropriate to the narrator and the situation.

So the awkwardness and confusion of the language heighten the nightmarish qualities of the scene itself.

In reading the story I soon realized that the author is indeed marvelously skilled at suggesting and representing the challenges of multiple languages and failures of understanding, without being heavy-handed.

Mr. Lynn points out many other aspects of the writing to admire.  But these extracts provide insight to second-person narration that impressed and pleased him as an editor. (See article.)

At the core, Mr. Lynn's admiration specifically saw use of second person providing:

1) Second-person narrative successfully emphasizes author lack of being a full, mature “subject” capable of first-person story making.
2) the “you” sets the author/narrator apart, an object, not in control of this his own narrative.
3) Mere clumsiness or lack of authorial skill may be perfectly appropriate to the narrator and the situation.
4) Awkwardness and confusion of the language heightened nightmarish qualities.
5) Author marvelously skilled at suggesting and representing the challenges of multiple languages and failures of understanding, without being heavy-handed.

For creation of classic literary-fiction stories (it is true, "Ezekial" seems to be a memory-based "fictional" story), a number of essentials need to be considered to reach memorability and acceptance as great writing and storytelling: clarity of the prose narration, solid imagery that stimulates and engages the reader's imagination, clear ideation, unique and sophisticated character development with some reversal of thought and understanding, theme and meaning, and providing entertainment and enlightenment for the reader.

In second-person narration, there is a barrier set between the author and the reader.  When "you" is used instead of a first person or third person pronoun, there is little accumulation of valid characterization because the "you" is unanchored in an identifiable narrator, and the reader becomes dependent mostly on narrative description since internalization, action, and dialogue are now attributed to a hazy unidentifiable story presenter.  And it is often unclear, whether the author is using "you" as a singular entity, or to a "plural you," which would suggest an even more diffuse identification of who the story presenter is, and more than a little author arrogance in believing that all the world will believe as he or she does.  And, as Mr. Lynn points out, there is, with second person use, a lack of narrator control of the story.  However, for great fictional stories a strong identifiable narrator presence in control of the storytelling is almost always an advantage.

This issue of unclear narrator eroding characterization is best shown by example. 

Second person

You were insecure about Helen's meaning.  You saw her raised eyebrow as questioning your authority, so you pulled the trigger.  You were pleased at the puzzlement in her last look.

Almost surely the reader won't relate to this pronoun . . . accept responsibility for the "you's" thoughts and actions.  And if the reader accepts the convention of "you," characters fail to take on form and personality; the reader is left floating in a confused, awkward telling of a story and knowing of the characters involved.

First person

I wasn't sure what Helen meant.  But her innocent look inflamed me, and I pulled the trigger, happy to see the surprise in her eyes as the life went out of her.

Third person

He did not know Helen's meaning.  He was incapable of understanding a soul so trusting and pure.  Her pleading gaze he took as mockery and he pulled the trigger; he smiled at her stare of surprise and disbelief as she died.

In both 1st and 3rd person, action and thoughts allow the reader to know a character, a feat essential for good fiction.

Marginal writing aside, in these variations using 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person narration, 2nd person does not allow any assumptions as to how the narrator felt or why he or she acted.  Both 1st and 3rd person support the storytelling better.  It is hard to imagine storytelling situations where the failure of understanding the choice of narration, the clumsiness of the prose and syntax required, and the inability to use 1st or 3rd person would be an advantage.

Here is a version of the first two paragraphs of "Ezekial" with the only change of replacing the "you" pronoun (and adjusting tense where necessary) with a third person pronoun.  No other alterations are made.  Study the differences.  Evaluate the "obscurity and the awkwardness" differences on the effective imagery of this story in the original and the altered. Where does second person work or not work for you, and why?  See if there are things to learn about your own fiction writing and storytelling. 

He sails at dusk, not knowing one from the other. Moonlight leaks across the water like an oil spill. He sees their faces bathed in the greasy glow: children, infants, women, mostly men. He cannot count how many people are in the boat, but he estimates at least thirty, perhaps forty.  When it lay near-empty, he couldn’t imagine how they would fit inside. But he was, bumper to bumper, as Gertrude says of the downtown Dakar traffic, its hot-city stink, the sweat of a million bodies.
     “Move your leg,” the woman beside him says in English. She sits, knees akimbo, sheathed in a wrapper the color of flowering pineapples. She wears a mauve shawl tugged up to her neck as if the sea breeze is too much of a balm for the heat. The shawl fails to mask the extent of her condition—six or seven months, he thinks. He couldn’t envisage Gertrude like this. He wouldn’t allow it. Not on this boat, alone, without her people around her. Then he remembers—it will be roughly only one week before he reaches dry land; this woman will not give birth between now and then.

When writers who write to please readers write in second person, they risk alienating the reader, risk confusing the reader, risk failure to develop strong characters, and risk clouding motivations, desires, and cause and effect of characters in the telling of the story.  Yet, the trend seems to be developing a form that pleases more than a few contemporary readers who strongly support use of second person narration.  Every writer will have to evaluate and make decisions based on their own goals for telling fictional prose stories.  However, for quality literary fiction that persists in the literary consciousness of English readers, second person narration may not be a lasting or dependable tool.

[1]  http://www.storyinliteraryfiction.com/interviews/spillman-rob-interview/

[2] David Lynn,  "Why We Chose It"  Kenyon Review  September 11, 2012

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Tags: "Exekial", David Lynn, fiction, Literary Fiction, Rob Spillman, second person, second-person "accusatory", second-person examples, second-person narrative, second-person POV, Segun Alolabi, story, story narration, William H. Coles

1. A.T. Lynne Says:
   March 6th, 2013 at 9:22 pm

   How marvelously confirming the article's concluding paragraph is of the author's initial comment about second person, "Using the second person the author constantly confronts the reader assuming the reader will react positively, presumably thinking the reader will be drawn into the story [of the reader's purpose for writing and limited skill in second person], but requiring increased suspension of disbelief."

   This was your intention, of course, thought the reader with amusement. After all, you are a blogger in head-to-head competition with so many other bloggers out there telling writers why and how they write. You needed an angle, and by that time of morning, when your coffee'd gone bitter and cold and the dog wanted out, well hell, you just needed that last paragraph to somehow tie up this blog post before lifting yourself from the chair.
   And, hey, how many of those aspiring writers would really read all the way to the end? You know from your research that, what? a mere fraction of tweet-attention-span budding writers ever even use the scroll button anymore. They look for the sound byte on the opening screen then click back to CNN or Match.com or are called by their "personalized" Pavlovian ring to ingest the next report from a Facebook friend they've never met about what they just must do with their lives and dollars.
   So, you say, what the hell. I'll summarize this with a trance about their ineptitude and keep all those neophyte writers out of harm's way and save them from the thousand lessons they could learn about second person only by writing it. And, with that final period, you feel good. You feel validated and very, very good, and the dog is so happy to see you coming with the leash.

2. William H. Coles Says:
   May 7th, 2013 at 3:26 pm

   Thank you for your comment. Well done and informative. I've updated the last paragraph, realizing its ineffectiveness in getting my ideas across. A valuable learning experience for me, and hopefully a better chance for visitors to take in your point that a writer's skill in using second person effectively is best achieved by doing and learning, and gauging reader's response. Again, thanks. WHC

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Most contemporary literary writers write, and are educated to write, fiction as if it is a variant of writing memoir. Teachers of creative writing ask students to find what is meaningful for them, what is in their hearts? So when students write "fiction" stories–novels or shorter works–they write from their own experience; describe their own feelings; deliver their own opinions; describe their own memories for setting and scene events; and establish a voice for the work, their voice, without ever creating voices for a narrator or characters as distinct entities. Dialogue especially suffers, since everything in quotes is little changed from what the author would say and think.

But story structure is weak also. Fictional stories in memoir style seem to have little or no purpose and fail to have dramatic progression. In memoir style, almost always the author is the narrator, directly or indirectly, in first and third person, which limits the story presentation to the author's world-view, mind, and experience. And imagination (forming new ideas and concepts) to create story is limited in memoir style to the author's view of the world and descriptions of recollections.

Memoir-generated fiction is now accepted by readers as literary, mainly because of the number of authors who default to this style of writing. The style is easier to write and allows anyone, regardless of language skills, to tell a self-centered story that is increasingly being published today as literary fiction.  But is memoir-based fiction really being accepted by readers?  In today's stressed market with perceived shifting needs, literary fiction doesn't sell books to publishers' satisfaction. That may be because what is labeled as literary fiction is just sloppy memoir.

In the minds of most writers, what literary fiction is little more than a vague mist. Yet, the classics written as fiction (as it has continued to develop over the past three centuries) are rich with vibrant examples of great fiction.  Great literary fiction is character-based, that is, the strengths and weaknesses of characters drive the plot.  Great fiction is created by the author; told by the narrator in the narrator's own, distinct, world-view voice; and acted out by characters, who may in story-appropriate enhancing situations, create their own distinctive voices.  And literary stories have meaning, something happens, and someone is enlightened–character or reader, and often both be it usually in different ways.  Literary fiction is permeated with humor, usually in the form of irony, and has an understandable moral overlay, a morality that is story specific and not, for maximum effectiveness, the morality lived and pronounced by the author.  The writing in literary fiction is dramatic, interesting, engaging, and accurate with pinpoint word choice and carefully considered grammar appropriately chosen for the story.

And literary fiction is imagined, never just narrative description from authorial memories.  Not that the literary author doesn't draw on his or her experiences, and seeks stimulation from the past for engagement and function of the imagination.  For imaginative fiction, the author's world is only a nidus that stimulates imaginative use of a broader-than-author world, but the author's world is not the foundation or the embellishment of great literary stories. 

In essence and in contrast to memoir, literary stories are created by their authors, but authors create from broad views of the world fortified by experience and observation. Narrators and characters contribute to stories from their own special (author-created) worldviews.

The author's presence in the literary story is through the uniqueness of his or her creative abilities, the quality of the imagination, the skill of the writing, and by the author narrating through narrator and characters imagined for the story world; the author's worldview from their own narrow world is not present, or at least not dominant.

Literary fiction takes time, experience, hard work, vibrant imagination, and intellectual investment to produce unique, accurate, image-invoking writing and development of characters with unique characteristics that mesh synergistically with story, plot, and a recognizable reason for writing.  Great memoir is an excellently written, well-crafted presentation of an author's life events and experiences–often emotional and intellectual change–as told by the author.

Readers need literature written with fiction techniques and sophisticated narration to attain pleasure, a feeling of discovery, a new way of seeing the world, and a desire to continue to read to find the qualities of great stories and characters that only a writer of fiction, writing well and telling unique stories, can provide.

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Tags: author, character, character-based, characterization, Literary Fiction, memoir, Narrator, voice, worldview

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After prolonged in-depth analysis, it is clear that in contemporary fiction workshops that teach novel writing, the teaching of novel often competes unsuccessfully with short story, memoir, and creative nonfiction and teachers almost always fail to provide students with skills, attitudes, and direction to mount their best efforts to write a successful literary novel.  To improve the value of fiction novel workshops, teachers need to improve, and students' expectations and willingness to learn difficult and complex ideas needs to be upgraded.

PART ONE: RULES FOR IMPROVING TEACHING OF A WORKSHOP ON WRITING A NOVEL

1. Teachers should not teach novel writing if they haven't written a successful literary novel. 

2.  Never teach literary novel writing in cross-discipline workshops.  Novel writing is it's own challenge, requiring special skills.  It is unfair to suggest to students that they will receive what they need in workshops teaching other disciplines such as memoir, short story, journalism, or genre simultaneously with the novel.

3.   Teachers should critique only entire novels in any stage, or sections of novels where novel has been at least completely conceptualized.  It is no value to other students to hear teachers flounder around a student's beginning efforts.

4.  Do not use unsupervised and unrestricted verbal or written student critiques for teaching fellow students.  Student critiques are often based on value judgments not related to creation of a novel, and often the remedies suggested by students are wrong for the individual writer who may not be at the skill level to sort out or effectively use students’ dictums, edicts, and ultimatums.  As a teacher, remain in control of the workshop teaching.  Instruct students on the techniques and skills needed to write a novel.

5. Do not simply direct student discussions on what they feel, or like or dislike, as if the workshop is a book club in the suburbs.  Use students for assessing clarity of the prose, logic of plot progression, credibility of character traits, and assessment of writer achieving goals.  Allow students to be constructive with alternatives but not negative by pointing out perceived mistakes.  Only the teacher should present specific ways to improve writing and storytelling prioritized for the student's talent and progress in fiction writing.

6.   Teach how to structure a novel.   The concept of a writer not knowing where he or she is going in a novel is harmful to almost any writer.  Many academic teachers take pride in this concept, and, it is true, that in teaching short-story fiction writing, it may be useful to discover a story structure as the writing progresses . . . but not the novel.  Structure generates dramatization, consistent characterization, and writing with purpose to discover meaning in story.  Thinking and teaching structure is essential.

7.  Provide, in every workshop, didactic lectures on how to develop character and plot, to create momentum in a prose story, to instill conflict, motive, and desire in prose fiction, and to organize the writing process to be effective.  Lectures are preferably by the workshop leader independent of plenary lectures.

8.  Teach elements of fiction in every class: structure, narration, word choice, metaphor, humor, morality, syntax, punctuation, pacing, attribution, antecedents, logic, credibility, suspension of disbelief, titles, name choices, effective prose, and others.

9.  Teach about how to effectively chose, emphasize, and balance, modes of fiction for the story being effectively written: diction, plot, characterization, imagery, theme, POV and voice.

10.  Provide in every workshop a discussion of one or two classic novels, read before class as assigned, that demonstrate the skills of novel writing, and novel writing specifically, that you want to teach.

11.  Teach only those concepts to students that will bring out the unique and individual talent of the writer.  Do not teach how to change a student's writing and thinking to create what you feel is the great novel, the way you write, or what you've been taught is good.  Teach what will bring a writer to good story telling and effective prose with well thought out ideas and vibrant prose.

12.  Provide a detailed teacher's assessment of submitted work.

13.  Do not critique student's first chapter or segments of novel as you would teach a short story.  (A short story is a complete work of art, not a fragment.)

14.  Do not teach memoir writing disguised as fiction.  The wonders that fiction can produce for the receptive reader cannot be achieved by memoir or creative nonfiction.

15.  Provide individual conferences with students.

16.  Do not allow student opinion of other students' writing.  Keep discussions objective and not opinionated.    As a teacher, control every aspect of the teaching experience and keep that experience focused on craft and storytelling improvement for the writer, not on the student critquer's abilities or needs for attention.

19.  Teach to identify purpose for everything written.  Every element of writing and every idea expressed should have a considered, well thought out story-related purpose.

PART TWO: ADVICE TO STUDENTS ABOUT CHOOSING WORKSHOPS

Don't depend on academic credentials as a judge of teacher competency.  Being an English major or having an MFA rarely if ever provides what's needed to teach the complexities of writing–or the process of teaching–a successful literary novel, which must have the often arduous, pleasing, informative–and sometimes painful–experience of creating a successful literary novel.  Find teachers who are good writers, storytellers, and teachers.  There are very few active great teachers who are also accomplished novelists.  But if you're a serious novelist, find them.  (And they'll rarely be in academic settings.)

Attend novel-writing workshops to improve your writing and storytelling, not just to correct a fragment of a novel or other manuscript you've completed and submitted.  To present 5000 or less words of a novel you're working on does not provide even an experienced teacher enough to provide you with specific valuable learning of the skills of great novel writing.

Do not attend a workshop "in novel"  that teaches memoir, genre, journalism, creative nonfiction, essay, and/or short fiction.  Best learning is in workshops that teach fiction novel writing.  Workshops dedicated to the novel are becoming rare, primarily for teachers' needs to fill workshops for income.

Go only to workshops where the instructor provides: 1) didactic lectures on quality prose writing and craft of fiction with handouts, 2) individual student conferences on writing, at least one thirty minute conference, a conference that must be scheduled before arrival and not as catch can, and must focus on improving your writing, not publishing, nor on agent-getting.  3) avoid workshops that depend on student critiques that erode teaching of fiction novel writing..

Require teachers to teach prose skills, characterization, plot, and story.  That is there responsibility, not to oversee student discussion.

Do not go to workshops where socialization, publication success, and networking goals are placed above novel creation.  Evaluate, usually best by word of mouth, the goals that exist for teachers and students.  Many teachers are at workshops as a break in their daily lives.  Teachers may party in the evening, be proud of alcohol (and occasional drug) consumption, play poker or basketball to the wee hours, take side trips to tourist locations.  All when preparation for the next day's quality teaching session is, although time consuming, essential for good student learning.  Novel writing is hard to learn and takes time, and if you're serious, don't dilute the value of the time you spend in frivolous pursuits, even if enjoyable, or by studying with unenthusiastic, distracted teachers.

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Tags: fiction, Literary Fiction, novel, workshops, writing workshops

1. gabriel1025 Says:
   April 12th, 2013 at 10:56 pm

   I disagree about NOT attending a nonfiction workshop. Writing true nonfiction requires someone to be brutally honest and once someone understands that is where the real story is at can truly depict any story in fiction. These details we do not want to admit is what makes a character come to life and become real fiction or not. The little flaws and our inner demons are things a fiction writer knows how to tap into, and their characters seem real. Good fiction has some sense of believably in it.

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To simplify a complex subject in order to identify a basic problem that needs to be addressed to improve literary fiction in general, consider there are two ways to deliver a story in literary fiction.  (1) Authorial dominated prose narration and (2) story-specific reader engagement through developed storytelling.  

An author has a story to tell.  The inexperienced writer writes with the false confidence that all that is needed is a description of the story–just write, feel free, get it on the page.  The result?  Narrative description in story present and back story without incorporating drama–conflict, action, resolution–and engaging the reader in scene to experience the story.  But what is often needed is the telling of story in a series of interrelated scenes (which are stories and mini stories with beginnings, middles and ends) that are dramatized with conflict, writing with momentum, and with characterization developed with in-story-present action as much as possible and not simply narrative description of things happening in past (or imagined to have happened in the past.)

This authorial dominance in fiction writing has isolated two sets of authors: (1) one set wants to show he or she is a great writer, believing authorial fancy language and flights of ideation will produce an equal effect a great story can generate); (2) one set wants to create the best literary fictional story within their capabilities, and let that be the focus of author-admiration, admiration that comes from great storytelling, reader perceived after the reading of the story is complete, enjoyed, and remembered.

Many wannabe fiction writers simply use the label of fiction to layer poetic; lyrical, if you will; metaphorical; abstract; static prose on the reader, expressing authorial ideas not related directly to story and characterization, with the purpose of keeping the reader's attention on the author and the author's self-perceived prose skills.  Story suffers.  Great literary fictional stories do not need authors competing with good storytelling by having the author relentlessly calling attention by writing hyperbolic, over intense, strained prose unrelated to story while ignoring the energy and drama of story.

The way to stop authorial dominance competing with story in the creation of a great literary stories?  Learn basics of storytelling–based on historical development of fictional stories; use narration that uses narrator and characters without authorial intrusion, strive for prose that promotes easy understanding of story and characterization, work for theme and meaning in story rather than admiration of poetic performance.

Recommended Readings:

The Quest for Greatness in Literary Fiction and the Failure of Authorial Self

The Three Pillars of Literary Fiction: Engagement, Entertainment, Enlightenment

Academic Fiction: A Distinct Genre

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Tags: story meaning, storytelling, theme

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In Brooklyn, in a rock-bottom economy, a sixty-one year old unmarried mother will be evicted from the apartment she has lived in for eighteen years.  She is a college graduate but lost her job as a magazine writer more than a decade ago.  For more than a year she has failed to find a single ad hoc writing assignment or editing job.  Even a token payment on the more than $10,000 in back rent could delay action, so she appeals to friends and family: her 24-year-old daughter–an unsettled, unemployed, college dropout who takes family welfare money and disappears into a social strata the woman does not approve–refuses to assist; a life-long friend tries unsuccessfully to mortgage her house to help; the husband of her dead sister is amused by her predicament and refuses to help.  Methodically, she applies to New York State, the county, and the city for relief assistance.  The employees she deals with are presented stereotypically as  either incompetent, uncaring, or vicious in their refusals.  

            In the end, the protagonist refuses a $9,000 dollar loan from the city–she expected an unencumbered grant–and she turns down employment as a receptionist that Social Services has arranged because she feels it is beneath her dignity and not commensurable to her educational achievements.

             The writer has more than adequate skills.  The entire 6800 word story is well paced.  The prose is more than adequate and although the work is "fiction," the story is based on perceived personal injustices and frustrating experiences in life of the author that have left her angry from a vague but very real ingrained sense of being discriminated against and mistreated.  The author was deeply involved in her plight and with her writing, fully expected a reader to be involved in her anger and her despair.  Her writing purpose was to vent . . . to expose a perceived crass, cruel, social system and the greedy cruelty of a landlord.   But she couldn't step back from the story to create a story with credible characters and reliable narrator that would promote valid sympathy and understanding.   The secondary characterizations of welfare and social workers, family and friends, were skewed to stereotypical, single-minded, ogres.  Motivations were also difficult to accept.  She wrote on the premise that living in an apartment for eighteen years entitled a tenant continued occupancy without paying rent.  And finally, the author-protagonist refused to take work, or accept assistance, without sufficient reason. A story created without objectivity by an author writing for self and ignoring the needs of the reader that a well constructed and reasonably delivered fiction story could provide. 

            How does a writer lose his or her way?  There are no rules.  Judgment changes with the progression of society and the maturation of the writer.  And even more daunting, there are thousands of decisions to make about appropriateness and effectiveness of story elements to create a story as an art form.  A great literary author doesn't make many mistakes, allow even a few contradictions or inconsistencies, or think illogically.

            How might this author have created a more acceptable story?  Primarily through objective characterization, writing through a broader understanding of the desires, actions, and motivations of all involved, and letting the outrage emerge in the reader–rather than being told to the reader–so as to avoid unsubstantiated victimization.   

            All writers need to write from a broad view of the world.  They need to incorporate points of view that allow consistently objective creation of characters so the story is accepted and achieves a reader-identified purpose.  They need to avoid excessive use of authorial subjective voice and create stories through accurate and unique character voice and story worlds.   

            Great fiction is imagined, character based, dramatic storytelling in perfected prose that is remembered, reread, and imbedded in the literary consciousness of readers sufficiently to pass onto future generations.  It is sad, but the few contemporary writers who might achieve greatness can fit in the back of a mini van. 

            The most common failure among writers is just inadequate ineffective prose–prose that is unclear, purposeless, arrhythmic, uselessly ungrammatical, and with non sequitur ideation.  Without well-written prose, great fictional literary stories cannot be created . . . no exceptions.

            Those writers who learn to write well, and creatively, often fail in storytelling, succumbing to many pitfalls–a result of insufficient learning and practice that results in failure to embrace:

1. Structure.  Ignoring necessity of a definitive beginning, middle, and end, with full control of information release and prioritization of scenes and action and internal reflection.

2. Emotional arcs.  Inability to maintain character thoughts and feelings in a logical progression that ends in change and enlightenment.

3. Drama.  Insufficient skill to infuse conflict, action, and resolution at all levels of writing and storytelling.

4. Purpose.  Writing without story purpose and ignoring meaning and theme, and a significant message.

5. Characterization.  Failure to creatively construct characters with a connected series of actions, thoughts, and feelings.

6. Reader satisfaction.  Failure to provide engagement, entertainment, and enlightenment for reader in story structure and delivery.      

            The rare writers who accomplish creative prose and effective storytelling are not guaranteed success for greatness.  At this level, an author needs to be more than who they are: they need to understand the world and humanity and how they fit into it; they need to be able to write from their characters' worlds to create effective, entertaining, meaningful stories; they need to write with a definable and consistent moral cobweb in their fiction; they need to suppress arrogance, acting with humility in creating their stories.  And authors must never write to achieve an imagined, famous image as a writer, or to fulfill the dream of financial riches from their work; with little doubt, writing is not a reasonable or practical way for most humans to attain fame and fortune. 

            Writers must understand humor . . . what about an individual molds his or her humor–or prevents a humor response–that produces pleasure and understanding in a reader.  Finally, writers must seek to define what they feel is beauty in the broad context of their generation.  Beauty is subjective and individual, but an author's matured understanding of why people and things are beautiful to specific characters enhances characterization and imagery specific to a story that promotes great stories.  Where is beauty in art, music, literature, life, religion, nature, science?  In essence, defining beauty helps crystallize understanding of human nature.

            But most of all, authors need to develop understanding and supportive attitudes towards others, including their readers.  And they need to write stories with a purpose–without limiting themselves to their own lives and attitudes–to convince readers of opinions or evoke emotions.  They need to enlighten readers through exceptionally imagined and constructed characters, and strive for meaningful credible enlightenment.  In essence, literary authors are challenged to reach beyond their own limitations, and write from a broader understanding of humanity and the world we live in.

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Tags: characterization, fiction, literary, Literary Fiction

1. Authors Competing with Story for Reader's Attention in Literary Fiction | Literary Story Fiction Writer's Blog.com Says:
   June 16th, 2012 at 1:49 am

   [...] The Quest for Greatness in Literary Fiction and the Failure of Authorial Self [...]

2. Tim Chambers Says:
   December 2nd, 2012 at 11:04 am

   Good one, Bill,

   It sounds like the author had an axe to grind about the poor. Very few people in my experience would turn down help or offers of work at any level when they are as desperate as this character.

   I can remember the things I did to pay the rent in my desperate days. Sold blood, assessed lots in trailer parks in the Florida summer heat, earning minimum wage. I drove a taxi for a while, quite lucrative actually, if you're willing to keep moving and not just wait for big fares. Managed a slum hotel. Met some great characters that way. All of it informs my point of view as a writer.

   But let's face it. The greats of any age, and any art, would fit in the back of a minivan.

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The reasons contemporary writers often default to writing nonfiction as fiction include: not taught to write effective stories; encouragement to write about self; failure to perceive effective narration required in fiction; unwillingness to commit time to learning the art form of fiction; and overemphasis on writing to be a writer, rather than writing to create a lasting work of art that enlightens and delights readers in new and unexplored ways. Great literature moves people, engages readers’ memories, enlightens people to new thoughts, and stimulates new perceptions about the people and how humans live, survive, and flourish in a increasing crowded and convoluted world . . . or fail, and why.

Writers who cache the world around them in order to describe their lives and life experiences, rarely, if ever, come close to creating the effects on serious readers that well crafted fiction written by a talented, dedicated, world-wise, objective writer can achieve. Writers who use themselves as the source for "imaginative" narrative descriptions of people and the world succumb to a process of writing that often depends on hyperbolic prose and resorts to clichéd ideation. There is a sense that in the modern flurry of writing activity by increasingly more people, creation of great fiction is becoming rare, and published literature faces decreasing popularity due to continued flaunting of inferior writing and storytelling as fiction, and to the overinflated promotion of memoir and nonfiction.

How can the writer make the art form of literary fiction special? Of course solid control of craft and storytelling. But perfection needs accomplished skills of engagement, entertainment, and enlightenment as pillars of the achievement that is the great literary story.

Engagement in literary fiction is more than curiosity, or solving an unknown, or trying to predict how the plot will turn out. In great literary fiction, the reader is enmeshed in story and character. The process has never been described well, probably because it is too multifaceted. The process is highly individual for the reader, and for the work that engages the reader. For some, engagement occurs in the prose fictional story like the visual transfer into three dimensions in a carefully crafted diagrammatic picture that when viewed with both eyes focused beyond the picture surface, a fused 3D image emerges. It doesn’t come easily (1) and people with vision in only one eye can never experience the phenomenon, which is cortical and dependent on two visual inputs.

Effective reader engagement has been also has been described as a "fictional dream." Not entirely useful, since a dream implies loose ideation, failure of logic, and has overtones of fantasy. But this dream idea can be best applied when thinking of awaking from a dream, a sort of emersion from one consciousness to another. In reading, this emersion from engagement is disruptive to story progression and meaning, and usually not desired. To try to identify the "dream-breaking" phenomenon, compare a situation where a writer is intent and totally absorbed in writing a difficult passage, and an external noise, a voice . . . or a bang, or a bright flash, breaks the absolute attention required, and disrupts the productive and creativity of the writing. For the reader, loss of engagement is more than external disruption of reading, and is caused by grammar and spelling errors, credibility issues, narration miscues, pretension, plot irregularities, clichés, lack of logic, erroneous facts, character inconsistencies, authorial intrusion with extraneous ideas, and inability to suspend disbelief. All snafus, a few of many, that are instinctively avoided by educated writers with talent and dedicated to the learning of storytelling and craft skills. So, for a writer's success, there must be submersion of the reader in the story and solid connection to characters that is maintained with minimal interruption in reader attention from any cause–especially poor writing or poor storytelling.

Many teachers of creative writing deny, or ignore, the possibility of literature incorporating entertainment as part of its achievement.(2)   For some teachers, especially academics, it is as if entertainment would divert admiration for the author's intellectual accomplishments. Ignoring the many forms of entertainment (that provide amusement or pleasure) often results in obscure, strained, over bloated, pompous, pedantic writing challenging the writer to read on as if swimming through a tar pit or trying to lose weight on vacation in culinary France. For most writing, responsibility to entertain a reader is crucial so that a work will be read to the end, studied, read again, remembered, and thought of as significant. It should be accepted as true for literary fiction too. And, as a considered opinion, most contemporary "literature" has descended into boring, author self-centered, often pretentious, overwrought prose with weak ideation unrelated to story because the reader's response, and enjoyment, is rarely, if ever, considered by the "literary" author.

Many would argue: Literature is not vaudeville! But entertainment with character, plot, meaning and theme, eases the work of reading for many, providing amusement or pleasure from the reading experience. And the art form writing great literary fictional stories must be conquered. The writer must provide the reader with an effortless process so ideas and images can amuse and enlighten unhindered by writer ineptitude at writing and sloppy thinking. Prose must be understandable, and effortlessly, logical, and pleasing rhythmic. Reading should be seamless, without breaks. Ideas most flow and are delivered at maximally appropriate times for story tension and resolution. Images must be clear, and embody uniqueness in story and real world (no cliché). It is also story structure that entertains–a story with a beginning, middle, and end that has dramatic conflict and resolution. Entertainment is not achieved without engagement that brings enlightenment. So theme and meaning are essential for entertainment . . . for intellectual amusement and pleasure.

Enlightenment relates to changes in characters that stimulate new thinking in the reader; the reader will never be able to think exactly the same about the world or the human condition again in the same way as before reading. To achieve this, writers must develop clear theme and meaning without preaching. And in the end, great stories deal in some way with a metaphysical–unanswerable but important to think about–question. Who are we? Why are we here? What is justice? Is there a God? What is beauty?

The herds of writers producing what has become accepted as literary fiction produce more and more new writing. Unfortunately, the writing is story deficient and soulless, ignoring a readers’ hunger for meaningful fiction with engagement and enlightenment. Let’s hope, with a little good fortune, more teachers capable of articulating the complex needs to create fiction as an art form will emerge, and publishers will once again accept and promote great fiction, not allowing memoir and nonfiction to become the standard of literature for our generations.

(1) 3D image

(2) Robert Olen Butler, a Pulitzer Prize winner and professor,stated: “You know, I’m not sure that many people, in the pure sense, are entertained by many of the great works of literature. The entertainment value of literature is an aftereffect. To create a work of literature, if you have an entertainment intention, it will destroy the work of art.” Rebecca McClannahan, a talented and much admired teacher of creative writing, expressed surprise that literature might have an entertainment value. “You know, I’ve never thought of literature as entertainment. Maybe it is. Well of course it is, but I’ve never thought about that.”

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Tags: engagement, enlightenment, entertainment, writing for readers

1. Dwayne Says:
   April 2nd, 2012 at 4:23 am

   Great post!

   You know it still amazes me how many writers don't consider the readers when they're writing.

   Wake up, people!!!! And then writers wonder why James Patterson sells in the millions. It's not rocket science.

   Say what you want about Patterson's writing, but I can guarantee you that if you were to have a conversation with him it wouldn't take more than 2 minutes before he started talking about his READERS … he's conscious of them.

   Often when you talk with literary fiction writers, the READER is almost like a foreign concept, like an enigma. Honestly, I don't get it.

   Maybe I'll go out and buy a Patterson novel tomorrow just because. I'm willing to bet $10 I'll get more enjoyment out it than I do some of the literary stuff being published lately.

   Dwayne

2. Elizabeth Says:
   May 4th, 2012 at 4:48 pm

   I'm not sure how James Patterson fits into the conversation. I understand you're using him as an example of a writer who writes for his readers, but Coles is talking about "writing to create a lasting work of art that enlightens and delights readers in new and unexplored ways."
   I agree there can be a compromise between literary fiction and writing that engages the reader. I read the interview with Butler, which was fascinating, and I came away from it thinking, "what's the point of art, if not to reach people in some way?" The difference is when the artist sacrifices his art for the sake of entertainment.

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Many writers attending workshops online and in classroom experience frustration with: 1) quality of teaching; 2) the experience, expertise and accomplishments of the instructors; and 3) the heavy reliance on student critiques delivered mostly unsupervised by instructors.

In the main, workshops, both academic and private, will not provide knowledge for students to achieve high levels of storytelling and writing.  And in the difficult skill of storytelling, incompetent instruction can lead a student in unhelpful directions that can derail talent. 

Students need to collect knowledge and develop skills and attitudes before attending writers' workshops, to prevent misdirection for career success and to deflect unjustified feelings of failure and inability.  Students can protect themselves from negative workshop experiences by developing skills and attitudes toward creating fiction before attending.  Here are few basic essentials frequently not well taught in workshops and that are best well understood before taking workshops: 1) Characterization, 2) Purpose, 3) Writing beyond self, 4) Drama, 5) Narration 6) Learning from admired masters 7) Storytelling modes.

1. Characterization.

Learn to build characters from story actions, emotions, and thoughts.  Particularization in descriptive narrative is important to help establish the character in the reader's mind but needs experienced modulation so as to not be overdone. 

On one hand, character building is a sculptor working in clay adding characteristics piece by piece, always aware of the whole.  One the other hand, the awareness of character as revelation by the student is also essential–like meeting a stranger at a cocktail party and discovering who she or he is sentence by sentence, idea by idea.  In many ways, revealing a character is like shelling a pecan to savor the nut. 

Building and revealing are the tools of the writer; good judgment and creative imagination are essential with tethered reliance on narrative description from reality alone, which is more intuitive to write.

2. Purpose.

Determine a purpose: what is it you want to do with your writing?  Most rewarding for literary writers is fiction that affects the reader–moves them and enlightens them in some way, usually about what it means to be human.  In literary fiction, characterization almost always supersedes plot to achieve literary excellence.  But  no matter what the storytelling goals, before writers start to write, they must know what they want to achieve . . . and whether it's genre, memoir, or literary, they should be in control.  Most workshops, mainly for financial reasons, teach creative writing as if there is no difference between fiction, memoir, nonfiction, and essay.  Students need to cull those skills that relate to fiction, or whatever their goal is for their writing.

3) Writing beyond self.

Learn to write from a broad view of the world.  Separate you, as the author, from the narrative telling of the story so that the characters and story you deliver are not just an author repeating his or her life and trying to make it significant, an error that leads to sentimentality and insignificance.  Significant literary characters and story need to come from more than the author, although the author, of course, is still creating this knowledge of the world and life experience.  Here's a common quote: Your character's have to be better and smarter than you (about story and the story world).  Don't put yourself, or your world exclusively, in your writing.  Reach out for ideas and actions.

4) Drama.

Write dramatic story and prose.  Fiction is drama.  Drama is conflict, action, and resolution that results in logical, meaningful reversals.  Therefore, focus as much on learning dramatic storytelling with meaningful lasting effects on readers as much as learning craft.  Learn to write prose with momentum and how to insert conflict and action into writing.  Learn judicious use of poetics so that immersion in lyricism does not swamp the effective clarity of prose and delivery of story, often not emphasized in workshops.   Drama is rarely given the intensity it deserves in workshops, a habit that tends to emphasize less effective techniques of storytelling by default.

5) Narration

Consider narration of literary stories as an art form.  Best stories have a strong narrator presence and provide narrator's perceptions.  It is more than conquering POV; it includes control of voice, attention to suspension of disbelief, addressing reliability, and effective use of psychic and physical distance.  Those who do master narration continue to refine it over the span of a career to apply techniques effectively and seamlessly.  In workshops, instructors frequently reveal inadequate knowledge of narrative control of a story, which results in dictums and ultimatums, usually about POV, that are wrong for student advancement. 

6) Learning from admired masters.

Determine what great authors you feel accomplished effects you admire in readers–enjoyment, enlightenment, emotion, memorability–and then dissect how you think they accomplished that to direct your leaning to be able to create for the reader effectively. 

Successful  authors learn and understand humanity and the metaphysical questions about life–they write from the world, not self–and they learn to create stories delivered with the unique and highly effective techniques of objective prose writing, learning to make all the thousands of effective decisions about craft, life, emotions, drama, and clarity in communication necessary to achieve authorial success.  This knowledge is rarely available in workshops, and students who do not have a solid understanding of what has gone before can be led by instructors to admire and imitate authors that work against a student achieving their individual, specific goals for writing.

7) Storytelling modes

Know thoroughly the essential modes of telling a story, and know how to identify what mode is predominant: diction, theme, POV, characterization, plot, imagery.  Workshop leaders tend to have experience and express prejudice for one mode, a deficiency that can direct a student away from mastering all modes of story delivery.

Conclusion

Should a writer take a workshop?  Of course, but only with realistic expectations of adding to their knowledge, and not expecting to carry away anything but suggestions for improvement that may or may not be beneficial for their careers.  Workshops should be an addition to a student's consistent practice, seeking quality mentors, learning storytelling, mastering craft and studying the literature to crystallize what style and type storytelling is desired.  And always consider that contemporary workshops do not teach basics well in a field where lack of knowledge and preparation by a teacher can default to dictums and ultimatums about writing that are not easy to interpret and can be dangerous to a writer's improvement.

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Tags: characterization, creative writing, drama, fiction workshops, Narration, writing workshops

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While at lunch with a writer friend, and teacher of fiction writing, she confessed she rarely read contemporary fiction anymore.   It's not just lack of time; it's the poor quality of writing and the dearth of even rudimentary storytelling skills.  Why have good fiction writers become buried in the amazing proliferation of memoir and nonfiction, genre and therapeutic confessional stories?  More than a few would say writers are not being taught well.

In truth, the modern literary author with visions of creating memorable and lasting stories[1] has few resources for learning.  Workshops have become the predominant opportunity and most workshops rely–for a majority if not all of the teaching time–on students' critiquing their fellow students' work.  But student critiquing has a shaky foundation for learning: the inexperienced and unknowledgeable, and sometimes the untalented, teach each other.  Who could imagine eight to twelve wannabe neurosurgeons meeting to discuss the practice cases they've been doing alone, without guidance or supervision, in their garages, basements, or attics? 

What are the effects of workshops on writers?  The physiology of student critiquing in workshops was analyzed from eighty-six fiction-writing workshops taken over two decades.  The motivations for students attending sessions varied.  Almost all students wanted to be recognized as a writer  to be published and admired.  Few had developed, as a prime objective, the writing of literary fictional stories that would impact readers with a purpose, meaning, entertainment, memorability, and enlightenment.   It was apparent that dreams of publication and the successful writer's lifestyle were prominent with little desire to create excellence of a story art form.  

Almost all students believed that at their personal level of education, experience and intelligence, they were capable of writing great literature, although they would surely deny it if asked.  Almost all brought their work seeking reinforcement in their abilities and talent, and poised to reject a suggestion their writing was not up to the greatest literary achievement and creativity.  This prevalent attitude worked against learning, a clash between justification of my pride-in-my-work and a desire-to-do-better.   

One dominant effect of student-critiquing workshops was particularity, rather than entirety.  Teachers of workshops required student participation.  "I expect you to contribute."  A fair number of teachers methodically went from student to student when a student's work was considered so no required participant's comment was left out of the session.  In the atmosphere of required contribution, most general opinions and suggestions were stated by the first one or two critiquers.  As a result, many students–pressed by the need to respond with brilliance and uniqueness to meet there own need for admiration as a critiquer–descended into minutia rather than seeking ways to improve the fundamentals of storytelling and craft of the writer.  These students groped for edicts they'd read or learned to fill their need to respond.  Examples: Too many adjectives.  A misspelling.  A comma splice.  Don't use characters' names that start with the same letter or have the same number of syllables.  Show don't tell.  Never begin with dialogue.  Number your pages.  Write from what you know.  These were presented a maxims by those with varying degrees of ignorance.  This particularity without addressing entirety of a work resulted in insufficient learning about story and craft through insignificant and do-not-apply or dogmatic misdirected statements.

The imposed need to contribute also frequently caused student critiquers to default to useless  anecdotal "counter stories" or "global pronouncements."  I visited Paris once in winter and it wasn't cold at all, or, I don't think narcotics are necessary for sports injuries. or I taught sociology for twenty years, an enjoyable career.  Unacceptable in a serious, productive workshop.

Authors presented work with the often unconscious attitude that the work was finished and probably as perfect as they could get it.  Such thinking did not allow for improvement by the writer, but it also contributed to tensions and anger; the writer who believed he or she achieved perfection in their work, felt criticism was unfair and personal. They often smoldered into silence, or lashed out against the critiquer.  This type of response could be eliminated if students are screened for level of accomplishment and attitude toward their work, which should be focused on how to make the story better and improve the writing.

Emotion often dominated class sessions crowding out objective teaching.   A major contributor to this phenomenon related to class structure and ineffective teaching that inserted competition and tension into classroom settings.

Small cliques often formed within the class.  Surprisingly, some teachers were also members of these cliques.  These cliques served to reinforce a clique-member's imagined reason d'etre and generated unfair and often mean criticism of one or more fellow students work–with barely submerged derision–related not to writing but to certain personality features or ideas.  These cliques isolated nonclique students and targeted students the clique did not like by excluding or ignoring their participation.  At times, clique activity provoked anger and frustration with weeping, acid retorts, and in a few cases leaving the classroom not to return. These tension-filled, depressing classes were not necessary and could have been eliminated if workshop teachers would control  student responses related to personality and fortified with cliquish behavior. 

Because critiquing, especially by amateurs, was frequently hurtful to the writer under consideration, most teachers required positive critiques before more potentially-hurtful observations were allowed.[2]  These obligatory positive comments often were insincere and tangential and brought the writer to a false acceptance of worth of the writing, destructive because the required positive comments collectively dulled the author's perception of needed improvement.

Using student critiquing as a workshop norm required low requirements for teachers since ideas came from student amateurs.  Little preparation was necessary by teachers and few skills and little knowledge easily qualify a teacher for workshops even in MFA settings.  Reality confirmed this. 

The quality of teaching skills and knowledge in fiction workshops was not high.   Teachers might have MFA degrees, but many were not educators but writers adding to their incomes and seeking recognition for their work.  Many teachers, even with MFAs, had published work completed in school for degree requirements, but had written little or no fiction since graduation.  With only rare exceptions, teachers in workshops had never been educated as teachers and had no background in the teaching techniques of story and craft, or the evaluation of student progress, which is required in most effective academic disciplines.

Teachers without knowledge or training depended on an atmosphere of student critiquing, not teaching and learning assessment.  Less than five percent of teachers had skills necessary to direct and control what students said or wrote in their critiques.  The atmosphere of these classes tended to be that of book groups as social occasions.  Rare vetting for student knowledge and experience in critiques was so common that often a student might be critiquing as a rock-bottom beginner.

Workshops will only be valuable for writers when teachers teach how to form a story, how to learn craft to support your own unique style, how to support what each individual writer wants to achieve, and how to guide writer's thinking about the writing process and how it can provide enjoyment and meaning for the literary reader.

In general, developing serious writers should take writing workshops with caution.   A writer may leave with destroyed visions for improvement, and unclear understanding of individual potential.  Workshops with lectures and literature study included as well as craft-enhancement skills taught are better than student-critique dependent workshops.  And when a workshop is attended, it is essential to clarify reasonable and attainable personal expectations and goals for the workshop, and keep the focus on how to improve rather than seek confirmation of perceived excellence

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Tags: fiction, fiction workshops, literary, MFA, student critiques, workshops

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