Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
I don't necessarily recommend workshops. I took one once with a moderately well-known writer who is married to a big literary mucky-muck, and it was a disaster. She had very form ideas on how one must right and believed that literary fiction was the One True Way. So, for example, a guy in the class wrote a gangster story for one of the assignments, and rather than working with him on making it a very good gangster story, she criticized it for not being literary fiction. She found me far too genre for her liking, but did come to develop a grudging respect for the way I stuck to my guns with her  A workshop for a writer who is more my speed might be a far different animal. |
Yup. I think workshops and critique groups probably work best where all participants have a fair amount of humility AND self-confidence - they know where to say, "no, that doesn't need to change" and where to say, "oh, no, you're right, that's horrible!".
Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
Fwiw Nomesque, I too read your book and if I had picked it up in a store, I would not have bought it. I do think that it was a little rushed-feeling and might have benefited from being longer and having some time and space to really develop things. I'm not sure I would read another book by you, but I think that's more of a 'not my thing' kind of issue than anything about you as a writer and nothing to take personally :-)
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Yup. I think it was slightly too rushed all through, and the ending in particular. I suspect I will rewrite it someday, when I've got a lot more experience behind me - although I'll be making it MUCH longer.