Editor's
Note:
Every year, there are writing workshops across the country
— everything from the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
to much lesser-known seminars. Each offers, in varying
degrees, feedback on a person's work, networking possibilities
and the chance to learn by reading other works in progress.
What's it like to place your prose up for group criticism? News
staffer Lori Tobias recently attended a noted San Francisco
workshop. Below, her first-person account.
It is Day Six of Tom Jenks's and Carol Edgarian's
writing workshop, the day my manuscript is to be critiqued. It
is a day I've been alternately dreading and eagerly anticipating
for at least a month. Edgarian calls to me from across
the room, "Lori, I've seen prisoners on their way to the
electric chair who look less grim than you." I force
a smile and remind myself it's only a book. My book. Might
as well say it's only my heart.
My journey to the San Francisco workshop begins in January when
the simple black-and-white brochure arrives in my mailbox. I
give it a glance and throw it on the pile destined for the garbage
can. I've been to my share of writers' conferences. I've
met the agents, schmoozed the editors and spent afternoons hearing
the literary A-list read. And I loved every minute of it. Problem
was, I feared that 10 years down the line, I'd still be showing
up at the same workshops, pleased as a groupie to be there, but
still light years from being published.
That's when I made the decision: no more workshops. But
that posed a new problem. I was on a major rewrite of my first
novel and stuck.
I pick up the brochure again.
"Tom Jenks
is the editor, with Raymond Carver, of American
Short Story Masterpieces, and a former editor
of Esquire, GQ, and senior editor at Scribner's,
where he edited Hemingway's The Garden of Eden."
My heart beats a little faster. I read on.
"Carol
Edgarian is the author of the bestselling novel Rise
the Euphrates (Random House) and writes
for national magazines.... Together Mr. Jenks and Ms. Edgarian
edited The
Writer's Life: Intimate Thoughts on Work, Love, Inspiration,
and Fame from the Diaries of the World's Great Writers."
Enrollment limited to 18.
Before I can finish reading, I'm dialing their number. At
the tone, I leave my message. How much and how do I get in? By
the next morning, I return to my senses and throw the brochure
away.
Two days later, Jenks returns the call. He speaks with
a hint of the South: warm and smiling. He tells me that
if I send him 30 pages, he'll let me know if I'm a good fit for
the class. Within minutes, I'm sneaking out of work early and
speeding home to print out my best chapter - despite his advice
to send something that needs work.
When he calls two weeks later, his criticism is direct, though
not unkind. I hang up feeling hopeful, inspired and just a little
worried. The seminar cost of $2,100 is an awful lot of
cash to this writer, and then there's the matter of air fare.
I turn to the Web site, review their credentials one last time
and write a check for the $500 deposit.
As the rest of the world watches the Broncos charge
toward their second Super Bowl win, I read Edgarian's Rise
the Euphrates and cry through the first 50 pages. Whatever else the
woman may know about literature, she knows how to write.
In
March, a package arrives with instructions for critiquing the
18 manuscripts soon to be in my mailbox and a reading list
of a half a dozen books, including Aristotle's Poetics,
Henry James's Washington Square, and Toni Morrison's Sula.
It's going to be a long spring.
At the end of the month, the manuscripts arrive along with a
schedule of private conferences and in-class critiques, the latter
of which has me placed dead last. My friends suggest three
possibilities: They're saving the best for last; they're saving
the worst for last; it has no significance whatsoever.
The quality of the manuscripts is initially intimidating, though
I eventually decide some are really good and some, pretty bad. By
the third round of reading, however, I'm not so sure which are
which.
It's
Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. The workshop begins at
9 A.M. at the Fort Mason Center, an old military installation
on the bay.
We introduce ourselves and I get my first look at the faces
behind the manuscripts.
There's a doctor from Texas, sixty-something and writing a coming-of-age
tale that I guess to be largely autobiographical; a middle-aged
man, working on a memoir of how he made millions, many, many
millions, in Silicon Valley; and a thirty-something New York
woman with a nasty cold and what turns out to be the annoying
habit of hiccupping, coughing and otherwise calling for attention
throughout the week.
Coloradans outnumber even Californians and include myself, a
mother of three from Telluride, a woman from Boulder, a young
aspiring filmmaker from Vail, a mental health worker from Lakewood,
and my friend Jennie, a local freelance writer and musician,
also from Lakewood.
Later, Edgarian tells me there are several cities with a large
number of sophisticated readers and writers. Denver, along
with San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Boston, New York
and Chicago, is one of them.
By 9:20 we're ready for the first critique. Jenks invokes
a gag order - the student being critiqued may not respond until
the critique is over- and Edgarian directs the first student
to read. She is a poet whose manuscript about a mother-and-daughter
conflict is among the strongest of the group. I can't imagine
what they'll find wrong.
Plenty, as it turns out.
For the next hour, Edgarian and Jenks explore the strengths
and weaknesses of the piece, coaxing from us opinions and reactions
to various passages, then suggesting how it might be stronger.
Other students tentatively jump in. But, unable to formulate
one intelligent thought, I keep my mouth shut. Something
tells me the standard workshop comments, "Needs something
here" or "This doesn't work for me," aren't going
to cut it here.
Later in the week, when our comments take a turn in that direction,
Jenks proves my instincts right. He reminds us that our
purpose is not to rewrite the novel but to articulate what's
working or not, and why or why not, as specifically as possible.
Of the two, Edgarian is the nurturer, a woman who clearly relishes
her role of teacher. Jenks is warm but quite firm. Together,
the husband and wife communicate a deep respect and passion for
literature. In response, we hang on their every word.
By lunch, I've filled a quarter of my notebook. I no longer
know whether my work is good, bad, hopeless, mediocre or what. But
already I trust that by the time I leave, I'll know what's wrong. The
question is, will I be able to fix it?
We spend the afternoon discussing Aristotle's Poetics,
derived from the philosopher's fourth century teachings, and
a short story by David Quammen, titled "Walking Out." Jenks
leads us in a discussion of plot, simple and complex conflict. We
talk about volume to density - how each sentence must do more
than one job - and beginnings. Who knew a first page could
accomplish so much?
Two thoughts occur to me: One, I will never read the same way
again; two, I need a new Page 1.
Class ends at 4 P.M. — the earliest we will ever get out
- but not before we're given an assignment. Come to class
prepared to tell a three-minute tale about the worst thing you've
ever
done and never told anyone. As one, we groan a collective "Huh?"
"Those who take the biggest risk earn the biggest reward," Edgarian
promises.
That evening I review my notes.
"Resist when sentences. Every scene is irrevocable. Dialogue
is what people do to each other. Character is desire. Blocks
of description become static. Back story must have its
own tension. Time never stops. Mastery depends on
movement. Where the writer leaves a hole, the reader fills
in with stereotype. The hotter it is, the colder you write. Stories
always reach a metaphysical ending."
Can this really still be Day One?
At lunch the next day, Jennie and I share the tales we might
tell. We can think of plenty of guilt-inspiring epics from
our lives, but none we haven't ever told and none we're particularly
eager to divulge. I decide on a story I'll tell if I'm
feeling brave, and a backup in case my nerve fails me.
After thoroughly examining James's expertise in creating the
characters of Washington Square, Edgarian asks for a volunteer
to tell his tale. I raise my hand and tell a tale from
10 years ago that even my best friends don't know.
By the time class gets out at 5:30, I'm exhausted.
Tuesday, I meet with Edgarian for my private critique. The
good news: She loves my characters. The bad: The plot flags. Is
it publishable? I ask. "If this is publication," she
says, holding her hands a foot apart and emphasizing the foot
mark with her right hand, "You are here," she says,
left hand pointing to the imaginary 4-inch mark.
The burden of her words doesn't weigh on me until afternoon,
when I decide they have kept my manuscript for last because it
is an example of every mistake a writer can make. I decide
to scrap the novel I've invested three years of blood and sweat
and hope into. Surely I must have a better story in me.
And so goes the week.
Each morning we critique manuscripts until noon, when we break
for lunch. That's followed by three hours of studying a
novel or a short story. We end the day reading aloud our
assignments - practices in plot, point of view and description - from
the night before.
Thursday we critique the short stories of a woman who
has barely uttered three words the entire week. Her stories
are beautifully written, though unclear in meaning. At
break, she tells several of us she'll abandon this style of writing
for a more conventional form. When we urge her to continue
what she's doing, she says in her very quiet way, "I've had
some luck with traditional forms. I won an O. Henry this
spring."
"An O. Henry?" we chorus.
"Umhmmm," she says shyly.
We cease with our reassurances and return to class. That
afternoon we're given another storytelling assignment. This time,
tell a story of envy. I resist the urge to tell the tale
of a woman and her O. Henry.
Friday
is my day of reckoning. Edgarian asks me to begin reading
with Page 16 and I continue for three pages to the end of the
scene,
at which time I hold my breath, put pen to paper and refuse to
look at anyone.
"This is how it's done," Jenks says. I release
the breath I've been holding.
"You need a more authorial point of view throughout," Edgarian
says. "The dialogue is perfect. Keep the story moving so
it's not just the moment but the meaning of the moment."
"There are a lot of characters onstage," Jenks says. "This
is good. Without losing the montage, give it a stronger thread
in story line. Which things are essential and why ... "
Edgarian: "But you don't want it to become a Saturday night
buffet."
The last word comes from Jenks: "The main instruction for
you, Lori, is keep going."
At noon, seven days after we first met, it's time to say goodbye. It's
been a grueling week, like a crash course in the master's program
I never pursued. I fly home that afternoon. Tired.
Elated. Sorry to have to go yet knowing I couldn't possibly absorb
one more thing.
Two days later, I have rewritten Chapter 1 and moved, I think,
one more inch toward publication. |
