In the beginning, there was vision;
then, looking at what I had done, I saw that it needed some work, and there was revision.
As I stated in my previous posting, my thesis project began in my first writing workshop at USC. I began the project with the intention of writing a novel based on my father’s childhood experience of losing a close friend in a suspicious hunting accident.
So, from the beginning, all I really knew was the ending; there would be the death of a friend. Beyond that, I had no hard-and-fast plot ideas. Most of the plot and many of the characters in the novel grew out of imagination and necessity only; the main character’s immediate family members are the only ones based on “actual” people. Even the friend who dies at the end is based more upon a composite of friends that I had growing up than anything my father told me about his friend.
I would estimate that 30 – 40 % of the text comes directly from workshop assignments. Inherent to this are some positive and negatives.
First, some of the positives: 1. Workshop forces writing. If you have a hard time producing pages, workshop solves that temporarily. 2. Workshop provides feedback, both from others and yourself. You get some differing opinions and views on your writing.
Now some of the negatives: 1. Workshop forces writing. It may not be your best writing, but you’ve got to do it. And it can lead to unnaturally segmented writings of 8 – 12 pages that may be hard to incorporate together, leading to episodic chapters. 2. Workshop provides feedback. Sometimes the feedback can be harmful, especially if it’s too early in the process or project, or if the criticism is delivered in a way that keeps you from writing.
Next time: Some specific revision situations …
February 29th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I appreciate what you say about the positives and negatives of workshop writing. The only thing I would add– as both a workshop participant and a workshop leader– is that workshop assignments or prompts often get us to move out of our predictable or comfortable or familiar forms of writing. Workshops can make us write things we would’ve never written otherwise, and write in ways we never would’ve written. It’s that push-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone factor of the workshop that I find most useful. I think this is especially important with younger writers, helping them to explore possibilities of voice and craft before they settle in to a style or a voice.