And by horror stories, I mean the worst, weirdest, and absolutely wretched experiences you've ever had related to writing, writers, or anything... you know, um: literary.
I've got two:
First: The first story in my first SW fiction for workshop was written by this cleft-chin guy w/ an ***hole face. He kept bragging about how he was working on this big novel, and how he was almost done, in the guise of asking the instructor if it would be alright for him to pass out the first chapter--and he asked seven or eight different times.
We get two stories to read & workshop. His, and one other. The other story is pretty average... but in comparison: spectacular. The first chapter of the novel is atrocious. Unclear pronoun references, semicolons followed by ellipses followed by more semicolons--virtually every noun was some fantasy-word with eleven different consonants and the whole bloody story didn't make ANY sense.
So I, and my peers, spend hours mucking through the drivel and trying (and failing) to make sense of it (we never did)... and the guy doesn't bother to show up for his workshop. In fact, he never came to class again.
****.
...
Also: To give you an idea of what' I'm reading through, let me show you all an excerpt from the response I'm writing for a nonfiction essay we're workshopping tomorrow:
quote:
So... you tell us you're sexually attracted to children, but aren't a pedophile? Okay....
Do I need to call the cops or something?
quote:
"Sorry I wasn't more hurtful, but I find myself being more civil to the good writers who can take abuse than the bad ones who can't. Ironic."
Well, this sh*t-don't-stink writer just happened to have a story up for review. I vowed to myself that I would look at it and give him my honest assessment. If it was good, I would tell him so but relay my displeasure with his attitude. I secretly hoped that it failed to meet his own criterea of standards.
I got my wish in spades.
What I read was 9000 words of drivel. I mean bad, bad, awful. My friend had a program that could count words. He came up with 514 was's.
I wrote a 4000 word critique and could have doubled it with what I read. I admit, I was extraordinarily harsh, but he had it coming. In my best sarcastic way, I gave this guy back what he dished out for months. Here is a few of the things I wrote.
quote:
>There was nothing there.
(sounds like your plot)>He knew he wasn't having trouble finding words for things, (He may not be, but you are in this script)
>That was what was amazing.
(What is amazing is how much you use ‘was’. Do you get a royalty on that word every time its written?)
Now the guy wrote me back crying that I mistreated him. I apologized. That's when my friend informed me that he had a blog. He edited my apology and posted on his blog to make me look like a real douche-bag that begged for his forgiveness. That didn't sit well with me. The email flame war raged for two weeks before I finally decided he wasn't worth my attention anymore.
However, reviewing his other crits, I noticed I wasn't the only one to show their distaste for his prose. One guy summed it up perfectly.
quote:
I would like to congradulate you for your ability to write 9000 words and go absolutely nowhere with it
A separate critiquer, that gave it to him twice as hard with half the words, I emailed. She is now a regular email friend from South Africa. One that is a published successful novelist.
[This message has been edited by snapper (edited December 09, 2008).]
If there's a genuine concern for safety and well-being, the group facilitator is the person to be notified discretely, privately, and is responsible for addressing the issue as delicately as possible or as aggressively as needed. An unfortunate misunderstanding can plague an innocent yet careless well-meaning person for their lifetime.
Nowadays, universities have policies in place for defusing dangerous situations, especially in light of the recent tragic violence at Virginia Tech. Today they all have well-developed policies for addressing hazardous individuals. The instructors the firsthand responsibility for addressing inappropriate acts in the classroom to preserve the peace.
Yet despite situations that beg for attention, the harsh reality is thought is inviolate and word is protected expression, within limits, otherwise creativity is stifled. Deed is where an actionable offense occurs.
Even though the workshop is in nonfiction, ideation of taboo behaviors and their verbal or written expressions should be taken with a grain of salt. There's creative expression going on regardless of whether it's fiction or nonfiction. What someone writes and represents as fact isn't necessarily factual.
But that's not light discussion. I don't have any light anecdotes from workshops I've been in nor any desire to violate the confidentiality of them. They're all horror stories, but not light. Grueling and abusive, sometimes insightful, but more often than I liked more demonstrative of personal egos than about craft.
Yes, it does appear that I violated a sacrosanct (maybe I did). I will admit that my critique was reactionary. However it was honest and fit well within the criterea he set for others.
In my defense, I made every effort not to display anything that would represent the authors idenity or script. Only the author that wrote it would recognize his own work from what I wrote.
As an extra note, the harsh crits the author received (he had more than mine) had their effect on him. He suddenly learn decorum in his critiquing style AND his prose improved ten-fold with his latest submission. (Yes, I checked). Maybe my crit had an effect or maybe he took the advice of another critique he received.
quote:
I suggest you take a writing class or basic English course before you attempt to masquerade as a writer again.
I am reading a manuscript by a French author who has self-published before. He wishes to get his manuscript translated (by me...ackkk!) and then send it to publishers in the US/Canada. The problem? It is what I would call a working draft, the idea is there but it fails to deliver a coherent story line. Every sentence has multiple adverbs, and he has taken care not to use the same words twice in a chapter (except names). It reads like a walking thesaurus!
I have tried to gently crit the work, only to be told that is perfect, and a fine example of poetic writing. I wanted to say stick to poems then, but bit my tongue in time.
He also refuses to comply with publisher guidelines, and wants to send the whole manuscript in one go. I am hitting my head against a brick wall here.
Can anyone suggest a good way of extricating myself from this hell and not to lose some friends? I thought of saying that my translation skills weren't up to the job of expressing his perfect prose adequately.
Not many related to writing...I'm not involved that much in workshopping or critiquing...I've lost manuscripts and had unpleasant rejections and all that...
Probably the worst experience relates to sending some poems out to somebody. I got criticism back...he brought up the meter and rhythm of the lines I wrote...in my reply, I made the mistake of saying I liked it the way it was...and in his reply to that, he basically tried to tear me a new hole.
Now, whether you reply to criticism, and how you reply, is up to you. I'm willing to be polite but firm if I have a strong opinion about something I wrote. I am aware that (in nearly all cases) the guy is just trying to help me be a better writer. In any case, I wrote politely to this guy, he wrote back politely, I wrote back in a way I thought was polite, and he wrote back rude.
I didn't bother writing back...I turned out a crummy piece of verse about it I never bothered submitting anywhere...about two months later I got a letter containing the poems I'd sent him...I moved on with my life, and what became of him, I neither know nor care.
Personally, I like honest critiques as long as they aren't intentionally rude.
I would believe what goes on in the USPS, write a story on it, please! You have an insiders viewpoint, think of the credibility it will give to any plot, whether comedy, crime or horror.
Back to topic:
My personal, worst experience was having a story accepted for publication by a paying magazine, then they went bust before printing it!
I drive out there four or five times, and each time I go the payroll person isn't there.
The fifth of sixth time, I FINALLY get my check. And it bounces. ~__~
I think they went defunct a little after that--I'm not sure, I stopped paying attention.
quote:
Now, whether you reply to criticism, and how you reply, is up to you. I'm willing to be polite but firm if I have a strong opinion about something I wrote.
I'm kind of of the opinion that no one should really "respond" to criticism. Each time I've seen that happen, in a workshop or out, it always devolves into... nastiness. Especially in a class--it can really ruin the atmosphere of a semester.
-__-
I don't feel that workshops are particularly sacrosanct. I mean, we're writers--everything is fair game.
-__-
The first essay I edited, I made the girl who wrote it cry. It was a good essay, and I said as much, but it also had tons of grammatical errors... and I marked every single one. That was a nasty experience, for both of us... but I learned from it.
I've had my manuscripts, my comments, and my response papers circulated in dorms, to family members, coworkers, and so on, by classmates without my permission. That's a gross violation of the tacit workshop contract.
I've been in workshops where consent to an explicit confidentiality agreement was required due to the laissez-faire attitude toward confidentiality of a few participants in previous workshops that resulted in harm.
I've signed confidentiality agreements with workshop facilitators, writing professors and published authors alike, requiring me to acknowledge that their lectures are their property. Specifically, any recording of their lecture is unconditionally prohibited lest it wind up on YouTube to nefarious purposes, or the like, which something similar happened to one of my better-known professors. The spoken words, the course materials, anything that's intellectual property must not be published by anyone except the owner of the rights, nor excerpted without fair use attribution. No still photography allowed for similar reasons.
Once, a workshop member asked to take a picture to memorialize her experience. She received a resounding and unanimous no, much to her consternation. Personal rights are tragically under threat in this age of obsequious technological advancement. Better to request permission than beg forgiveness, I say, lest it result in we all surrendering our rights.
*Ahem*
Extrinsic, I think I understand what you're saying, and I think I agree with you. The thing, the point of this thread has nothing to do with dissemination (or even description) of other peoples' work--and no one who's posted has done that. It's more about personal experiences that are humorous or horrifying, related to writing... but only related.
For example, about an hour ago I was in my nonfic. workshop--at the start of one we had a guy (big, bearded fellow) jump up and shout, "IT SUCKS!"
I think it was partly facetious. Probably.
quote:
I thought of saying that my translation skills weren't up to the job of expressing his perfect prose adequately.
Sounds like the best approach to me, JudyMac. And if he/they try to encourage you, insist on your inadequacy. And get out as quickly as you can.
The harm that's been done that I'm referencing revolves around more subtle and enduring aspects than the everyday personality clashes commonly encountered in workshops. I've been seriously harmed by trust violations of the purported sanctity of workshops. The sometimes depraved, self-centered motives of people who will have the last word, right or wrong, and take it outside of the group for their satisifaction alientated me and contributed to my being alientated by the creative writing department of my undergraduate alma mater. It was less troublesome to reject me, an outsider by nature, than to discipline an unruly insider. Institutional shunning, is there any worse horror for a social being struggling to fit in.
I suppose one of these days I should write them about it...