Re: Do Critique Groups Work?

On Sep 6, 12:47 pm, "Patricia C. Wrede" <PWrede6...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"J.Pascal" <ju...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189102109.386769.100600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My theory is that what seems interesting and entertaining to the
writer (me!) isn't necessarily interesting to anyone else. My goal
lately has been to try to figure out how to ramp it up. My socially
shunned cybernetic enforcer (any clue to why he's shunned?) has
an estranged but essentially decent family. The bad guy
he's after is a bit selfish and feels himself above the law, but he's
far from vile. The courier/spy is an assassin but a generally
moral one... somehow. No one has a whole lot to lose. No one
has a whole lot to gain. I don't think that an action packed plot
could save it.

Perhaps not, but the right reason for your enforcer being shunned might.

What usually seems to work best with this sort of thing is *not* to layer on
a new plot, or more action, or whatever; it's to find the thing within
what's already there that will intensify what's going on. If you yourself
aren't terribly fond of "intense," well, that could be a problem, but it's a
different sort.

I believe I've made some progress on this lately so I was mostly
using the example of the problems as I saw them. And I think
you're right about finding what is already there. I initially liked
the
idea of my enforcer guy because of the isolation he lives with
because he's a sort of super-cop and because he's got the cybernetic
stuff going on and that's illegal for anyone else *and* because the
choice to do this put him on the outs with his lower-class family
*and* the social climber sister he put through school.

And then, as I'm working on it instead of adding intensity I start
to smooth out the edges. So I start writing the scene where he
goes to see his parents and... people are a bit stiff, a bit subdued,
but that's about it. Somehow I'd gone from an initial concept of
his parents utterly disowning him and tears and betrayal to a
little bit of sadness.

I know I'm doing it, though. So I have hope.

But that's when I'm trying to be objective. The rest of the time
I think the people are fascinating and wonderful, the setting beyond
nifty and all science-fictionish, and that any part of it is
*interesting* even all by itself.

Interesting is good. Compelling is better, if you're looking for
ever-increasing readership.

When I look at what is published and which doesn't seem over
the top while reading it (because the end of the universe is never
over the top) my super ideas and wonderful characters are dull.

Utterly dull.

Um. Why? I dont think it's just your enthusiasm for your work that makes
it sound interesting when you talk about it. So why isn't that getting onto
the page/pixels?

I don't like hurting the people I care about?

That and, perhaps, the way writing something sad seems so much
harder than reading it because reading it goes quickly and doesn't
require wallowing in it the way writing it does. Of course, I'm one
of
those that couldn't watch the Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby without
bawling at the end every single time.

I do think I'm getting a handle on my conflict avoidance problem and
I think that I see what I need to do. Now I just need to sit down
and
practice a bit intensifying a scene rather than smoothing it out and
practice illustrating more of what drew me to the characters or
situation in the first place.

Oh, I was reading the first Dresden Files book and thinking about
this. Harry Dresden has an almost silly amount of problems looming
over him. If one were to list them all it would seem like a farce.
Granted the whole tone of the thing lends itself particularly well to
that but it got me thinking of what else I could do to poor August.

I realized just now, thinking about finding the right reason that he
is
shunned, that I'd been thinking of almost entirely of things that he
was mostly helpless about instead of things he'd done that warrented
his isolation.

I like him. I want him to be a nice person. But even to me he's
more interesting if, in some ways, he's not.

-Julie


.

Relevant Pages
Loading