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February 2007
The Clarion Quandary:
Mary Hobson writes under the name "M.K. Hobson." She had her first publication back in 1991. Her first pro sale was to SciFiction in 2003, and since then she's had pieces in F&SF, Strange Horizons, ChiZine, and Polyphony, and has pieces forthcoming in Realms of Fantasy and Flytrap. She is not a Clarion graduate. Jessica Reisman has been writing fiction since she was about nine and it was always fantastic fiction. She went to grad school and got an MA in creative writing, where she modulated her voice to magic realism for the sake of the genre-shy academics; she was lucky enough to receive several fiction fellowships while in grad school and post-grad. She went to Clarion West in 1995. Some years later she started to sell stories, slowly — to Realms of Fantasy, The Third Alternative, SciFiction, Interzone, and anthologies — and ten years later her first novel, to a small press. She continues to sell stories and is sending out her second novel. She feels pretty positive about Clarion. Point/Counterpoint Part 1, September 2006
On to the final part of the debate: Q: Jessica, regarding what you said about Clarion being a crash course in separating workshop critiques that are useful from those that aren't. Does that mean you have the ability to go into a new workshop situation with people you don't know and pick out quickly whose points are valid and whose need to be ignored? Jessica: Yes, it's one of my super powers. Actually, that is pretty much what I'm saying. It's not that I disregard some people entirely, but I can tell pretty quickly who doesn't get it and whose feedback is just off the mark for the story. Sometimes what those people say is useful for what it tells me about what's not coming across to any but the most clued-in of readers. Sort of critique by negative space. Or something. Q: Mary, you mention in your bio that you are currently workshopping. I'm going to assume you have been able to develop your own instincts in this way, otherwise you wouldn't continue with an experience that simply leaves you muddled. Have you been able to develop a workshop technique? Tools that help you slog through the invalid and get the information that you need to help you? Mary: I have been a member of four crit groups over the past few years. Two of these were live, face-to-face groups, and two them were virtual (online) groups. Personally, I've found the online groups vastly more congenial to my method of work. "On the page" crits for me are always more useful and digestible than live, face-to-face crits, for a couple of reasons. First, I have always been better at reading than at speaking — I am much more efficient at processing information visually, as opposed to aurally. Thus, I am able to express myself better, and receive information better, in a written format. I've had long discussions about this very point with a friend of mine who vastly prefers live crit groups. She's a very aural processor — she likes to talk through her stories to resolve plot problems, and would much rather listen to a crit than read one. I digest things a little more slowly, and I like having a printed page that I can go back and reread. Also, I believe that written crits, since they take more time to produce, are often more thoughtful and useful than more "off the cuff" reactions. I do want to say that, of course, the live groups are better for making social contacts and deepening one's emotional network. The concept of emotional network is one that we haven't discussed, and I think it's important. I think a writer needs a network of people who cares about that writer's success. That network may not necessarily do anything tangible for the writer's "career", (other than buying their books or reading their stories, or even just saying "great job!") but they are vital. I think you can build an emotional network in an online group, but it's probably more difficult than in a live group. Jessica: I think there's definitely something to what Mary says here about "live" crits. I've never been overwhelmed by my online workshop group, but have, on occasion, found face-to-face workshops too much. If there's too many people and too many voices, it can get overwhelming, I think. When I do go to a live workshop, I have to gird my loins, so to speak, in a way I don't with the online group. I also make notes as people crit my story and come back to those notes later to figure out what has to happen in the revision. So, ultimately, I like a written format better, too. The best live crit groups I've ever been to were very small, with a lot of give and take in discussing plot problems and such, almost like story meetings rather than workshops; those are fun. The Clarion style of workshopping can feel a bit like a forced death march when the group is more than four or five. Mary: I'm a terrible — one might even say pathological — control-freak when it comes to my writing. I want to be in complete control of precisely what criticism I use and precisely how I use it. Because of this, I find myself quite uncomfortable in situations where people start kicking around ideas for how to "fix" one of my stories under discussion. It's kind of like watching someone else discipline your child. Therefore, I prefer the emotional and physical distance that a written format allows me to maintain. I think writers with a psychological makeup like mine would have to stretch their comfort level to participate in Clarion. Probably a good thing! There's nothing wrong with stretching one's comfort level. But being aware of the potential psychological and emotional landmines is probably valuable, too. Q: Jessica, what do you mean by "forced death march?" It's painful or it's scary or just plain dull? Jessica: Well, if you have twelve people sitting around a table and you critique each person's story with a time limit on each critter's comments of five minutes, that's a whole day of sitting at table mostly listening to other people talk about other stories, with one intense hour when they talk about yours at you. It's just tiring and long, and with that many people there's no time for a lot of discussion or back and forth. So, with a lower number of people, there's just more time and more room for the give and take. Comparatively speaking, while you're perhaps more likely to get some useful feedback from a larger group, a smaller group is less noise, fewer voices and when there's time and space for give and take, people can riff off of each other's ideas and get to better, deeper level ones that delve more into a particular story's strengths and possibilities, looking at things from angles that you might not get to in the larger group and sparking ideas that the time limits on such don't allow for. Also, with fewer people you have fewer personalities filling the room. For some people — introverts, of which I am definitely one — being in a room full of people for many hours at a time is extremely tiring and draining. Q: Okay, now I'm getting a good picture of a day at Clarion. Without the give and take, were you able to clarify anything you didn't understand about the comments on your story? If not, did you find yourself throwing out what most people were saying or were you able to use most of what people were saying? Jessica: Oops — wait, I said Clarion-style, didn't I? With the random number 12 I was actually thinking of Turkey City workshops, which are run on the Clarion model, but aren't exactly Clarion since they take place in one day and you have to critique all 12 stories in that one day. That's not actually the case at Clarion; it's a little more spread out. You can find a good description of that model, which is actually known as the Milford style, here: http://www.sfwa.org/bulletin/articles/workshop.htm. At Clarion itself, you write a story a week for six weeks and so do the 19 or so other students. Each weekday you meet and workshop some of them, doing the circle style critique, each author sitting quietly and taking in the critique of the rest of the group, one at a time — but as I recall there was time for discussion of each story after it had gone around the circle, and for give and take — and I usually got a pretty good idea where a story was and wasn't working for people. In addition, the week's instructor had the group do some other things for part of the day, giving a lecture, or writing exercises and the like. And you always break for lunch. Q: How do you pick a workshop now? Jessica, you've already attended the best. What you look for now in a workshop that will give you as valuable an experience? Jessica: I've been with the same online workshop for a long while, composed mostly of Clarion grads, some of them from my original class, others invited over the years. We vet our members and I think we have a pretty high level of professionalism, both in the writing and the workshopping. I also go to the occasional local workshop, Turkey City or its spin-off, Tryptophan. In the past I've gone to Turkey City because when people like Bruce Sterling, Don Webb, and Howard Waldrop are there, I know I'm going to get some truly perspicacious feedback, while the rest of the workshop will give me a baseline reaction to the story. Which is not to dis the rest of the people at such a workshop, just that, for me, certain folks have proven to have the most insight into my stories. But even if I don't get a lot of useful feedback — which has happened, I've shelved stories after a TC workshop, unable to see what to do with them, and only come back to them a long while later — the local face-to-face workshops are good because they strengthen my sense of local writerly community, and that's a good thing. In the final analysis, what I look for in a workshop is one where there are at least a couple of people whose feedback makes sense to me, works for my stories, and has proven to help make them better stories in the revision process — stories which I've gone on to sell. Q: Mary, you haven't been able to get to Clarion, how do you find a workshop that will deliver Clarion-style professional critiquing? Also, where have you learned the secrets of successful submission, the mechanics of submitting? How did you "learn the gentle art of not being a complete asshole when submitting work to editors?" Mary: Simple — I am in a group composed almost entirely of Clarion graduates! Again, this brings up another important point about Clarion. The benefits of attending Clarion are multiplicative, in that attendance not only benefits the individual who attends, but everyone that individual works with and interacts with in the future. While I haven't attended Clarion, I've been fortunate enough to receive many of its lessons from those who have. The rest of the knowledge I've collected in quite a piecemeal fashion, patching things together from overheard conversations, Web searches, blog postings by cranky editors, etc. As a result, I like to think I'm much less of a complete asshole now than I was when I started. In general, I think you can learn just about everything you need to know from simply keeping your eyes open, reading a bit, and submitting regularly. However, I believe that Clarion concentrates that knowledge and provides a fast track to competency. Perhaps I could have learned what I know now in six weeks, rather than six years! Q: Mary, Jessica mentioned before that Clarion helped her wade through critiques in workshops, and Jessica states Clarion helped her hone that skill. How did you learn to "cut to the chase" so to speak? You mention that for you it is better to stick with online, non-live type workshops. Is that the only way you've been able to deal with it? Mary: For me, learning what criticism to take seriously has been a completely experimental process. I'm like the guy who spends hours on the beach with a metal detector. I sift through mountains of trash, but every once in a while, there's the thrill of finding a Spanish doubloon! This is my preferred process. I just don't trust anyone else's experience as much as I trust my own. Some people (and Clarionites are among these, in my mind) do things rather more intelligently and efficiently. They go to the people who trade in Spanish doubloons. They waste less time fooling around with what doesn't work, and as a result, may be able to move more swiftly toward the goal of becoming a professional writer. Q: Even the written criticism is going to have to be judged by you as viable or not. How did you get to the point where you know which criticism to take seriously? Mary: How do I know a Spanish doubloon when I see one? You just have to know what a good story is. You have to find the stories that make you giggle with joy and appreciation, and then you have to spend the time figuring out why the story flips your switch. Once you've made this kind of careful analysis, then you have a model in your mind against which other stories (including your own) are judged. I know in my gut when one of my stories isn't cutting it. Over time, I've gotten a pretty good handle on what stories I want to tell. And those are the stories I'm going to tell, and that's the craft I'm going to perfect. I'm going to write stories that amuse and thrill me personally. So when I judge criticism, it's by the light of whether or not it brings the story closer to my ideal — not whether it makes the story more salable, or more congenial to the likes of a particular editor, or whatnot. I know a criticism is viable when I see that the critiquer has an understanding of what I'm trying to do, and the suggestions that critiquer offers will move the story closer to the ideal I have in my mind. Q: Is your ultimate goal of writing to get published or to write well? Jessica: My ultimate goal is to write brilliant and wonderful fiction that people get to read and love — meaning, it gets published by publishers and in venues big enough to reach an audience. They really aren't separable goals to me. Mary: My ultimate goal, if you pull back a few orders of magnitude, is to find support for my belief that there are other people in the world who think like I do. I want to believe that there are others who take delight in the kind of ideas I find delightful. Writing well and getting published are inseparable components of this ultimate goal. But neither of them is the entire goal. Q: Over and above sending out your work to get published, what methods do you use to network? Mary: Well, of course there's the usual — cons, parties, LiveJournal, etc. One little thing I do that people might not think of — I write fan mail. When I read a story that particularly impresses me, I contact the author and let him/her know that I thought the work was swell. This sometimes can lead to finding a friend or mentor. This isn't to say, of course, that you should go around emailing people willy-nilly and expect that they're going to read your story or invite you to join their crit group or introduce you to their agent. "Networking" works best when it follows the laws of sincere friendship. Contact someone only for sincere reasons, and expect nothing more from it. If something more does come from it, and you do find a friend or a mentor, then consider yourself blessed and make sure you offer similar blessings to others when the opportunity arises. Jessica: My networking methods, such as they are, include attending local, face-to-face workshops and readings, cons, LiveJournal, and BU, for the most part. After Clarion, actually, I got in contact with two local writers whose names Howard Waldrop gave me. One became a good friend and I met a number of other writers, local and otherwise, through him, doing movie nights and other things with a bunch of them. The other has always been a good person to know. I try to do parties, but I am not the partiest of peeps. Networking is not something I really enjoy though I have gotten better at it, and more relaxed about it with practice. What Mary says here — "Networking works best when it follows the laws of sincere friendship. Contact someone only for sincere reasons, and expect nothing more from it. If something more does come from it, and you do find a friend or a mentor, then consider yourself blessed and make sure you offer similar blessings to others when the opportunity arises." — is very true, and applies as much to networking face-to-face as to email. That said, if I meet a writer I admire at a con, I definitely try to find a moment, without being annoying, to let them know I think they rock. In my experience, some people are natural networkers, some aren't — and it seems like being one of the drinking, late-night, bar crowd at a con is a distinct advantage. I can put back a bit of tequila, but other than that, I am neither a late-nighter nor a bar person, so my networking tree (to smash two metaphors together) has branched very slowly. Q: What final words would you give an aspiring writer of spec fiction regarding Clarion? Jessica: Go, you won't regret it. Mary: There is no magic bullet. Clarion is an excellent option for those who are able to attend, but if you can't get to Clarion, don't sweat it. Keep writing, keep reading, and keep submitting, and find peers who can help you along. But remember, in the end, everyone writes alone. |
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