reading

It’s sad that I never really had the chance to read Asimov’s the way you do, assuming, dear reader, that you harbor no secret dreams of publishing in these pages. When this magazine debuted in 1977, I was one year out of the Clarion Writers Workshop <http://clarion.ucsd.edu> and burning with ambition. Overjoyed to have a new market to conquer, I fell immediately to deconstructing Asimov’s stories for content and craft, thinking that I might thus decode the secret editorial formula for selling here. Alas, it was a doomed enterprise, as any experienced hand could have told me, and I spent six years collecting rejection slips until Shawna McCarthy <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawna_McCarthy> took over as editor. But even now, I can’t turn these pages without being puzzled by missed creative opportunities or astonished by clever new techniques that I need to steal study further.
I did not always read like a writer, and now I look back on those wonderful years of pure reading enjoyment with fondness and regret. It was my fate to catch the writing bug early, however; even in high school I dreamed that I might someday sell stories. Of course, I also dreamt of playing power forward for the New York Knicks <nba.com/knicks> and becoming an astronaut and of running for president —and we all know how those dreams worked out.
Clarion changed me forever as a reader and a writer. Back in January, I was reminded that it has had a similar effect on literally hundreds of my colleagues. Clarion and its sister workshop, Clarion West <clarionwest.org>, were in the midst of their application season and I decided to try to start an internet meme to promote the two programs. I posted “Five Things I Learned at Clarion” on my Facebook page and challenged Clarion grads from both programs to do the same. What followed was an outpouring of advice across the web that stunned me in its honesty and wisdom. I thought I’d share a bit of what they learned here, selecting just one “lesson” for each writer. Some of the Clarion grads you will already have heard of; some you will be hearing from shortly. One common theme to note is how often they are thinking of you, dear reader!

learnings

Andy Duncan <beluthahatchie.blogspot.com> I learned that reading my stuff aloud is a great revision technique, and a great test of whether it’s finished. I learned this by reading aloud, to a blind classmate, my manuscripts in progress.
Paul M. Berger <paulmberger.com> Sometimes a nice complex sentence structure can feel so wrong it pulls the reader out of the story, even if it’s grammatically correct.
Megan Kurashige <immobileexplorations.blogspot.com>. If you smash apart the dull, chronological line of cause and effect and replace it with story, you can start stringing together the tiny, pinprick lights of theme into a narrative of meaning. You can also more effectively lure the reader into the character’s skin.
Ferrett Steinmetz <theferrett.livejournal.com> You have to shoot high. There are a thousand stories that are pretty good. That’s not good enough. The kind of story you’re looking to write is the story the reader is still musing upon in the bathtub three days later. That kind of tale is hard to create indeed, which is why selling a pro story is a real challenge.
Ken Schneyer <ken_schneyer.livejournal.com> If there’s no reason for the character to care about the outcome, then there’s no reason for the reader to do so.
Collin Piprell <collinpiprell.com> Ignorance can be a real virtue.Don’t collect too much in the way of information and ideas before you begin writing. With academic theses, feature stories, and science fiction alike, it’s often best to spin as much of the story as you can before you do most of your research. Ignorance simplifies things enormously, since you have fewer elements to synthesize from the outset. Wait till you’ve got the story up and staggering about before worrying too much about incorporating all the ideas in the world. It’s easier to be selective, at that point, and much easier to organize all the ideas now that you have a basic framework. The storyline can always be revised in light of new information.
Emily Jiang <emilyjiang.blogspot.com> (Emily is a poet and wrote her Five Things in haiku)
Embrace your weirdness. Transform your poems into arias, and sing.
If you’ve always lived in mainstream communities where you’ve been constantly told that you’re a little weird, and suddenly you are surrounded by people who will actively debate with you on which is the better Star Trek series, quote Star Wars lines at you, and/or will totally sing Disney songs with you at the drop of a hat, it is an amazing feeling. The weirder the better.
Sue Burke <mount-oregano.livejournal.com> Only one miracle per story, and the first sentence should point to it.
Kathleen Howard <strangeink.blogspot.com> Writing is a job. Show up for work. When I taught this fall, three of my writer friends came in and guest-lectured for me. Every one of them was asked how they deal with writer’s block. Every one of them answered: “Writing is my job. I don’t get to have writer’s block.” If you’re going to be a writer, in the words of John Scalzi <whatever.scalzi.com> (teaching at Clarion this year), “find the time or don’t.” Don’t wait until your life is awesome, or the muse visits, all smiles and seductions, or until you know what happens next. Put your butt in the chair and write.
Theodora Goss <theodoragoss.com> When told that most aspiring writers won’t make it, decide they’re not talking about you.
Damien Walter <damiengwalter.com> Your writing has as much depth as you do. It’s not possible to reach beyond the emotional range of your own experience. You have to live fully and explore your humanity before you stand a chance of writing stories that help others do the same. That doesn’t mean exploring unknown continents necessarily, it does mean exploring the unknown hidden in your everyday experience.
Jason Erik Lundberg <jasonlundberg.net> There is no secret handshake, only hard work and constant improvement.
Leslie What <sff.net/people/leslie.what> If you are writing a plotted story, brainstorm three ways your story might end. Then write the fourth.
Tim Pratt <timpratt.org> Trying to think about “plot” and “character” (and even setting!) in isolation isn’t much good. They rely on complex interactions and are inextricably entwined, and you can’t change one without affecting the other(s). For example, once you really know a character, and understand what they’d do in a given situation, the working-out of the plot largely takes care of itself.
Emily Mah Tippetts <emilymah.com> What is the difference between a science fiction writer and a large pizza? (A large pizza can feed a family of four.)
Monica Byrne: <byrne.typepad.com> Anger is useful. At last count, I’ve gotten about 240 rejections in the time since I left Clarion . . . along with six story sales, a grant, a full-scale play production, two residencies, and a major travel fellowship. Those artists you admire who seem to collect sales and prizes without effort? They work their asses off, and they get rejected all the time; or did, once. I still do, and every time I get a rejection I think, “Really? Really!?” and send it out again on a fresh wave of righteous anger.
Cynthia Felice <travisheermann.com/blog/?p=179> Start as close to the end as possible.
Daniel Pinney <yourwordsmatter.wordpress.com> One should never feel like they have to apologize because they want to write SF/F. It’s as respectable a writerly ambition as it is to be the next Rick Moody or Ernest Hemingway. In fact, it might even be more respectable. In any event, though, it’s okay to write this stuff. It’s more than okay.
Grá Linnaea <gralinnaea.com> There’s a fine line between pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to write stuff that doesn’t excite you.
Nicole Taylor <nicolemtaylor.wordpress.com> No one is going to give you permission to be a writer.Don’t wait for some magical time when you think you’re old enough or have “earned it” or something. Write, send stories out, fix stories, repeat, repeat, repeat. Um . . . until you die, I guess. I went to Clarion and I looked at myself and thought “why the hell am I not sending stories?” Because I thought someone else was going to tell me when I was ready. No one can do that, nor should they.
Matt London <truthoffiction.wordpress.com> There is a difference between mystery and ambiguity. Mystery is when you don’t know what is going to happen next. Ambiguity is when you don’t know what just happened. Mystery is good; ambiguity is almost always bad. People often confuse the two. If someone (you don’t know who) does something (you don’t know what) the reader will never connect to the story.
Gregory Frost <gregoryfrost.com> Never name your protagonist “Fred.” (Actually, Greg writes that this was Gene Wolfe’s <ultan.org.uk> first rule when he taught Greg at Clarion. So I’m letting Greg offer another lesson.) Don’t write about professions and people you haven’t bothered to research. No one will believe you know anything about them.
Dana Huber <dien.gather.com> Your plot should never hinge on Stupid. (I.e., your plot should never depend on a character doing something the reader can plainly see is dumb and is only being done for the sake of the plot.)

exit

Many of these writers’ complete posts are gathered at the Clarion blog <clarionfoundation.wordpress.com>. I wish my own post had been as interesting as those that followed it, but I was just trying to get things started, not move the universe. Just so you know, Five of the Many Things I Learned at Clarion are:
1) It’s never too soon to start foreshadowing.
2) Adverbs are the enemy.
3) If possible, pick a life partner with money.
4) Rejectomancy is a waste of writing time.
5) You have less than a page to grab your reader — and your editor.
Isn’t that right, Sheila?

Copyright © 2011 James Patrick Kelly