ArmadilloCon Writing Workshop Bootcamp Week 2: Playing in the Sandbox – Developing Ideas, Old and New

Welcome back to bootcamp. We’re T-minus 6 weeks to the June 11 deadline to enroll and submit your short story or novel chapter to the ArmadilloCon Writing Workshop. Last week, I talked about how workshops can benefit your writing and what you can do to get ready to write by carving out some time in your schedule and gathering ideas.

This week is a good time sort through your collection of ideas and/or unfinished projects and throw your lot in with one lucky winner. In other words it’s time to decide and develop your idea.

The first thing to decide is whether you’ll be working on a short story or the first chapter(s) of a novel. (I’m going to put a caveat in here that I am primarily a short story writer. I’ll do my best to keep the advice here universal, but this series might by slightly more adapted to short form fiction rather than noveling. I am currently working on a novel, and learning a lot, so stay tuned for more novel friendly posts in the future.)

While I think submitting a stand-alone short story might be slightly more productive for a one-day workshop, many students opt to submit the first chapter(s) – up to 5,000 words – of a novel. Since it is just a piece of something much larger, you’ll get less feedback and insight into shaping middles and creating satisfying endings. Even so, first chapters are critical to attracting readers. This is where you set up and set in motion a larger story, and there will be plenty of faculty and fellow writers who are on the same page at the workshop. If you decide to write opening chapter(s), focus on writing a scene or a sequence of scenes that create a strong hook. Introduce the main characters (but not too many all at once!). Salt in some world building and think a bit about setting the tone for the story (e.g. is it creepy, gritty horror or a space comedy).

Short stories are great for workshops in particular and for honing your writing skills in general. A stand-alone piece will give you a chance to get feedback on a complete unit of storytelling. Writing short fiction has helped me develop skills like assessing and managing the size of an idea, managing plot and pacing on a small scale, and understanding scene and sequence. It is also a place where you can try out crazy ideas, unusual forms and methods. Experimentation isn’t just a great way to master the form – it’s also a lot of fun. So, even if short stories aren’t your main interest, consider writing at least a few.

Starting from nada?

First, keep reading, listening, and viewing stories that engage your emotions and challenge your thinking. Whenever something piques your interest note it down in your journal (or wherever you keep notes) but don't stop there, riff of these idea kernels, combine them with others.

Here are a couple common ways to develop ideas. 

You can think in terms of SCENARIO. Collect vignettes, fragmentary scenarios, themeatic ideas that intrigue you. Spin ideas out by asking “what if” over and over again. Be present. Be inquisitive. We witness (and act in) a thousand little dramas every day. After you get off the phone with the Help Desk wonk, imagine that disembodied voice in a surreal scenario, if you hear a quiet argument between a couple at a coffee shop spin out your idea of what might have caused it, or how it might come to an unexpected end. Start with a moment or interaction from your day, or open up Pinterest or Instagram and look for evocative images. Get out a blank piece of paper or pull up a blank document and play around with “what ifs.” Write down as many as you can, everything that comes into your head. Try combining a couple unlikely elements into a scenario that you can develop into a complete story.

Or approach story via CHARACTER, keeping in mind that for a short story or the early chapter(s) of a novel, it’s usually best to limit the number of characters. I find that two or three characters are ideal for anything under 5,000 words. If you have some characters in mind, try putting them together in conversation, and write it out in dialogue only. Give one of the characters a secret. Think about characters who want something deeply, or want to escape something. If you have a half-formed character, interview them. Pose questions and have them state their opinion and then keep writing, letting them talk. Keep going until they say something that surprises you.

Want more? Check out John Dufresne's talk about creating a story.

The unfinished.

If you’ve been writing for a while, and you’re anything like me, you might have what I call The Island of Misfit Toys: a collection of unfinished or broken stories languishing in a folder somewhere. I keep these stories around for the day when I have acquired whatever skill I need in order to pull that particular story off. If you’re looking to refurbish a story for the workshop, this is the week to read it as critically as you can. Summarize what happens plot wise, and make notes about what you think are the its strengths and weaknesses. Be prepared to tear it down and start again from the ground up. If you’ve kept the story around, then the kernel of the idea that inspired you should survive.

So keep reading and mulling over ideas, let them grow into some vignettes and character interactions, make notes. If you have any questions, put them in the comments. 

Next week you’re writing your ZERO DRAFT.

Pick up your pens, it’s time to start thinking about the ArmadilloCon Writers’ Workshop!

When I told a writer friend that I would be coordinating the ArmadilloCon Writers’ Workshop this year, he asked me if I’d lost a bet? I laughed and said, no. I’m thrilled to have an opportunity to give back to a workshop that has given me so much! Excited and a little nervous. Lucky for me I have the support of the previous coordinators Marshall Ryan Maresca and Stina Leicht. With their help I’m looking forward to making this year’s workshop the best experience it can be!

When I returned to writing fiction after my children were born, I did not have the option either financially or time-wise to travel to the big name workshops like Clarion, Odyssey, or Viable Paradise. When my kids were small, even the idea of jetting out of town for a weekend seemed financially onerous and physically exhausting. There are a lot of great online workshops, but many of them are also costly. What I really needed at the beginning, was to find out if workshopping was going to be useful to me. Looking at where I am now, it’s clear that a good writing workshop is a valuable asset. As a student of the ArmadilloCon Writers’ Workshop I received one-on-one input on my work from amazing writers and editors including Paolo Bacigalupi, Lou Anders, Cat Rambo, and Liz Gorinsky. I moved on to volunteering for the workshop as both a first reader and instructor, and it's been no less inspiring to be on the other side of the table teaching with hard-working talent such as Ken Liu, Jacob Weisman of Tachyon publications, James Morrow and Timmel Duchamp of Aqueduct Press.

Just $90 gets you the full-day workshop and a convention membership to attend all of the activities for the entire weekend. ArmadilloCon is known as an excellent regional literary convention, which means there will be lots of great panels about writing, reading, and the state of the genre (there are also panels about movies, tv shows, gaming, and everything geek). This is a great gateway workshop. If you think you might enjoy writing in general and genre in particular, this is a great low cost way to check out a workshop. This is the place to learn how to give and receive critique and to get instruction that will help take your writing to the next level. At least as important, is that the workshop and weekend are an opportunity to meet other writers. To find your tribe and make connections that will serve your writing year round. 

I’ll finish by saying that we are committed to promoting diversity and access for all workshop attendees. Writing in a genre centered on exploration and encountering the Other must include voices and visions from writers, readers and thinkers of all kinds. The Workshop actively seeks to include students, faculty, visiting scholars, and volunteers from a variety of backgrounds including, but not limited to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, economic status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, and ability. 

As far as instructors, so far we have: 

Nisi Shawl (Guest of Honor)  
Trevor Quachri  (Editor Guest) 
Martha Wells 
Don Webb (Toastmaster) 
Nicky Drayden 
D. L. Young 

I will be booking instructors throughout the spring, so check the workshop page for updates. 

Check back here for posts about workshopping in general and how to prepare for the ArmadilloCon’s workshop in particular. 

Now it’s your turn: The first order of business is to start writing, so fire up your laptops, grab your pens and let’s get started!

Here's Ursula K. Le Guin's Fiery Speech from Last Night's National Book Awards

Give that woman an mic so she can drop it! Last Night the National Book Awards honored Ursula K. Le Guin with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. You can read more about it at NPR and Motherboard. It would be enough that one of my favorite feminist, science fiction authors won a prestigeous literary award, but then she gave a speech that encapsulates and articulates the zeitgeist of the world of letters right now.

She starts out by recognizing the importance of fantasy and science fiction in literature, and then wades into speak truth to the world of publishing. This vast and chaotic, somewhat broken machine that commodifies our art and letters for mass consumption. She uttered a battle cry that both gave no quarter and inspired hope - at least in this writer.   

According to NPR, at the after party, Le Guin said of her speech: "I hope it goes outside this room."
 
Parker Higgins transcribed her entire speech. I'm reblogging most of it below. Check out his post for her speech in its entirety, and stick around to check out his super cool parker higgins dot net blog.

"I rejoice at accepting [this award] for, and sharing it with, all the writers who were excluded from literature for so long, my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction—writers of the imagination, who for the last 50 years watched the beautiful rewards go to the so-called realists.
 
I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality.

Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.

Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial; I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an ebook six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwa, and I see a lot of us, the producers who write the books, and make the books, accepting this. Letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish and what to write.

Books, you know, they’re not just commodities. The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.

I have had a long career and a good one. In good company. Now here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want—and should demand—our fair share of the proceeds. But the name of our beautiful reward is not profit. It’s name is freedom."

Neil Gaiman presents Ms Le Guin with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters