Category: Stephanie’s Master’s Degree Adventures

For a couple weeks, my Master’s program was engaged in writing forums, where we post works-in-progress and give each other feedback. I got a lot of helpful feedback on a section of my fantasy novel (or novella, I’m still working on it so I’m not sure how long it will be yet), and I will share some of this advice with you at a later point. Today, I want to talk about a concept which the advisor leading the forum brought to our attention: concrete openings.

According to our advisor, “concrete openings” are when you open your work so that “the reader ‘sees’ a scene very quickly, and very clearly. So the reader ‘knows where they are.'” One of the examples he provided was from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights: “1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.”

As you can see, the opening of Wuthering Heights gives a the reader a feel for when this narrative begins (1801), where it takes place (somewhere scarcely populated but still with at least one house), and the atmosphere of the place (made clear by “solitary” and “troubled with”).

Of course, not all concrete openings are so direct in grounding the reader. Another example which our advisor provided is this little gem from Murphy by Samuel Beckett: “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”

While this quote does not directly give a time or place, it does give more round-about clues to the scene. The sun indicates a place that is sunny, and the fact that the sun has “no alternative” but to shine “on the nothing new” implies a more modern time closer to the publication (as one of my classmates pointed out) because that is when we start to see that nothing is truly new. This opening line does not give firm details about the setting but it still grounds readers in the atmosphere of the story, and thus can be considered a concrete opening.

Our advisor proposed an exercise to my forum in which we try and make the opening line to the work we submitted more “concrete.” Admittedly, I was not–and still am not–sure that making my opening line any more “concrete” than it already is would be in my novel’s best favor.

This exercise will probably be best when I finish the entire rough draft, but here’s my opening sentence: “It was mid-afternoon when they took us to meet the Queen.” As you can see, this opening sets the time in regards to time of day and establishes that this world involves some sort of monarchy. I also think that the brevity establishes a tense, no-nonsense, serious tone for the novel, but that aspect is rather subjective.

Concrete openings dip your readers into your story world immediately. Whether you’re writing fantasy/science fiction, romance, pedestrian fiction, or any other genre out there, immersing your readers in your story world quickly is very important for catching and keeping said readers’ attention. For some fiction, such as fantasy/science fiction and historical fiction, this immersion is imperative. Readers must understand and engage with the setting and atmosphere of the story from page one, or else they won’t want to bother with the rest of the book, or worse–they’ll be too confused to continue.

Now it’s your turn. Look at the opening line for your current work-in-progress. How does it compare to the concrete openings I provided above (and any others you can think of)? Does it help your readers to “see” the scene quickly? Or does it seem to stall? How can you make this opening line more “concrete?” Alternately, is there another line you’ve already written that would make for a better, more concrete opening?

When you’re done, feel free to share your thoughts on openings and your experience trying to make your opening line more concrete. Are concrete openings the best option for all stories, or are there times when non-concrete openings work better? Can you think of any works that do not begin with concrete openings? Drop a line in the comments below!

 

I’m not going to lie, I’m bad at receiving feedback. I have a knee-jerk reaction of taking personal offense. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad that my Master’s program is online. I can give myself some space and work through my emotional muck enough to see the value of the feedback. It’s painful but if we want our work to meet its full potential, we have to be open to critique. As Harper Lee said, you need a thick hide to be a writer.

The pain may never fully disappear. I’ve been in and out of workshops since high school and I still take it personally. That’s especially true when a piece needs a lot of work. I’m not willing to admit it at first. If I give myself a day or two away from it, I can swallow my pride and admit that the reader might have a point. From there I can separate the useful feedback from the not-so-useful. I still choose which points to follow but I’m open to the possibilities.

It’s even worse for me when I receive critiques from my personal tutor. She’s very nice and the vast majority of what she says is constructive. Nevertheless, she’s a published writer. My aim with this program is to improve my writing but, not-so-deep down, I want to impress her, too. When her comments involve fully rewriting most (if not all) of the story, it’s hard to read. It’s especially painful since she’s often right.

The important thing is that I consider the advice. That’s all that matters when writers interact with critique. You can cry it out all you need to, so long as you look at it again and think it over before rejecting suggestions outright.

With the format of my program’s feedback sessions, it’s easy to give into defensive impulses. You post the story, someone responds, and you immediately want to reply with some explanation of your work or justification for your choices. I’m guilty of this. I understand the reason for it. You invested a lot of time and heart into your story, you know what you envision for it, but somehow your diamond did not shine so brightly for the reader.

My advice: DO NOT REPLY THE FIRST DAY. Let it sit for at least twenty-four hours. Then reexamine the critique, maybe reread your story, and decide if you really need to defend your writing. This time will also allow you to gather any questions you have and articulate them properly.

This tactic isn’t possible with live/synchronous workshops for obvious reasons. However, I highly recommend it with asynchronous feedback and when you’re getting feedback from friends. You probably have a limited amount of time to do so with any formal feedback sessions, so don’t spend too much time on it. Even a little time will give you enough perspective to respond appropriately. And when you’re exchanging stories with friends, well, they can carry on their merry way until you’re ready to shoot them an email nitpicking their nitpicks.

In addition to stepping back, remember that you have the final say pre-publication. You decide which changes to make and which to ignore. Do what you think is best for your work. If you give all feedback fair consideration, you’ll know what to do.

Do you have any special techniques or advice for handling critique? Drop a line in the comments.

 

For the past two weeks I’ve been participating in my program’s second writing forum. Here, in a nutshell, are what these writing forums consist of: students are divided into groups in which they stay for the entire year, they post stories for feedback, and the students and supervising tutor give feedback on all the stories. The second week, as people are wrapping up their initial feedback, students ask/answer questions about the feedback and the tutor posts topics for general discussion. If they have finished their initial feedback, students can post general discussion topics as well.

This time I posed a question for my fellow writers: how do you change aspects of a story without ruining the parts that readers liked?

I have wrestled with this issue most of the academic year. The pressure has only gotten worse as the May 31st deadline for our portfolio inches closer. Well, “inches” takes the urgency from it. It’s more like how objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Since the deadline has gotten so close, I’ve begun to edit and rewrite the stories that I plan to include in my portfolio. The most prominent problem at the moment is that two of my stories have a very distinct feel that the readers enjoy. In attempting to address the weaker points of the story, I’m afraid that I will shatter that which makes the readers enjoy the stories already. I liken this conundrum to playing Jenga: if you remove or alter one piece, the whole structure may come tumbling down.

I know I’m not the only writer struggling with this issue. That’s why I want to discuss the answers I received on the forum.

Their advice boils down to four simple points: trust your intuition, do what’s best for the story, step away, and save your revisions.

1. Trust Your Intuition: If something in the story doesn’t feel right to you, there’s a reason. You know what you want for your work. External feedback points you to weak spots and helps put you on the right path but at the end of the day, it’s still your story. Did your readers suggest alterations to the dialogue that felt artificial when you put the advice into practice? Step away to give yourself some space and then take another look at it. Did your readers really like a scene in your story but you don’t feel that it fits with the newer version? You’ll have to decide which is better for the story, that scene or the entirety of the revision. Deep inside you sits your inner writer, the one that is connected with the essence of all your writing, and if he/she starts telling you that something isn’t right, you need to listen. It may conflict with feedback but it’ll be worth the risk. You can always start over again.
2. Do What’s Best for the Story: This idea seems obvious but, in fact, it’s often forgotten. We end up worrying more about what the readers want than what will help our stories become what they should be. Readers and their opinions are important but, as I said in #1, you have to trust your intuition. You can’t make your gay character straight just because your target audience wants. You have to ask yourself, will it make the story better? Or worse? If a reader suggests adding exposition to the dialogue, you have to decide if it will weaken the integrity of the narrative. You won’t be able to please everybody. Your only real obligation is to the story and your inner writer.

   

3. Step Away: I’m going to give you this advice a lot. Might as well get used to that right now. In this case, I was given this advice by the published writer supervising my program’s forum. We read our own pieces to death. Our objectivity all but disappears and we risk missing weak points that objective readers see instantly. We skim over spelling errors, holes in continuity, and flat out bad writing. Almost more importantly, we become bored by our own work and so we don’t know when we’re bored with ourselves and when something will genuinely lose the reader. Robert Frost once said, “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
4. Save Your Revisions: I made this point bold and red because I cannot stress it enough. Keep copies of all working drafts. Our tutor also recommended labeling them clearly and/or using track changes. Every time I make a change that isn’t very small or I make several small changes that add up to a significant change, I save it as a new file. I have five to seven copies of one story on my computer at any given time. Trust me, when you suddenly decide that you’re writing from the wrong character’s perspective and attempt to rewrite nine-tenths of the story, you’ll be happy to have those earlier drafts. Don’t think that it’s only with major changes like that for which you’ll need copies. You may decide that you liked how a sentence was worded the first time but you don’t remember it exactly. Maybe there’s a small gesture by a character that you removed, thinking it insignificant, only to realize that it was much more important than you first thought. You’ll hate yourself if you have that sort of epiphany but not the earlier draft to refer to.

Revisions and implementing feedback are rarely easy. (I’ll go more into revisions and feedback in future posts.) Despite what common sense may dictate, fewer or smaller edits do not necessarily mean the process is easier. Instead, you find yourself in the limbo of “I need to change this but changing this may ruin that.” There’s no clear-cut answer. However, the four points above are a good place to start.

If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: SAVE YOUR REVISIONS.

Have any ideas for making small edits without destroying your stories big time? As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.