Apologies to those I’ve penciled up on workshop stories; I’ve spent more time copyediting the work of others than writing anything of my own so please forgive the seemingly overanxious overcritical maze of markings and be thankful I don’t use colored pencils.
Good stuff. Nice to see the story arcs, to recognize the narrative structure, exposition, conflict points of plot and resolution. No, not resolution really since these were chapter parts rather than complete stories so resolution becomes a mini-fix in each while building towards the bigger picture. Nice language use and technical errors are only found by someone else reading your work. We tend to read right over our own the-the’s.
Nice metaphor by Brendan of archaeological explication. This would apply, I’d think, to both sides of a story, the reading and the writing.
Nice example given by Jackie of the 90-60-30-15-5 (or something like that) second skit and cutting down all but the necessary. Poetry forces this. Last CW class did this as well–300 words down to a 100. Good exercise in learning brevity of the soul.
More on class notes soon.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology