Just finished the novel workshop here on the Oregon Coast. (Details of all workshops under workshop tab above.) Thirteen pro writers with some great new novels attended and they all mailed their book packages to a number of editors each today.
We worked on fine-tuning cover letters, proposals, and starts of first chapters, as well as giving feedback on all the books.
From my side, the workshop worked fantastically, and not once was I bored sitting in a Clarion-style critique session, since we didn’t do this workshop that way at all. This was a brand new animal of workshop in structure and it worked. I am pleased and sort of stunned, actually.
For me, it was an honor to get to read these thirteen novels ahead of their publication. There wasn’t a dud in the bunch, all great reads, and with luck, the authors now have their presentation packages to editors clear enough that editors will snap them up and you will all get to read them as well.
I had a great time and I’m now looking forward to the next novel workshop in June. This new way of doing a novel workshop really worked. And thirteen new and wonderful novels are now on editor’s desks.
Great fun.
Up next in two days we start the Denise Little short story workshop. Denise is on her way and I’m madly powering through the first 30 manuscripts, enjoying most of them, actually. This is the fifth or sixth year we’ve done this workshop and I always enjoy it a lot, and learn a lot as well. How can you not have fun when 20-30 professional writers come together to talk writing and the business of writing?
So back to reading for me. New Sacred Cows post next week. Stay tuned.
But right now I get to go learn and have fun.
Cheers, Dean
Congrats, Dean! Sounds like a great workshop.
Very cool.
Are you *sure* you don’t want to do another Master Class sometime soon?
Hey, just asking. VBG
What an outstanding group it was. Several Clarion and Odyssey grads, and only three of us had not been to a Masters Class. Plus we had the Yorks popping in.
Talk about having comprehensive writing knowledge packed into the same place at the same time!
The great thing — for me — was the BUSINESS and MARKETING focus of the workshop. Lots of other workshops elsewhere hammer on craft and style issues. But it’s very, very hard to find anyone who can explain the business and marketing aspects, and I certainly feel like the three days we all spent working and learning, were three of the most illuminating days of my fledgling career.
I also took away an additional, very important lesson: no novel is ever perfect when it hits an editor’s desk.
I think many of us who are starting out have it in our heads that unless the novel manuscript is perfect, it won’t have a shot. But as you pointed out Dean, many manuscripts never even get read — the editor never sees how good they are — because the package is so poor the editor automatically bounces it.
Anyway, if anyone out there hasn’t come to Lincoln City yet, for one of these classes, I highly recommend it. Highly.
Thanks, Brad. Sure seemed to work from my side, and having every manuscript in the mail when it was finished was a fantastic feeling for me as well. Makes it feel like the work was worth it, instead of having the writer go home from a critique, sit on the book for six months, and then never mail it. I have seen far, far too many great books over the years go down that rat hole of writer fear in the quality of their own work.
Rob, no master class in any future I can see at the moment. It might change, but let me recover from the last two.
Clarion Style is actually also Milford Style, where Damon Knight sort of formalized it at the Milford workshops back in the 1960′s and he took it to Clarion. Basically, you sit around a room and one at a time you critique a manuscript. It’s a fine system for most workshops, but not for an advanced workshop like these. It worked fine, but over the years I was never happy with it.
In essence, a Clarion style is a peer critique workshop, sometimes lead by a more advanced person, sometimes not. And Thomas, I’m afraid you’re never going to know what works for you until you dive into one. This one worked because of the professional level writers who attended. This would be a disaster for a beginning workshop.
How does a Clarion-style workshop organize itself? And how did yours differ?
I haven’t attended any workshops (beyond my weekly critique group) and planned on attending one this year. I’ve been trying to figure out what style of workshop would be best for me.
Any advise?
Clarion/Milford is the only style I have experience with, even going back to my Creative Writing class in high school senior year (mumble) decades ago. I guess I’m going to have to see if I can make it to the June workshop. It sounds well worth it, and lord knows I have too many almost-complete novels to get out the door.
(Two is too many. Almost-complete means they’re drafted from beginning to end but need some connecting scenes and perhaps another subplot to bring up to commercial length from the 55k they’re each at. I need to post Heinlein’s Rule #2 in bigger letters over my desk; it’s too easy for me to get sucked into starting something new instead of finishing what I’ve got.)
Al,
I was thinking of you this last weekend, and I hope very much you can make it to the next Novel Workshop. Dean is right, these would probably be terrible for brand new writers — they need to go to the Kris’n'Dean show like we did last year — but for those of us with a sale or two, and who are pushing for the next level, the Novel Workshop was just the ticket.
I’ve now got my novel package in the mail to 9 publishers — hooray for the little USPS shop at the edge of town — and that’s a first for me. I’ve never actually gotten a novel in the mail, before now. I’ve always found excuses to not finish and not mail. Well, the workshop forced me to have goals and deadlines and in the end, one way or another, the package had to go out the door when the workshop was done. No exceptions for any of us!
Also, and I am sure Leslie would toot her own horn, one of our workshop attendees got a request for the full manuscript from an editor, just today. Talk about the proof being in the pudding! Her e-mail package was out probably less than 24 hours. The workshop just barely finished, and already people are getting results.
The more I hear about the workshops, the happier I am that I’ll be attending one.
I can’t wait. What is the name of the hotel that you use? I know you’ve mentioned before how much everyone likes it there.
D.
I haven’t got any novels in the mail yet (still working on them), but I now have multiple short stories in the mail — a first for me. I enjoy writing short stories as much as I do novels.
I wish I had the money to attend a workshop of this kind. One thing it brought to mind, though, is a comment I remember reading at Suvudu, where editor Betsy Mitchell, in a comment on the most common reasons why she rejected manuscripts in 2009, said that no manuscript has to be perfect, but it does have to be “95% of the way to book-ready” for her to be willing to take it on. You can find the post here: What I Learned This Week: Why I Say No.
Okay, Brad, you (and Dean) have convinced me. I need to sign up for the June workshop. I work better (or at least, more intensely) with hard deadlines like that.
Have any of you attended both the Marketing and Novel workshops? Trying to determine which would be the best fit for someone who has written a few novels, but not made any sales yet.
G D, if you start early and start saving money now, you could conceivably have enough depending on which one you’re going to. I’m looking at the Kris N’ Dean show in September and I’ve figured if I save about 100-200/month, I’ll have the cash. Granted, I’ll have to work a lot of overtime, but I know it’ll be worth it. Both Brad and Alastair made their sales after that workshop
Amanda, unfortunately, I’m currently unemployed, so these workshops are too much of an extravagance at the moment, especially since I live on the East Coast, near Baltimore. That’s not stopping me from writing and mailing out stories, though. I’m also going to investigate the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and, since the registration isn’t that expensive, I’m planning to attend Balticon this May. Maybe I can find a good workshop closer to home.
Sounds like fun…in hard work type of way.
Even with the hard work it makes me envious.
I keep going back and forth about attending one-The Kris and Dean Show I believe- it’s the cost for me too, I would have to fly up there. The rest of it I believe I could afford, but there’s one more thing I would have to overcome.
I’ve just sent out three batches of stories in the last four weeks or so. More than I’ve sent out in quite a while. And I have eight more to send out this weekend.
Dean, too bad you can’t do an internet workshop like Clarion is going to be doing.
This new novel workshop intrigues me. I wonder how it will compare to the marketing workshop in two weeks.
Louis- the sacred cows posts and the motivation posts are sort of like an internet workshop, I think…
Also, having just gotten home from two workshops, I have to say that some of the most useful/educational aspects of it aren’t things that would translate to the internet.
I have to agree with Ms. Nobu (waves)
There are too many intangibles to these workshops that cannot possibly translate across the internet. Maybe if Dean video recorded everything and webcast it, but then again, half or more of the ‘value’ moments happen during the times between the official instructional periods.
If nothing else, nobody would get a chance to go experience The Historic Anchor Inn. That’s worth the price of admissions, right there.
Workshop cost? $200
Being able to sit in the common room of the Anchor Inn at 1:00 AM with Dean in the command chair and roughly two dozen other pro and pro-level writers spread across couches and sofas, all of us gabbing away…. Priceless.