I really love the “research for fiction writing” idea and wonder about keeping a list of exercises to accompany research, or a personal archive. Exercises rather than finished stories interest me, but this is from the point of view of not writing much fiction. By exercises I mean things like generation senarios or prompts based off of a list of 3 sources one has browsed over the course of two weeks.
On a separate note, I wish all my classes had given me time estimates along with reading assignments. We all read at different rates but it’s important to set limits sometimes and say, this is as deeply as I’ll be able to read this right now, and that’s okay. It may be revisited in the future. So I would like a class like this to have strict prompts for how much time to spend at different research stages: finding sources in the first place, organizing one’s sources into an easily retrievable method, playing around with methods of record keeping for future writing, and then the actual note taking and invention parts.
There’s a lot of ways the personal record keeping can be augmented or applied with different technology. For example, say you keep clippings and quotes from your research on a given topic as a document file. This isn’t as useful (though CTRL F is useful indeed) as keeping these digital notes organized by topics and themes, a personal set of cataloging or tags.
Time estimates for reading would be helpful. I didn't think about the organizing aspect a class like that would have, that's definitely something it would cover. I tend to be a bit unorganized with my information gathering, but with reading Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God (which was what I was alluding to with my line about not being good with dense academic reads) I've made some inconsistent attempts at writing notes and linking information to page numbers.
I'm not that into writing prompts or exercises, but I think those exercises you mentioned would work well with the class idea.
Hi William, I'm curious what your thoughts are on getting feedback on your fiction short stories now that you have a degree. I have a BA in journalism, but that's rolling near 25 years ago, and very few of my classes were focused on creative writing. Needless to say, it was a very different time and experience. So, what I would have preferred in an education and how I like to get feedback likely varies considerably. We've mentioned mentoring/feedback/writing groups on Fictionistas before as well, but I'm not sure it went anywhere. I would like to get your take on what feedback helps you best.
One thing I've learned is that when requesting feedback you have to be specific with what you want people to focus on, list a few things you specifically want feedback on. Asking about the whole thing is so broad it leads to broad comments generally.
I suppose my main questions when asking for feedback would be how the story makes someone feel, what they think is the center of the story. It's hard to tell how readers will interpret events and characters, so knowing what people think of the characters helps with figuring out what effect my writing is actually creating.
Those discussion questions at the back of some English class books might actually be a decent feedback soliciting tool.
I really love the “research for fiction writing” idea and wonder about keeping a list of exercises to accompany research, or a personal archive. Exercises rather than finished stories interest me, but this is from the point of view of not writing much fiction. By exercises I mean things like generation senarios or prompts based off of a list of 3 sources one has browsed over the course of two weeks.
On a separate note, I wish all my classes had given me time estimates along with reading assignments. We all read at different rates but it’s important to set limits sometimes and say, this is as deeply as I’ll be able to read this right now, and that’s okay. It may be revisited in the future. So I would like a class like this to have strict prompts for how much time to spend at different research stages: finding sources in the first place, organizing one’s sources into an easily retrievable method, playing around with methods of record keeping for future writing, and then the actual note taking and invention parts.
There’s a lot of ways the personal record keeping can be augmented or applied with different technology. For example, say you keep clippings and quotes from your research on a given topic as a document file. This isn’t as useful (though CTRL F is useful indeed) as keeping these digital notes organized by topics and themes, a personal set of cataloging or tags.
Time estimates for reading would be helpful. I didn't think about the organizing aspect a class like that would have, that's definitely something it would cover. I tend to be a bit unorganized with my information gathering, but with reading Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God (which was what I was alluding to with my line about not being good with dense academic reads) I've made some inconsistent attempts at writing notes and linking information to page numbers.
I'm not that into writing prompts or exercises, but I think those exercises you mentioned would work well with the class idea.
Hi William, I'm curious what your thoughts are on getting feedback on your fiction short stories now that you have a degree. I have a BA in journalism, but that's rolling near 25 years ago, and very few of my classes were focused on creative writing. Needless to say, it was a very different time and experience. So, what I would have preferred in an education and how I like to get feedback likely varies considerably. We've mentioned mentoring/feedback/writing groups on Fictionistas before as well, but I'm not sure it went anywhere. I would like to get your take on what feedback helps you best.
One thing I've learned is that when requesting feedback you have to be specific with what you want people to focus on, list a few things you specifically want feedback on. Asking about the whole thing is so broad it leads to broad comments generally.
I suppose my main questions when asking for feedback would be how the story makes someone feel, what they think is the center of the story. It's hard to tell how readers will interpret events and characters, so knowing what people think of the characters helps with figuring out what effect my writing is actually creating.
Those discussion questions at the back of some English class books might actually be a decent feedback soliciting tool.
Thank you, that's very helpful, and a great way to ask for feedback.