A good friend and emerging author here in Peterborough has agreed to share some of the challenges and small triumphs that she has experienced in her nascent work. More specifically, I asked her to offer us what she has gained from a current critiquing course. She was a first reader for an International Writing Competition, Whispering Words. She writes both junior and Young Adult fiction. She has had her work reviewed by Canadian publishers, but nothing has come to print, yet; that will soon change. I am certain you will find this piece as thoughtful and revealing as I have.

On Being a Writer

By: Jocelyne Stone

Anybody can write, but it takes hard work and a whole lot of patience to write well. Sure you need to add some imagination and maybe even some talent, but if you don’t put the effort into making your craft better, honing your writing skills, the chances of you making a career out of writing is almost impossible.

I’ve been writing, seriously writing, now for four years. During that time I’ve taken many writing courses, been to many seminars and belong to a wonderful writing critique group, Critical Ms, created from a mix of extremely talented writers—both published and not.

Aside from whatever I’d learned through high school or University English classes, when I took my first writing course I knew nothing. Over the first few courses I began to get an understanding of the concept of a story—setting, plots, characters, point of view (POV), and narrative style. Then I started to learn the importance of scenes, and how to write dialogue.

As my knowledge grew, so did my writing—I started to get better at it.

Currently I am taking a critiquing course offered by Sam Hiyate—the co-founder and literary agent for The Rights Factory. Had I started out taking this course in the beginning of my writing career, I think I would have gone home crying and packed it in. It’s not that Sam or the others in the class are mean, but it’s definitely not a course for the faint-of-heart. In fact, I don’t think any critiquing class is.

For those who may not be familiar with a critiquing course, the process is fairly simple. You bring in a piece of a certain size, share it with the class by reading it aloud and then sit back while the class picks your work apart. The critiquing at times can be gruelling; being told your favourite scene is actually flat and does nothing to move the story along—well that sometimes hurts.

On the flip side you can also be told there was one phrase or sentence that really stuck with them, or that one of your scenes was gripping from start to finish. Those are the moments that make your heart sing, or at least that’s the case with me.

My goals or what I hope to gain from my writing courses now are completely different then what they were when I first started writing. My goals in the beginning were simple and truth be told very vain. I wanted to be told I was a good writer and that what I was writing was brilliant. Now whenever I want this to happen I ask my mom for her opinion! She is by far my biggest cheerleader and in the writing world it’s important to have cheerleaders!

I like to think I’ve matured, if only just a little! So my goals have shifted a bit. Now I want to know if my characters are likeable.  Does their story arc follow them from beginning to end? Is my voice, or rather the voice of my character clear? What is my pacing like? Is it too fast, too slow? Is my POV consistent? Am I showing and not telling?

Sam’s class is probably the fifth critiquing course I’ve taken over my career thus far. At the end of this course I hope to have a finished piece that is publishing-worthy. In most other critiquing courses this would be a lofty goal, but Sam’s class is different and I write for children. (This comment is only made in regards to children’s books generally having less words. The argument about which genre is more challenging to write is a whole article in itself.)

In other critiquing courses I’ve taken you share your work twice, perhaps three times, over a twelve week period, depending how many people are in the class. In Sam’s class there are only six of us and each week we are required to bring up to twenty new pages. This is a fast pace but it helps keep me on track. The other benefit is the other members in the class get to know my story and characters more intimately resulting in a better overall critique.

What is extremely important to remember is what others say about your work is their opinion and an opinion doesn’t make it right. In most cases if the critique pertains to the character arc, the flow or change in POV, then the advice is worth listening to, but even then not all the time.

There is a fine balance to knowing what to listen to and what to shut out. This process is much easier to do when you have a strong idea of the story itself. The less sure you are about the outline of your story the more difficult it is to distinguish helpful from harmful.

The critiquing classes I’ve taken have far out-weighed the monetary costs. I’ve learned, stretched and grown as a writer. Rules of thumb I’ve gathered over time; be honest but show respect, critiques should be constructive not cruel, and most importantly, if ever there’s a disagreement tie goes to the writer.

The other day I started thinking about some of my favourite movie and book tandems. These are not necessarily the greatest movies ever made, however they have left a lasting impression on me over time. I will look forward to any comments, rebukes, or thumbs up to my list. The list is in no particular order.

1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz both in book form and the movie continues to amaze me. The book was spellbinding as a child, and although I was in my mid-teens when I first saw the movie, its impact has been lasting. When Judy Garland opens that door into the technicolor land of Oz, it really is breathtaking on the big screen.

2.Jurassic Park, despite some obvious dialogue shortcomings and over acting by a few people, does justice to Michael Crichton’s novel. There are several Crichton books that I have enjoyed over the years and this one was certainly one of them. His books always move at breakneck speed. The movie scene, as the main characters encounter the brachiosaurus, remains spellbinding for me and one of my favourite scenes in a mainstream movie.

3. The English Patient is one of my alltime favourite Ondaatje novels – his talents are immense. This novel is complex and so rich that I’ve read it three times to date. The movie, while not as good as the book, is wonderful with some brilliant acting by Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott-Thomas.

4. Doctor Zhivago continues to rank as one of the most sweeping and epic films of the twentieth century. David Lean’s skills are amazing and Omar Sharif and Julie Christie deliver performances not often seen in a Hollywood film: raw and haunting. Pasternak’s book is nuanced and a great entry point for a view of everyday life focusing on the Russian Revolution.

5. The Grapes of Wrath is a book I read every few years and almost always find a handful of new gems that I had missed previously. Steinbeck wrote with such penetrating skill that oftentimes a reader can forget that they’re reading and not actually in the novel. The movie is exceptional as well, capturing the devastating effects of depression in a capitalist system on working people. Henry Fonda delivers one of his best performances in the movie version. 

While the overwhelming majority of readers and only slightly fewer critics have embraced Charles Dickens for over a century and a half now, I have not always been in agreement. Over time, this has changed and I’ll offer a few thoughts on why.

1. As a younger reader, I found Dickens exceedingly wordy, and in some parts of books, namely Bleak House (one of his books that I could never manage to finish), bordering on unreadable.

2. I now understand and can appreciate that most of his novels were serialised and that yes, the ‘column inch’ did matter a lot, I spot more richness and nuance in the writing than I did in my teens and early twenties.

3. I have a much greater appreciation of Dickens’s understanding of the vulnerable, unemployed, and working-class poor. Dickens wanted his contemporaries to see the underbelly of urbanization, industrialization, and unchecked capitalism. Obviously this continues to resonate in the twenty-first century.

4. While I still find much of his writing overly sentimental, I acknowledge that Dickens likely wanted readers to overidentify with the lives and predicaments of his larger-than-life characters, to evoke greater responses.

5. His influence cannot be denied and should be celebrated. A Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist, and openers – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” from A Tale of Two Cities have left indelible imprints. These imprints transcend literature and have become significant in films and the everyday vernacular of people in the West.

I would love to know if anyone else has had a change of mind or heart over time about Dickens.

There are many that argue that e-readers and hence e-books signal the end of books in print. I have a number of e-books and read them on both an iPad and a Kobo e-reader, so I am certainly a proponent and user of them. However, I just don’t believe the end of the printed book is yet in sight.  Here are some thoughts on why.

1. Spend some time with kids. As much as they enjoy reading on computers and tablets, the ‘wow’ factor continues to be higher when they engage with books in print. Whether it’s in a pop-up format, scratch and sniff, beautiful illustrations, or quite simply, that smell, kids love traditional books. Guess who the future book buyers are?

2. For the foreseeable future, I think most readers use e-readers as an additive to regular purchasing. Being in a smaller city, at times my only option is to purchase a book for my e-reader (particularly when the purchase is time sensitive). However, my purchasing of printed books, while slightly altered by this, hasn’t changed much at all. Anecdotal evidence suggests the same for many readers and writers that I speak with.

3. It’s still more challenging to share an e-book than an old dog-eared copy. Most of the readers I know are giving people that are always anxious to pass along a great recent read. This is much more challenging with e-readers for several reasons – including the format, the particular e-reader, and so forth.

4. Many, I being one of them, remain a little skeptical about what might happen to e-versions of our books in 5, 10 or 20 years. If companies are bought, sold, or go bankrupt, might our collection go with them? While there are risk factors in any home, having that copy on the shelf, still feels much more secure.

5. The tangible of a printed book cannot yet be duplicated. As mentioned earlier, the smell, the texture, the ability to turn a page, and I could go on remains special for traditional books.

I will look forward to any thoughts or comments that others may have.

We are in the midst of one of the busiest book-buying and -giving times of the year. I want to offer why I prefer to read, give and recommend fiction to readers. Creative non-fiction is now one of the hottest genres in the entire book publishing industry, but I think my thoughts will reinforce why it is marketed as ‘creative’ and aspires to some of fiction’s best qualities.

1. Writers can be at their creative best when they write fiction while still working within the broader guidelines of believability and credibility. Great fiction can take you to places and spaces that non-fiction never can.

2. When someone asks for my favourite 10 books that I have ever read (yes, actually read and not recommend simply on reputation) the overwhelming majority of them are novels. Fiction, its characters, its narratives, and its landscapes stick with me longer than anything else.

3. Fiction always gives me more license to be creative as a reader. I have never felt as directed as I do when reading non-fiction. That is liberating and enjoyable.

4. The discussion stimulated by fiction has always been greatest for me. While book clubs and seminars often embrace non-fiction – as they should – nothing for me has ever matched the conversations surrounding a great novel.

5. Reading fiction has made me a better person. It has made me more empathatic, caring and gentle. Of course I have been affected by non-fiction at myriad turns, but not to the same degree nor for the same duration.