A BC Thing

I posted this post this morning


A large part of Boot Camp is about getting you to write fresh work, work that you can see is written here, under the umbrella of BC. You may put a story a week up, more if that's how it works out, but they should be NEW and your unaided work. Posting old work, whether it be rough stuff from the drawer or the best that you've ever done is pointless.



The BC process is one of immersement and a LOT of stuff flying backwards and frwards. Some things you will "get" like you might "finally" understand a technical explanation at work, but very much comes from an osmotic effect, (soak it up, baby) and possibly a shotgun effect!!!



IF that is allied to FRESH work, then we might see changes, you might see changes. But post OLD work and you are screwing yourself and BC



If you have older work that you want comments on you can us AKLS and pay for a detailed crit and blue-pencil job OR you can post here openly and beg the favour.



But REMEMBER (and this is the hardest thing to understand about Boot Camp)



WE ARE NOT A WORKSHOP. WE DON'T TRY TO FIX STORIES HERE.



Instead of worrying about ONE STORY or trying to make say, Lexie's "Dominion" become a better story (directly with editorial suggestions, typical workshopping) we try to improve LEXIE, partly by allowing her to see the errors in that particular story (10%) but mainly in the general arguments OVER her story (10-20%) and ALL the arguments and critiques over ALL the stories.



I say almost every month, THIS STORY IS IRRELEVANT, fix the writer.



Stories are fodder for learning.



Sales and prizes are side-effects, bonuses.






YES, we can fix "this story". I could suggest changes or edit the damn thing myself and the story would jump 5/10 points in a blink, up to 40 points with more considered effort.



And if we were VERY lucky, and I mean VERY, the author might have permanently improved a tenth of one point.



You see, she had her story fixed for her, or a master stood over her while she fixed it. 1-2-1 this is a very good way of teaching because we can repeat, repeat, pass questions back and forth. But get a student to point out the error in her own work and that's worth twenty stories' worth of ME pointing to the errors.



But what should be happening, to say, Russell, is he reads a Tom story, with say, an inconsistent voice. It makes him wonder about voice, about consistency, about his own stories. Then he reads, say,one of Colin's, a story which in its core values has a deep, painful poignancy, but (say) the opening is so blokey-lightweight, that we don't get to fully feel and get that poignancy. The theme music is wrong.



So he wonders about theme music and how to get it right in his own work.



Or he finds a story that blows him away and energises the thread by continually asking, HOW DID THE AUTHOR DO THAT, WHY THIS? Maybe he discovers, aided by me or not, that the key is that opening voice, how the character is placed, how the theme music suggests pain. Maybe it's a Napalm effect when the secret instead of being withheld is stuck in plain view at the beginning. Maybe it's language, maybe it's literary allusion or metaphor. Maybe the author makes things clear by not talking about them.



But 5-10 crits every week, a fresh story every week or fortnight, a flash at least once a week, and argument, argument, argument, that's what changes BCers and it takes three months to show a real change.



Along the way, if you don't bleed, you're not human