Storytellersunplugged

Where Words Meet

Back to Camp

A few weeks ago I took time out of my busy schedule to disappear for a weekend to a small town just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. No, I wasn’t having a mid-life crisis of any kind (and I certainly wouldn’t pick Maryland as the place to have one if I was!) nor was I trying to escape from a wave of raging fans.

I was one of sixteen participants at this year’s Borderlands Press Writers Bootcamp.

Bootcamp is a three day intensive workshop where sixteen “grunts’ get their writing worked over not only by their colleagues but also by the four “drill-instructors.” This year, those instructors consisted of three bestselling writers and one editor-in-chief of a major New York publishing house:

–F. Paul Wilson, bestselling author of the Repairman Jack series (as well as a host of medical thrillers and even some early SF novels)

– Doug Winter, bestselling author of Run (as well as two books I consider the definitive biographies of both Clive Barker and Stephen King)

– Tom Monteleone, bestselling author and editor of the Borderlands anthology series (as well as one of the founders of the superb Borderlands Press)

– Ginjer Buchanan, editor in chief at Berkley/Ace and one of the top editors working in genre fiction today

Bootcamp comes in two flavors – Short Story and Novel. I’d been one of the lucky sixteen participants at the very first Short Story bootcamp back in 2005, learned a lot, and was very pleased to be selected for the Novel bootcamp this year.

Now I can already hear you asking – how does the bootcamp work?

Participants are required to send in a writing sample from one of their novels, not to exceed thirty pages. That sample is then sent to the four instructors, as well as each of the other participants. Those writing samples are critiqued by all involved on the basis of several key areas:

– Plot and Setting

– Dialogue and Narrative Voice

– Character and Point of View

– Grammar, Style, Pacing, Transition and Structure

Attendees are broken into groups of four and we rotate through the process, working with each instructor for several hours on their assigned topic (for instance, Tom Monteleone was our Plot and Setting instructor.) By the time the weekend is over, you have discussed, dissected and pulled apart your writing sample on so many levels that it has to be better, it just HAS to be.

And it is.

Because the instructors are world-class in their approach and in their ability to pass on their knowledge to you.

Now some of you are probably wondering what’s a guy like me – sold five novels to date, has had his work translated into four different languages, optioned his first novel off for feature film production, blah blah blah – what’s he expect to learn from a writing workshop?

In this case — a lot. The opportunity to have four professional writers take your writing sample apart WORD BY WORD is invaluable. This goes way beyond the type of writing group John mentioned in his essay here yesterday. This is four professionals doing everything they can to show you how to make your piece a better one. That kind of attention to your work, and that level of feedback, just isn’t available on a regular basis. It’s like those commercials on tv - Flight to Baltimore - $250. Bootcamp fee - $700. Word by word critique of your latest writing project by four people who have forgotten more about writing than you have learned to date – Priceless.

A word should also be said about my fellow grunts. We all had very different levels of accomplishment and skill when it came to writing. But all of us were readers. All of us knew what we liked and what we didn’t. And I think that is part of the value of a program like this. Just because someone hasn’t sold their first (or their twenty-fifth!) novel doesn’t mean they don’t have something worth saying. I learned a lot from all my fellow colleagues, from the guy who currently works for DC Comics all the way to the woman whose writing sample was the first novel she’d ever attempted. As readers we all look at a piece of writing differently and those different perceptions can be used to better shape and form our own level of talent. Every suggestion we receive certainly shouldn’t be taken to heart (note the various examples my colleagues have given in the comments thread to John’s excellent article from yesterday – there is definitely a time to ignore comments and suggestions from others) but we also should not be afraid to listen to suggestions from others with less experience than we have simply because they have less experience. Listen to it, weigh it, and keep or discard it as necessary – that’s my general philosophy. You never know where that crucial piece of advice is going to come from.

So what’s my point?

Simply this. Writing is a craft. And like any good craft it needs to be worked at in order to improve it. From the bestselling author to the person just starting out, we all have something to learn and it’s never too late to do so.

I take every opportunity I can to learn something knew about my writing and my technique. Some of that comes from simply reading sites like this one. And some of it comes from getting down in the mud and muck, sloshing through an obstacle course with my fellow grunts while our drill instructors break us down and build us up again until we are better, stronger, faster than we were when we arrived.

What have you done to improve your craftsmanship this month?

(Note – With respect to full disclosure, our very own Elizabeth Massie was one of the instructors at a previous bootcamp and you can catch the view from her perspective in an essay she did last year right here.)

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If you liked this post, visit Joe's XtremeLife blog for more of the same. If you're interested in working with him as either a writing or life coach, check out XtremeLife Coaching. Joe's fiction can be found at his official website, JosephNassise.com
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