tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post6854533685628145421..comments2024-03-10T04:29:20.044-04:00Comments on Mad Genius Club: Teaching and LearningSarah A. Hoythttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17478124095732219352noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-65763765842167417112011-02-03T05:54:35.598-05:002011-02-03T05:54:35.598-05:00Insightful post, Sarah.
I wish we could teach peo...Insightful post, Sarah.<br /><br />I wish we could teach people to think, but you're right. It's much easier to have a knee-jerk reaction than to analyse why something has gone wrong and fix it.<br /><br />Ore - I like that analogy, Kate.<br /><br />There's always a lot of dross around the ore and you have to get rid of it to find the good stuff.Rowena Cory Daniellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08995983965583233914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-85933887536235566882011-02-02T22:06:18.144-05:002011-02-02T22:06:18.144-05:00Kate,
Ore-- apt analogy. Also on watching TV as ...Kate,<br /><br />Ore-- apt analogy. Also on watching TV as a cultural guideline. Ditto, used to be, reading mags or even perusing them in the checkout line.Sarah A. Hoythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17478124095732219352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-92031474032348467752011-02-02T22:05:01.636-05:002011-02-02T22:05:01.636-05:00Stephen,
Well, then, I'm in the midst of sell...Stephen,<br /><br />Well, then, I'm in the midst of selling a series you REALLY won't like (G).Sarah A. Hoythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17478124095732219352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-38729976176860388362011-02-02T19:41:26.223-05:002011-02-02T19:41:26.223-05:00The way I see it, talent is rather like ore. It...The way I see it, talent is rather like ore. It's there, it's valuable, but you have to refine it and shape it for it to really come into its own. When the ore in question is a honking great nugget of gold, there's not much that needs to be done with it, but when you're talking about raw gemstones or metal ores, there's a lot of skill that has to be applied before you get something shiny and pretty like a diamond, or useful like a stainless steel cutlery set. <br /><br />The talent I've got is the ore. The nature and shape of that talent determines whether I'll be making cutlery or diamonds. The skills I learn and apply actually do the shaping - and if I get it wrong, I can ruin the ore altogether. At which point the analogy falls apart, of course.<br /><br />Some of the techniques I've used are the things I outlined in my post a few weeks back about <a href="http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/2011/01/practicing-writer.html" rel="nofollow">practice pieces</a>: picking a single thing to focus on, and writing practice pieces looking solely at improving that one aspect of what I'm writing. Another tool is to keep in mind - always - that when you're getting critique the goal is to improve the story. It is not a personal attack (I have, alas, known people who couldn't make that distinction). <br /><br />Also - if most of the people who see it comment on something similar, chance are there's a problem there. They might not identify the actual problem, but they've identified something that's off.<br /><br />Watch people and listen to them. It's not just that people watching generates untold story ideas, it's that you can pick up a very good notion of what people in general feel about things by observation and listening.<br /><br />If you park yourself in the mall and every conversation you hear includes some reference to "those evil/horrible/bad/mean insurance companies" you're going to have to do a lot of legwork to make your thriller about someone defrauding an insurance company work (assuming the person doing the defrauding is the villain). It might not be doable.<br /><br />If everyone and their dog thinks glasses didn't happen until less than 100 years ago, Benjamin Franklin's portraits notwithstanding, you'll have trouble with your Civil War (US or England - it doesn't matter which in this example) historical novel where the main character needs glasses.<br /><br />And - much as I hate to say it because I cringe at doing this myself - what is shown in TV and movies (and more to the point, what <i>isn't</i> shown) is a pretty decent thumbnail guide to where the cultural ick-buttons tend to lie. Ignore them at your peril. And your continued unpublishedness.Kate Paulkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02034983693134240754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-74700937309460133202011-02-02T18:54:31.955-05:002011-02-02T18:54:31.955-05:00For me, the time I spent on stage as a teenager (i...For me, the time I spent on stage as a teenager (including the show with five separate cameo roles) helps a LOT. From age ten I've been learning to "stand next to myself" to analyze what the audience would get out of what I was doing, rather than just *assuming* they'll see/hear/feel what I intend them to. It isn't foolproof, but I find that it seems to help. I still don't think it's any substitute for continuing my search for effective first-readers, though.<br /><br />The "ick-threshold" factor you talked about is a VERY important consideration. I have a bone-deep, reflexive problem with vampire stories (one of my few utterly incurable religious prejudices). I was *devouring* Butcher's "Dresden Files" series, until he crossed that line ... stopped in mid-book, and that was that. Which annoyed the crap out of me, because I REALLY like Harry and Bob and Murphy ...<br /><br />Talent ... I think, assuming they possess the requisite minimum baseline intelligence, that anyone can learn to do anything, if the want it badly enough. But anything that requires creativity can't be "taught". You could teach me about paints and tectures and brushes and stroke-techniques, etc ... but you can't teach me to CREATE visual art. Either I develop the ability to envision new pictures and then use those mechanical skills to produce them, or not. Similarly, I can learn the *mechanics* of grammar and style and punctuation, but I can't LEARN how to come up with new ideas.Stephen Simmonshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07522113936557314128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-12102232744874654242011-02-02T16:50:12.622-05:002011-02-02T16:50:12.622-05:00Louise
Unfortunately when I get like that, I just...Louise<br /><br />Unfortunately when I get like that, I just want to cut everything and start again. Sometimes great fortitude of mind is needed, when a book is due and I can't give it distance (like now.) For me (ymmv) it's as bad a phase as "I love it." But other people might do better.Sarah A. Hoythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17478124095732219352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-66637500822208342942011-02-02T16:43:21.765-05:002011-02-02T16:43:21.765-05:00When I get to the point where I hate the book, and...When I get to the point where I hate the book, and every word sounds wrong and awkward, and I have no emotions left except disgust - that's useful because I can look at a sentence and (instead of thinking, "Boy, what a great sentence!") say: "That sentence is establishing character. That one adds sensory detail." and I can check, piece by piece, that all the necessary elements are represented.<br /><br />Louise CurtisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-62485429614229384632011-02-02T11:17:48.830-05:002011-02-02T11:17:48.830-05:00Pam,
AH! I'll have you know I got PAID for m...Pam,<br /><br />AH! I'll have you know I got PAID for my Star Trek Fan Fic (Strange New Worlds III -- story If I lose thee.<br /> :-PSarah A. Hoythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17478124095732219352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940224740718934743.post-89726602798948926072011-02-02T09:17:50.124-05:002011-02-02T09:17:50.124-05:00Established writers may sound incredibly talented,...Established writers may sound incredibly talented, but dig into their past and you find them as teenagers writing Star Trek Fan Fic.<br /><br />I think reading and writing is handled by the brain with the same instinctive ability to learn languages that results in speach. It's taught deliberately, but at some point the brain has picked up the basics and it's just experience that makes one either borderline illiterate or brilliant. <br /><br />You can join Toastmasters, or the high school debate team, take acting lessons--or speach therepy. For writng, the ladder up is much the same--English and literature and creative writing classes. <br /><br />I think it's all a matter of wanting to put in the effort, and personality factors, such as being shy makes one less likely to be proficent in speach, but better in reading, as displacement socialization.<br /><br />Writing as a professional requires a whole bag of analysis tools, as you say. In fact several bags. I'm having to lock up my novel writing habits in order to assemble a tool kit for writing short stories.<br /><br />And yes, resisting all the way!MataPamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11128604732495114033noreply@blogger.com