Workshop: Fiction Writing (Part 1)

I went to a writing workshop a few weeks ago. To those who are clueless, here is the details of that workshop. You may need to click on the image to have a larger view.

If you remember my previous post, I was talking about how afraid I was to meet other writers because of my background as a fanficion writer. Turns out that I was too paranoid about it.

The workshop was amazing. Well, I think it's kinda rude to disclose what I've learnt. I think that it's best to the facilitators at the workshop. At most, I'll give some kind of remark rather than a detailed  So if you are here, expecting some kind of crash course, well, you're not going to get it, sorry :(

Firstly, we did a self-introduction. I was the second one in the line, so I had to make quick decisions. Should I just keep quiet? Or kick myself in the shins and jump into the fire? Well, I made the latter choice.

"Hi, I'm aichioluv, and I'm... I'm a closet fanfiction writer."

No one really reacted. Do they even know what is fanfiction? My facilitator, however, chuckled, though not in a bad way (I hope). So I continued.

"I'm here (in this workshop) because I want to see what I'm lacking in my writing, which should be a lot. And I want to see how I can improve in my writing."

Yup, my self-introduction went by smoothly. Not angry mob of nay-sayers, no pitch forks, nothing. Yes yes yes, I was overreacting, I admit. But seriously, I know the general reputation of fanfiction being completely unoriginal (duh, it's fanfiction!) and substandard. Of course I worry. It was absolutely liberating, my confession. After that, I felt less concerned, for some reason. No one judged me, at least they did not say it out.

I really enjoyed the workshop and I've picked up some tips for improvement. If I really had to nitpick, I wished that we had gone more in depth. Maybe analyse author's works and discuss how we can use their awesomeness to improve ourselves. Hmm, is it even legal?

Apart from that, I'm simply glad that the workshop delivered what it needed to deliver. Here are some of the things that I've discovered and rediscovered during the workshop.

1. I had no idea I have an inner critic.
At the start of the workshop, we were supposed to dismiss our inner critic. I was thinking, "What inner critic? I will be happy enough if I was more critical of my work." Due to everyone from fanfiction.net being so nice and friendly, even if I had any mistakes, they may put it in such a roundabout way... or maybe they did not even notice.

Then, I remembered. Once upon a time, I received a painfully honest review for one of my earlier works. In his/her defense, I'm super grateful for that review because it gave me a good reality slap on my face. Unoriginal as it may be, fanfiction is, obviously, works and characters created by the original author. To make characters out of their character is kind of an insult to the author, in my opinion now. So I'm glad that that reviewer was honest enough to tell me.

That being said, since then I was ever so cautious in my planning and I try to be real critical with myself - especially with character portrayal. Sometimes, I feel exceedingly frustrated when I can't illustrate certain personalities the way I imagined it to be. I guess that could be my inner critic trying to giving my ideas 'friendly reminders' back to oblivion.

So, I do have an inner critic. Never thought about that. While it's good to have a certain standard for yourself, it is just as important to ignore the internal naysayers and write what YOU want to write.

2. I've pushed myself out of the box.
I guess I really surprised myself there. Not that I am a really good fantasy/adventure writer in the first place, but I never considered making characters more than what I was comfortable with. In the end, I thought of things and ideas that were sort of out of my usual style. At least, what was what I tried to do. I did try to make one of the characters in an exercise a failed comedian, but I guess even the function of a failed comedian failed on me. *sigh* humour was never my strong point. Nevertheless, I was glad that I tried to do something slightly different. Turns out that I could so it if I really try.

I'll continue another time!

Details of workshop were taken from here.