We have been running courses for queer writers of short fiction and flash for the last two years; from those courses one person has got their first novel published and one is going on to a Masters in creative writing in Dublin. We now invite writers to learn how best to critique their own and others' work in a supportive environment.
This series will be different from others previous, in that we will be concentrating on developing the skills necessary to give effective critiques. Previous participants have expressed the desire to get more detailed comments to help improve their writing. So we will be asking people who want to take part and have work critiqued to submit it in advance, up to 1200 words – this can be a whole story or part of a work. We expect to be able to review maybe 3 pieces maximum in a 2-hour session.
We will be looking at, for example:
What genre does this fit into? How appropriate is the style and structure to that?
Structure of sentences and paragraphs – do they build? Do they lead the reader on?
Narrative: Are the dynamics of the narrative clear? Does the author provide the information which the narrative needs? Do they give extraneous information which confuses the situation?
Pacing: Does the narrative speed and slow down as dictated by the content? Does it have the necessary variety?
Colour: Does the piece have appropriate mood and atmosphere? How is this achieved and could it be enhanced?
Character: What do we know about the characters? How is that created? Is it sufficient?
Narrator: Who is telling the story and why? What is their attitude to what they are describing? Are they a reliable or unreliable narrator?
Of course not all questions will apply to all stories, but we hope to provide a chance for more thorough investigation than is possible within the monthly readings meetings. We also hope that developing these tools will help writers to look at their own work with a more objective eye and improve their writing skills.
MOST IMPORTANT: Providing a critique is not the same thing as being critical. We will always start from the point of asking what the writers themselves are trying to achieve. The corollary is that the writers themselves need to be able to talk about their own work with some degree of awareness.
PEOPLE COMING ARE ASKED TO BRING ALONG A PIECE OF WORK TO THE FIRST SESSION