1) EXCERPTS FROM THE RIGHT
KIND OF WRITING WORKSHOP by ORSON SCOTT
CARD
 Do
you have to take a writing class to be a writer? Do you
have to read books on how to write? Do you have to attend
a writers' workshop?
No, no and no.
You don't have to do anything to
be a writer — except write.
There aren't many professions as
free as being a writer. Nobody has to give you permission
to write. You are never too young or too old to be a writer.
You don't have to get a diploma, you don't have to pay
a fee or register with the government. The only thing
you must have, besides your own mind, is something to
write with — and you can get around that if you
find someone to take dictation! You don't even have to
get anybody's permission to publish. In a world full of
photocopy machines and computer networks, you can send
your stories out into the world for only a few bucks.
But the price of a writer's freedom
is risk. There's no minimum wage for writers. There's
no guarantee that an audience is going to like your stories.
And if you hope to make a living from writing, photocopy
and computer network publication can be terrific for putting
out words, but they're lousy for bringing in money.
That's why publishing companies
and distributors and bookstores exist—to put our
works in the hands of the audience, then bring a share
of the money back to the writer. Even then there's no
guarantee that you'll get rich. That depends on how many
people like the stories you tell—and therefore how
many buy your books, or the magazine in which your fiction
appears. Still, finding a publisher is pretty much the
only chance you have to make a decent living as an independent
writer.
Yet for every book that gets published
and distributed, there must be a hundred, maybe a thousand,
that don't. Publishers can only afford to publish books
that will sell enough copies to make back the cost of
publication. So they're looking for writers who know how
to speak to a fairly large audience.
In other words, they're looking
for writers who have mastered the basic skills of telling
a story. Writers who have something fresh and important
to say. Writers who can build on structures the audience
is familiar with, but then take them to places that are
new and strange, challenge them with fascinating ideas,
or give them a deep understanding of marvelous characters
they have never met before in literature or in life.
But where do you, a novice writer,
learn how to write professional-quality stories? How do
you master the skills and techniques that will make your
stories effective—make them powerful, believable,
and clear?
Thatís where writing workshops
come in.
At the most minimal level, almost
any writing class or workshop can be helpful: provide
you with deadlines to help you discipline yourself; give
you an audience that will actually read what you write
and then talk about it. The sheer process of writing a
lot of words and having them commented on by an audience
is educational—you'll learn something.
That's the bare minimum, however. A workshop can be much
more.
I first took part in a WOTF writing
workshop in 1987, when I was one of the teachers at Sag
Harbor, Long Island, just before the 1987 Hubbard Awards
event in New York City.
As I approached Sag Harbor in 1987,
to help teach the writers from Volume III, the very fact
that those folks had come out on top in the best writing
contest I've ever heard of suggested to me that this was
going to be an enjoyable workshop — even if it didnít
actually accomplish much teaching, I thought.
The writers were as good as I expected.
The workshop was even more enjoyable, on a personal level,
than I had hoped. But what astonished me was how much
more was accomplished in only a few days than most workshops
accomplish in weeks or months or even years.
These were not my first writing
workshops. I have been teacher and participant in dozens
of classes and workshops over the years. Nor were the
WOTF workshops the only good or effective workshops I've
seen. But I can tell you that the Sag Harbor experience
changed the way I teach and set a standard against which
I judge all other writing classes. And if you ever teach
or attend a workshop, the techniques developed for and
used at the WOTF workshop are worth keeping in mind.
Why?
Because they work. They work for
three reasons, the first of which is:
The Kind of Writing Teacher
There are two different kinds
of workshops: ones with teachers, and ones without. Both
kinds work basically the same way. A writer presents copies
of the story to everyone in the workshop. All read the
story. Then at the next workshop meeting, all the participants
take turns offering their responses to the story, both
favorable and negative. The teacher, if there is one,
usually speaks after all the students. Only then does
the author get to respond.
The Writers of the Future workshop
has many teachers, all professional writers. At Sag Harbor,
Tim Powers and I taught; anthologist and novelist Marta
Randall and I are scheduled to be co-teachers at Pepperdine.
At the first pilot project workshop in Taos, NM, in 1986,
the instructors were contest judges Frederik Pohl, Jack
Williamson and Gene Wolfe. In London in late 1987, the
instructor was Ian Watson. But all of the workshops had
been led by a single director: Algis Budrys.
The point of a workshop is for
all the participants to learn the skills required to make
their own stories work well. One of the most important
differences between good workshops and no-so-good ones
is that good ones help you get better at telling your
own stories, and no-so-good ones try to force you to tell
someone elseís stories....
Curriculum
One of the most important differences
in WOTF workshops is the fact that there is a specific
curriculum. Most workshops plunge right into reading and
commenting on participants' stories, dealing with different
subjects only as they come up by chance in the informal
discussions....
Getting Outside
Perhaps the most startling technique
in the WOTF workshops is the way Budrys, using teaching
techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard, gets the participants
out of the meeting rooms and into the streets. The writers
were sent out to search for ideas in the local library.
They were sent out to observe the sights and sounds and
people in the area. They were sent out to interview strangers
and learn their stories—what had happened in their
lives and how they saw the world....
There is a long tradition of writers
helping writers, especially in the field of speculative
fiction. We don't regard newcomers as competition—we
welcome them as a new source of ideas and visions that
help us all to become wiser and better storytellers. L.
Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest exists because
he was a vital part of that tradition, and the Workshop
Is a logical extension of his — and all the instructors'
— desire to help young writers skip as much of the
early stumbling and fumbling as possible, and quickly
come to write at the peak of their ability. No workshop
can bestow talent or the will to succeed or the kind of
vision that leads to greatness. But if you have talent
and will and vision, the workshop can help you learn how
to reach our full audience.
ORSON SCOTT
CARD
To get your own certainty on the quality of the storytelling
required to win the L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of
the Future Contest, get the exclusive New Writer &
Illustrator Book Package at an incredible price.
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