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Results of `Beccalicious's Workshop on Prose Revision | ^lovetodeviate's Workshop: GROOM YOUR POEM! | What's so special about this cycle of workshops? | First time you've heard of *Writers-Workshop? This section is for you.

Results of `Beccalicious workshop: The Great Revision Expedition: Prose

A word from *Writers-Workshop: Thank you for participating! There will be no special mention this time round as we did not see much in the way of critique. We hope that this is an exception, and that you'll find time to peruse each other's work in a more dedicated fashion next time. We have faith.

`Beccalicious's Comments

When you only have 5 entries, I think it is difficult to make a top pick. I think due to the fact there was only 5, I’d top pick them all. Each submission had a variety of qualities and weaknesses, and I enjoyed reading them all.

Revision is one of the key elements to effective writing, realising the elements that need working on in your work. It is an essential practice as a writer and one that will help you develop and understand your own style. Each of these pieces showed an improvement from the original to the next draft and now have had the critique to take it to the next draft.

All Wrong by =illuminara
=illuminara wrote with much emotion. Emotion is probably one of the elements that a lot of writing can sometimes lack, and probably one of the most important. To get the emotion right you have to connect it to the audience and provoke them to feel how you want them to.

Christina's Story - an Excerpt by ~ria88
What I liked about ~ria88’s piece was we got a great sense of character. Christina has attitude, a bit of background and appealed to the audience this piece is clearly geared at. With a bit of development on the language and word choices, this piece could really work.

Florida by ~8ankH
~8ankH brought to this piece excellent pace. Sometimes we get too excited as writers and forget about pacing the writing, especially dialogue and in doing so you can lose emotion and subtlety.

Tarnished Notes by *itzjusdrama
This is a great start to something I feel is going to be bigger. Great readability with lots of opportunities for development!

To Drown a Rat by *batousaijin
I think if I was going to have a top pick, this piece may be leaning towards it. Technically the piece was sound, and the story was interesting and emotive. *batousaijin has touched onto a future workshop without realising it! (not telling you how though!)

^lovetodeviate's Workshop

^lovetodeviate has settled quite comfortably into her new role as a literature GD, still keeping up her commitment as co admin to this workshop too. A very popular writer for many who watch her, and she has been published in several literature journals. ^lovetodeviate also hosted a workshop in cycle three entitled I, Me, Myself

Take a look at her workshop on revising poetry.

GROOM YOUR POEM!

I had a teacher who used to say that poems are like people, each with a different personality: some poems are bold and tell you what they think right away; others are shy and need to be coaxed into revealing who they are. My teacher was talking about understanding poems, but the same thing applies when you approach a poem that needs revision. Poems can be absolutely wily creatures, ready to slip away just when you know what needs to be done.

That's why I think revision is so enjoyable: the chase. You need to be stronger than your poem to wrestle with it, groom it, tame it. And when you're done, you can let go and hopefully, watch your poem flourish.

The best part is that despite all their pretence, poems have no feeling whatsover, and you can be as brutal to them as you like. Chop them into couplets. Break their bones (er, lines)... It looks like I'm getting carried away with my extended metaphor (watch out for that!), so let me get to the (heh) meat of it.

How to pick a poem to groom

Ideally, you should be revising all or most of your poems, but for this workshop, you need to pick just one. It's up to you how you want to do that, but a couple of tips for those who are unsure:

Pick a poem that has received a lot of critique, as that will give you something to work on.

Pick a poem from which you have achieved sufficient distance to be called its audience. This is something we discussed previously during Personal Review Week. Time and other factors can help you look at a poem as if you were merely a reader, and not its author. With a weakened or non-existent emotional attachement to the poem, you will be able to see its flaws more easily.

What to groom in your poem

Usually, the workshop host mentions in detail what s/he wants you to do for the workshop and mentions resources for extra help. But I'm going to send you to the most useful resource possible for revision poetry and ask you to read that. This isn't extra reading, it's a must-read. And here it is: Tips for Editing Poetry by !suture

There is no way I will be able to go into as much detail with as many examples in this writeup. Besides, that article was written by someone far (far, far) more experienced than I. Just take my word for it, and read. Let me also add that that was the article that helped me most when I first realised that my poetry needed revision. The author goes into most of the basic problems with early poem drafts: padding (of words); adjectives and adverbs; conversational grammar; rhyming; stale (/boring/overused) word choice; cliches; and ambiguity.

In addition, I'd like you to look at three things.

Grammar: Many people think poetry doesn't require conventional grammar. This is untrue. Sure, sometimes you can use poetic license as a reason for experimentation. Other times, the poem may itself be an experiment in form; or, it could be written in a peculiar dialect. Unless there is a specific reason for it to be otherwise, make sure your poem consists of coherent, properly phrased sentences.

Enjambment/Line breaks: The !suture article mentions this, but doesn't go into detail. In short, line breaks are important. Don't make them arbitrary. Linebreaks serve to create pauses, to highlight certain words or ideas, and sometimes, to allow for multiple interpretations. For more detailed information, try this: On the Matter of Line Breaks.

Logic: This sounds funny, I know. Some poems are dream-like, surreal -- how can they be logical? Well, what I'm really looking for is consistency. Consistency in the form, the narrative (if there is one), the extended metaphor (if that's what you're using), and the use of language/accent/dialect.

How to groom your poem

Unlike prose, poetry does not need to be revised to cater to an audience. That's my belief, anyway. However, this is no excuse for inaccessibility. True, poems are often by nature complex, but that does not mean only you should be able to understand them. It's best to create an imaginary reader for your poems, or think of someone real, who will challenge and question everything you write -- in such a way that the best comes out of it.

The next thing goes back to my introduction about poems being different. This means that each poem may require a different approach, and as the poet, it's your job to recognise what that approach is. Don't be afraid to experiment, though. You can always go back to the original if things don't work out.

Here are two major approaches to revising a poem (there are many varying shades of these, of course):

The Trim: Here's where your apply most of what !suture was talking about. Check if your metre and rhymes are consistent, if your line breaks make sense; remove extra words, especially adjectives and adverbs; find some new words to use instead of the boring, old ones. And then prune, prune, prune, till you get it right.

The Complete Makeover: Don't be afraid to change your poem completely, retaining only a few lines, figures of speech, whatever. Some poems need it. You may want to change the form, style or voice of the poem. You may want to rewrite the poem using an extended metaphor. You can also try combining two poems, or splitting one poem into two. Take a risk. It might pay off.

Once you're done, step away and look at the big picture. Does the poem work? (And of course, send it in so I can read. )

Develop your own grooming style

Eventually, you'll have to figure out your own style of revision. If you already have a process -- a method of revision -- then don't let me change it (or change it much). Do what works for you, and send in the revision anyway. But if you're unsure about how to proceed, then this writeup is designed to give you some ideas, a few nudges in the right direction.

Also, do read the interview with Martin Lammon that !suture linked to at the bottom of their article: Flying Revision's Flag. Lammon famously revised one poem six hundred times. He himself says that that is "anomalous", but it's worth seeing how and why revision works for him, and to compare that with other poets.

Remember!

This workshop is for POETRY only.
Please do not submit more than one entry for this workshop.
Try to follow :devlovetodevaite:'s workshop as best you can.
Feel free to revise a previous workshop entry as you are likely to have received more critique on these entries. But obviously, this is not necessary.

How to submit

Submit your revised entry as a new deviation or scrap and send us a link to it in a note. Please also send us a link to the original, unrevised version of the piece (and indicate which is which, please). The subject line of the note should be "REVISION POETRY". Entries must come in on or before midnight (GMT/UTC), May 28. ^lovetodeviate will respond to the entries on June 1st.
How to accept critique

Always thank the critic. This gratitude must be as sincere as possible, even if you did not like the critique given, because the critic has taken time to offer his/her opinion of the piece.
If you do not like the critique, it is not necessary to mention so. Simply thank the critic and move on. You can always ignore their suggestions, while not making a scene of it.
If you are unsure of what the critique means, feel free to ask the critic what s/he meant. Building rapport with your critic is one of the best ways to survive in a workshop and to learn. If you want examples, ask. Similarly, if you like the suggestions given, mention it. Critic's have feelings too.
In the unlikely case that a critic offers rude/sexist/racist/etc comments, feel free to contact *Writers-Workshop in a note and we will try to help you. A decision regarding the rudeness of the critique will be taken, and if we're not sure ourselves, we will consult with one of the GDs or anyone else high up on deviantART.


Still haven't figured out what's special about this now?

It's our 6-month birthday! That's right, we've been bringing you workshops consistently since November 11, 2007. Although the date looks strange, think about it: 4 cycles of workshops successfully completed. Each cycle is a month and a half long. 4 * 1.5 = 6

Some fantastic statistics and facts

Since November 11, 2007, 12 different workshops were hosted. Our guest workshoppers so far (in chronological order) are:
`GunShyMartyr, `PoeticWar, ^StJoan, ^GeneratingHype, ~TheHungerArtist, `Beccalicious, ~apocathary, ~EveningDownpour, ^lovetodeviate, `conorschild, *MSJames and `Jon-Law. In addition, the admins hosted a personal review week.

We have received 229 submissions (and 2 late submissions) to our workshop in all! These submissions have been for workshops on plot twists, ekphrasis in poetry, jazz in literature, dialogue, lipograms, character, magic realism, non-fiction prose, exploring the self in writing, brevity in prose, tanka and humour.

4 of the above submissions and 1 resource article written by a guest workshopper have received Daily Deviations -- the highest honour for art on the site! These have been featured in our journal shoutboard.

Although pageviews are not always important, they are to us, because it means that people find our club useful and/or interesting (most of the time, anyway). So it's good to know that we have had nearly 13,700 pageviews to date.

Most importantly, our huge group of members. We shan't number you (because we can't; there are too many of you), but we appreciate you very much.

Thank you to our members, supporters, contributors, guests, anyone at all who has offered us a kind ear. A workshop is nothing without writers and critics.

A special thank you to *itzjusdrama and =inspiredimperfection for these stamps:



So yes, happy birthday us!

(But don't let any of this distract you from revising and submitting to this workshop, eh?)

First time you've heard of *Writers-Workshop? This section is for you.

*Writers-Workshop is a literature community that focuses on the development of a writer. We intend to provide a non-competitive workshop environment on dA, as well as to push good, polished writing over winning prizes or "networking".

Workshops will be conducted every fortnight; prose, poetry and free-for-all sessions will be rotated. For more information, read our FAQ section or note us with queries.

We have been working on a list of resources for our writers: Resources for Writers which we think is worth going through. We are open to suggestions as well.

Our Diary has a list of upcoming workshops.

You can host a workshop, too.

Look out for workshop hosted by both the admins which would conclude this revision cycle coming up in a fortnight!

Staff