When I was a kid in Portugal, under the newly instituted socialist (I have no clue what they calle
d themselves, but the majority were socialist) regime, individual work was considered a little suspect. It was not exactly frowned at, but everything possible was done to dilute it. For a while we were graded by the class, for instance.
This happened in 5th and 6th grade. I never fell far below a B mostly because, well, they knew what would happen to them behind the bike sheds after class. And we didn’t even have bike sheds. Ashamed of myself? Not even a little. I usually had straight A tests, and I’d seen too many of my classmates with similar grades get pulled down to Cs and others with Ds end up with B because “they’re oppressed and they don’t have pretty clothes” or something like that. I won’t go into this at any more length. I’m not bitter about it. It worked for me. Of course, it would have worked for me if I had Ds normally too. It was called reign of terror. But it added up to “I had a problem and I solved it.”
For more serious effects of this type of “crowd decision”, read anything about the terror in France or the Cultural revolution. And no, I’m not comparing what happened to me to that, only saying mine is in the kindergarten level of that continuum, while those are at the post-graduate level, but they’re manifestations of the same “curriculum.” This is simply a way of explaining how my opinions on certain situations were formed.
In the same way, everything that could be done as group work was done as group work, including writing and art projects. The epitome of this was when we’d arrive at the school, ready for a normal day and got told all classes had been cancelled, here are paint pots, go out front and paint the school’s facade.
What we did to the front of that school stayed that way for about a year, and then another crowd of students did it, and then again. I don’t know what the school thought they were achieving. Savings on professional painters? Or just giving the students a sense of ownership in their school? Whatever it was, and regardless of what my teacher called it, it wasn’t art. Perhaps a clash of conflicting graffiti would be a way to describe it. Some of my classmates, mind you, were astonishingly gifted in art. But they’d be next to a guy who was just drawing private body parts, over and over again. Anatomically incorrect body parts. Or the girl who was just doing little hearts and flowers of the kind you doodle on the side of your notebook when you’re bored in class.
To call the result an eyesore would be an insult with eyesores everywhere. It became sort of an eye-crossing horror that you instinctively looked away from. And when the revolutionary fervor abated, the facade got painted an innocuous grey, which it still is today.
So when Travis Lee Clark in the comments, on He Beats Me But He’s My Publisher suggested that writing would move to a more “crowd sourcing” type of situation, where a novel would be put out as, say vs1.0 and then updated according to comments, my immediate and instinctive reaction was “oh my G-d, no!”
I hate to say it, but my reasoned, thought out reaction is STILL “Oh, good G-d, no!”
At least this is still my reaction for MOST type of projects, most situations and most writers. There are exceptions where this can work exceptionally well.
I found the comparison of this to reading on a computer as a generational thing funny. No, of course I never thought that people would refuse to read on a computer screen. I know it’s a matter of habit. I don’t have issues adapting to new trends. Look, I started out writing by hand, in exercise books, moved to a typewriter at fourteen, wrote my first novel in the first electrical typewriter I found, and I now work almost exclusively on computer (save for editing – the kindle is better for that – and plotting, where I do it by hand to save time.) I’ve tried every possible gadget to make my life easier, including a scanner pen for research (sucks) and Dragon Naturally Speaking (works, but it seems whenever I get it trained the computer dies, and then I don’t get around to training it again for years. Also, dictating what I write into a recorder while walking where there are ANY people can get the police called on me. [You think I’m joking.])
I started reading fiction in books where you had to cut the pages free (they were folded over and the edges and the book was bound that way.) Now I read mostly on the kindle. It’s not even generational. It’s habit. And habits can be formed.
But what stands in the way of crowd sourcing – again, in most cases, and for most authors – is more something in the immutable nature of the human mind.
The first characteristic of the human mind is that most of us – having evolved as social creatures – prefer to be part of a group to actually, you know, succeeding on our own. And if you’re nodding appreciatively and saying “But that’s why crowd sourcing for art is so great” think again.
Rick Boatright suggested, in the post on editing, that newbies post to the 1632 group, where people stand ready to shepherd you to publication. This is true and they are one of the exceptions, for reasons of being a shared world and one that’s becoming mind numbingly complex as you go. So if you want to write for 163x series, this might be a good thing. They and in fact the whole 163- phenomenon will be treated under exceptions. (Yes, I’m afraid this is one of those LONG posts.)
But I stay away from most anonymous online critique groups like poison, and I advise all my fledglings to do the same. Why?
There are several proverbs, in several countries, and they all agree. “The poppy that stands out shall be cut down”, or perhaps “The nail that sticks out will be hammered in.” Or “the forest grows, top on top.” They all mean the same. It means that in any group, if you stand out you’ll be pulled down. What’s more, if you are a normal human being you’ll try to fit in, and you won’t NEED to be hammered.
This is a post in itself. Or at least, if you don’t understand what I’m saying, by now, I’d need a full post to explain it. Something like “swallowing the poisoned apple.” But let me recommend you read Terry Pratchett’s unseen Academics and pay close attention to the metaphor of the crab bucket.
Let me also point out that I have over my ten years as a published author judged umpteen contests. I can tell, without being told, whether the entries were culled by “peer group” before going to the professionals. When they haven’t, there will be some that make your eyes cross, and some that are astonishingly professional and all you can do is say “send this out. It will sell.” When they have you get a kind of low-level Schrecklichkeit, a horribleness that screams “look how pretty it is and I made it all with my own thumbs.” And all entries will be at about the same level. (The last contest I judged is an exception to this, and I’m not sure why.) And when I was reading slush, I could tell the entries that came from the same group easily enough. Other editors could too. In fact, our writers’ group bucked that trend so spectacularly that we caught Stan Schmidt’s eyes for that reason alone. (More on that later.) They might all be good. They might all be bad. But mostly they were all boiled oatmeal and about as tasty.
That is one effect of crowd sourcing ANYTHING. Did the kids painting the mural next to the girl who painted like DaVinci feel like they needed to make their parts especially ugly to bring it down? Probably not consciously. But despite most of the great religions preaching against it (except for the dark times, when they encourage it) envy is not just a sin – it is arguably, evolutionarily what kept our ancestor-bands together and thriving. Group cohesion was important to survival, and therefore outliers at both ends of the spectrum had to be pulled down or up to meet that level. So it is part of all of us. We’re not angels. We are at best the place “where falling angel met rising ape” as Pratchett said. Some of the things useful to each of those are a pain to us, in this our in-between state. Deal.
I have been – in case it’s not obvious from my er… educational circumstances – in more group projects than I care to mention. (Being enamored of group work subsisted all the way to college and beyond. It was supposed to iron out inconvenient individualism and make us ready for the socialist future. (Look, they’re talking of revising their constitution now, so it doesn’t say they’re a democracy on the way to socialism. but while I was there, this was gospel.)) The only ones where I didn’t blush for the results happened in the following circumstances: A group of well-matched people, all at about the same level of intelligence, but with WILDLY different interests and talents; a project we could distribute so each one did the portion that suited him/her best.
If you look at the successful crowd sourcing projects – say the 163x or even Austen Fanfic as Practiced at Derbyshire Writers Guild or a dozen other “shared world” endeavors – you’ll find that they share these same characteristics. They are/attract people who are at about the same level FOR THAT ENDEAVOR but with wildly different specializations, which means they’re not competing for the same thing – in most stuff.
Yes, both of those, which are the only ones I know closely, do take beginners and help them. But that’s because you can absorb a beginner or two when you’re a massive group. It’s another version of the Tall Poppy, but more like pulling it up to the same height. And both start – self select – for interest in a type of lore that takes catching up on. (163x or Austen’s work.)
I also want to point out that this “pulling down” is not the result of CONSCIOUS envy. Oh, there are exceptions, yes. There are the people I call “the gods of workshops” – i.e. people who forgot WHY they started going to workshops (presumably to get good enough to be published?) and started deriving their power and prestige from the workshop itself, and their place in it. You usually know them as the people who pronounce, in an imperious air “Oh, my dear, you’ll never get published like this” – when they, themselves, have zero credits. But those are, thank heavens, few and far between. MOST people do this instinctively. They will find the flaw in your otherwise far-above-them story and attack it mindlessly, because some part of them is hurting that they’re not even aware of. G-d help us all, they’re HUMAN. In any human group, it won’t be just art – it will be personalities, friendships, pet hatreds and most of all cohesion that rules the day.
The other thing to take in account, even when a group is all at the same level of talent (almost impossible, but feasible, by sheer luck. Our writers’ group was pretty close) is the different rates at which people work and how fast people progress. In other words, experience changes how you write.
Let me put it this way. This weekend, as a challenge to myself, I’m trying to finish a started novel. I doubt I can – though I expect to get halfway through and maybe finish next weekend. It’s a novel I started three years ago. Yes, three years ago when I had… seventeen? Novels sold. And yet, reading it, I’m going “Oh Heavens. Did I know how to plot at all? There are lose ends all over the place.” This is part of the reason I haven’t been in a writers’ group in years, even though I tried recently. It’s not that I’m smarter or better than other people (unless you assume I’ve gained IQ points in the last three years, which I doubt) it’s that at this point it’s hard to find someone at my level of experience, or a little above who can see my glaring mistakes (even if most people who know me and my output don’t try to pull me down. They still don’t help.)
This brings us to where the commenter (I’m really not picking on Travis. They are good points, even if I disagree with most of them and I’m grateful to Travis for bringing them up) went on to say that really, she was sure things would change with e-editions mostly in control of the writers.
On that she is absolutely right. There are several things I can see – one of them is writers revising their work every few years, not so much in reaction to what the crowd said, but because they got so much better.
Another one – and she quotes something similar – is people showing their work to the intended audience, in the beginning, then adjusting their pitch so it hits better. I did this with the last re-write of Darkship Thieves and also, in case no one has noticed <G>, I tend to read stuff not yet published – often not submitted – at cons, to get people’s reaction. The net and writers’ online conferences makes this MUCH easier.
Another one is shared worlds. These always existed, and for these different rules apply, since they’re really a monumental work – a triptych in heroic proportions, done by a thousand hands – and some direction needs to apply (otherwise you end up with my class’s painting project.) These are now MUCH much easier, and I expect to see a lot more of them. In fact, I expect to see “pay for play” type of shared worlds that have music, stories, etc.
Also, lest it be believed that I’m smacking writers’ groups around, I’m not. I only started really progressing when I joined one, as a beginner. I’m just saying that these work best if all the authors are at same level of learning to begin with. (Yes, blank slate, like we were is the same level.) And also if they consciously TRY to diminish the Tall Poppy syndrome. We did this several ways, one of them being by making “Copyedits written only. You don’t read them aloud. Critique only two minutes, by the clock. Don’t repeat what someone already said. No discussion of manuscripts outside the group. No written, anonymous critiques.” This made it harder to beat down the tall poppy. The fact that we were all, to begin with, wildly different in personality and outlook also helped immensely. And even then, it won’t last forever. Know when you’ve outgrown them or they’ve outgrown you. Bow out gracefully. Come back for the parties.
But for novels as novels – or short stories as short stories – I continue to believe that Pratchett’s advice for witches holds: Try to be yourself, as hard as you can. I don’t think Heinlein, Pratchett, F. Paul Wilson, Austen or even Agatha Christie could have been improved with “crowd sourcing.” And I can just see what crowd sourcing would have done to someone as idiosyncratic as Jorge Luis Borges “What’s this thing you have with libraries and labyrinths, Jorge. Honestly. Make it more commercial. Throw in a werewolf and a hot girl.”
As for me, while I don’t belong in the group of luminaries, I’m simply too curmudgeonly to want anyone looking over my shoulder as I write. I have trouble enough working with the young twit I was a few years ago. Honestly, she couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
And speaking of trees, there is a Reiner Kunze poem, which I only imperfectly remember. Unfortunately, I can’t find the book, which I think is in a box in the attic. According to what I can find on line, the English translation starts “The Timber Forest educates its trees” which is not how I’d have “translated” it, but that’s life. It’s about the fact that trees in a forest grow top on top, and all get about the same light.
He ends with “To the wind they all whisper the same.” And that … homogenizing effect of crowd sourcing in most cases is what prevents great art from emerging from it.
Your mileage may vary. Which is of course the whole point.
According To Hoyt 
Years I ago I heard of “hammering the tall poppy” in another context.
The story was that a young Greek Dictator came to visit an older Dictator to learn the secret of how the older one had kept power so long.
The old man said nothing as they were walking in a wheat field but with his walking stick he “whacked” the wheat stalks that towered above the other wheat stalks.
The young man soon realized the lesson the old man was teaching and returned to his own city.
C. S. Lewis talked about this story in one of his Screwtape stories where the devil Screwtape said “now the lower stalks whack the higher stalks and even the higher stalks whack themselves”.
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I learned several years ago that being shy was no barrier to also being an attention whore. The internet makes both possible.
Writing-wise, I’ve done “group stuff” twice. The first time, on the Bar, eric Flint and Dave Freer agreed to coach and amorphous and unstructured group of “us.” It was great fun. First we had them screaming “No! No! Every character can’t be good!” Then they started screaming “No! No! Every character can’t be bad!” In the end, it was five of us writing, about a dozen cheering us on and throwing out suggestions and research. I tried streeing the prose into something semi-coherant, and wound up the only one left writing. And yes, I did finish it. Three spaceship hijackings and two almost recoveries. The I-chimps won.
The second on-line writing, I did all the writing, and everyone cheered, laughed, volunteered to be a Martian Lizard and so forth. Again great fun. And productive. And I kept writing offline after, but I noticed it was at a much slower pace without the immediate feedback.
Very different from a trapped classroom group being forced to work together.
So I can see “cloud writing” working. But only with the right group. How to make it pay enough for the lead writer(s) to consider it worth their while is more uncertain. How to split the funds, if one person ends up honoring the commitment to the fen to finish the story would be a question that had to be answered before the start, as well as conflict resolution. Can you imagine “Tom! You’ve got to be kidding! Rafiel is a much more worthy BF!” from a writing partner?
Both projects were extreme pantsers, with barely an ending goal in sight.
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MataPam,
I think you might have missed the point – having fun does not a superior product make. The effect has nothing to do with classrooms, either. It’s a group dynamic that’s been hugely researched, and is a massive problem in every part of society.
Ever been on the wrong end of an internet pile-on? No? That’s one example of the group-think dynamic. Another example: someone who authoritatively states something that is obviously wrong is quite quite capable of getting people who know better to agree. It only takes one or two who are sufficiently certain and the followers (the majority of people are followers the majority of the time) will follow rather than upset the group cohesion.
Tall poppy syndrome happens. It’s vicious. Neither of your examples are relevant: one was a guided exercise with experienced mentors coaching every single person. The second was you and your cheering squad. They weren’t “crowd-sourcing your writing”.
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Guided? ::Grin ::
No, nor were any of us tall-poppy-show-offs writing-in-public hammered down. As an example of group writing it was about as positive as I think it will get. _Someone_ always ends up either cracking the whip or doing all the work. The difference was that it was a volunteer crowd, not a resentful bunch of school kids given no option. And therefore closer to the imagined “cloud writing” exercises.
Or, of course, the tall poppies that got squashed may have been the few grumpy “this will never work” type, although I don’t recall any.
While internet group dynamics can be vicious, especially if politics or AGW come into play, groups that can co-operate can also be formed.
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Matapam,
Kate was right. It doesn’t matter if you think you were show offs or not. Tall poppies aren’t USUALLY show offs. They’re simply MORE COMPETENT. And I wasn’t talking only — or primarilly — of school kids. Frankly, what scared me out of my gourd about Travis’ cloud-idea is not just the potential for bad writing. Bad writing or bad group dynamics can ruin a beginner, even a promising one. How? Well, I know people who stopped writing for years, sometimes forever, after being in a critique group with someone who — for instance, and this is a true example — demanded no one use words of Germanic origin in the same paragraph with words of Latin origin and held this weird demand as a standard of “good writing.”
BUT — and this is important — I’ve seen writing groups do much worse. At full poison, I’ve seen suicides in writing groups. And that’s face-to-face — forget the anonymous opportunities of an internet “cloud” group.
Look, I’ll be blunt, okay?
The first was definitely GUIDED. I know both Dave Freer and EF, and no one would buck them, willingly. NO ONE was going to go “full poison” at anyone who stuck out in that group. Because EF would reduce them to dust. And Monkey would hit them. HARD. The second was something I have experienced as has Kate. Writer and cheering squad is about it. Yeah, tons of fun. TONS. But no, it doesn’t speak to the product’s end cogency. It is a great way to write a first draft, but ultimately it’s still an individual writing, not a group. And how publishable it is depends on the work AFTER. (And Kate KNOWS this. She’s been rewriting ConVent for two years.)
Cloud group writing would be you know… ten or twenty writers, all writing a book. More like the mural effort than anything else. It can be fun — hell, Kate and I sometimes do this for the heck of it for an afternoon. Not that the result will ever be shown to anyone. Art… it ain’t.
It’s even possible to have a “cloud collaboration” between experienced writer and newbies, if the newbies respect the experienced writer — though it then begs the question of how much the newbies are adding? But that’s a matter of temperament. I couldn’t take it. Other people, clearly, can.
But a bunch of new writers doing this? or writers doing this to someone with particularly frail self-esteem? Look, I’ve seen writers groups ruined and people driven into depression by a single sarcastic and nit-picker commenter. Usually of the Know-Nothing variety.
There be dragons in this idea. BIG ones. With nasty, huge fangs.
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I am sitting here, searching my conscience, trying to remember if I ever whacked off the head of a better writer . . .no, I don’t think I did, but it’s because I’m such a freaking misanthrope that it takes an effort to be part of a group, So I don’t fight for its cohesion.
Oh, and I can say as a parent that group projects in school only exist to cut the amount of grading the teacher has to do in half, Or quarters, or eighths.
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Also from what I’ve seen with my younger kid, as a way to equalize grades. As in, if someone walks in who knows no math and can barely put a project together, they put him in #2 son’s group. This means that #2 son will do all the work, but this kid will get a C instead of an F, once his tests are averaged with “group work” — which means he’ll graduate and… Never mind. I don’t want to cry.
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Hey, why are you talking about Dragons that way? [Very Big Dragon Grin]
Seriously, I’m in agreement with Sarah and Kate here. While I’ve not been in a writers group, I’ve been in enough meetings to know that “strong willed individuals” can make or break a meeting. When it comes to something as personal as writing a “strong willed individual” could very well destroy a would-be writer.
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Well I’m so flattered I got a full response I don’t know what to say…oh who am I kidding.
I think your points are all well taken, but I think the analogy is a bit off. I never advocated crowd-sourced writing, but only crowd source editing.
Big diff. Imagine if your grade school da Vinci had made her plan first, and then inquired for comments and suggestions and then only from the most competent or trusted of her peers? (she can ignore the kid who wants to put genitals on everything), and then she was put in charge of the final composition? That’s a far cry from the free-for-all you described.
Crowd sourcing is not a free-for-all democracy where every voice need be heard. Even Wikipedia has, albeit loose, final editorial control.
Rather, it’s like opening up your work to a group of self-selected experts. Admittedly, some of these will be cranks, but a great deal, will not, and you can usually sort the cranks out. As a teacher, I’m amazed at when I have a pedagogical question, and I post it online, I suddenly have dozens of comments from productive competent professionals.
Plus, there will be trolls who will want to stomp the poppy. (Love the metaphor btw) but I’m amazed at how many people,genuinely, truly, just want to help. In addition, if I’m setting the work out there. (not the outline, not the sketch, not the blurb, but the actual completed work) then I’m ALREADY the poppy. I trade ideas with a large group of artists, mostly in the comics industry, and we each take turns being the poppy, on our individual projects, but look for other’s advice on our project. We each retain ownership of our pet projects, but contribute to theirs.
I never advocated art by committee. Heavens no. The school committees barely function over conflict of egos, much as you described.
Crowd sourcing a book would be a horrible idea, but crowd sourcing the editing? Still not sure. It could be awful or could be great. It depends on the creator and their self-discipline.
On a side note. Is my writing really that feminine?
On another side note, I have found that for every person that wants to stomp the poppy down there is one who wants to pluck it, put it on a pedestal in a museum.
The uncritical fan is worse than the critic.
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again, part of this is personality. I have the sort of personality that takes EVERY criticism of my fiction (not my non-fiction. That comes from the head. Fiction I THINK ocmes from my toe nails. No, seriously. I have no idea HOW I write this stuff.) At the same time I don’t believe any of the praise. This makes crowd editing a horror to be avoided. As is, I have the rule with first reader that I’ll ONLY take what three or more agree on. (Or two, if I’m fairly sure they don’t talk to each other.)
Wait, you’re the person who nukes children, and you’re a teacher. Um… I see …. (Yes, I’m joking. I’m also running. You’ll never catch me. :) )
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“This weekend, as a challenge to myself, I’m trying to finish a started novel. I doubt I can – though I expect to get halfway through and maybe finish next weekend. It’s a novel I started three years ago. Yes, three years ago when I had… seventeen? Novels sold. And yet, reading it, I’m going “Oh Heavens. Did I know how to plot at all? There are lose ends all over the place.””
I guess the lesson in this is that -if you can afford to do so- you should let your novel sit for a while and work on another, different one before you go back to it for another round of self editing. Only then (self)publish it or send it out.
Yeah, I’m quite generous with other peoples time and income. ;)
But really, I think this could help to prevent at least some of the bigger self publishing problems if you don’t have the money to hire out the editing. (Good freelance editors have apparently enough work to justify high prices.)
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Chasm — yes, sometimes that helps. Mind you, it’s more… The book as I have it is decent, solid midlist. It just isn’t as good as I can make it NOW. Lots of dangling loose ends.
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Every additional bit of experience helps, and three years is quite a chunk. =)
I think it is most important for those that start their career and have to get the quality up as far as possible to either get published or successfully self publish.
I’ve seen it in my own (technical, not this artistic stuff :P ) writing, every bit of distance helps.
The same is true for media breaks. Like you said, writing on the PC, editing with the kindle and plotting on paper. For me proofreading on paper works. Or proofreading on any media after submission, that one works best but does not help at all. ;)
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This is why the file I sent Toni is called “first send” because any minute now, something is going to hit me between the eyes, and I’m going to go “DUH” and change it. This happened THREE times with Darkship Thieves.
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*g* As long as Toni takes her time hitting the “publish!” button. ;)
Ok, Toni definitely knows what she is doing, and so do you, but I’ve seen some …things.
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Great post! I just discovered this blog and am very glad I kept reading.
People aren’t ants or bees and no amount of pretense can change that. Creativity is a characteristic of individuals. Uniformity, and it’s inevitable consequence of destruction, is a characteristic of groups.
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This is sort of off topic, but ever since I posted on this site, my web browsing has been inundated with ads from “self-publishing” outfits promising that they can make me a bestseller.
The internet, it frightens me sometimes.
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I’m sort of hoping you don’t blame me for that? Weirdly, I don’t get those, so… But on FB I’ve noticed if I post anything with “publishing” I get those on the side. Ditto with if I put anything up about my cats. (Actually that’s nice. Cute kitteh pictures!)
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In this case Quantcast should be the culprit, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantcast
It is embedded together with ComeScore Beacon on virtually all WordPress sites. (By WordPress.com, not Sarah.)
See also Web Bugs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_bug or user tracking on the web in general.
Countermeasures?
For Firefox or Opera users: AdBlock against the ads and Ghostery (with the blocking activated) against the tracking. =)
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Here a link to a list of most of the currently used tracking methods: http://purplebox.ghostery.com/?p=1016021950
The Ghostery plugin is also available for Safari, IE and Chrome although the efficiency is limited on the last two.
Btw. the ad blocker integrated into Chrome has a major drawback: all ads are loaded by the browser in the background, they are just not displayed.
The Adblock Plus plugin for Firefox also block several of the tracking methods in addition to the ads.
The conclusion? The same as always: What you say on the Internet, stays on the Internet. Never give any information aways that you don’t want to be public, forever. End of story.
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I second Chasm’s excellent recommendations. Firefox+Adblock works wonders. I didn’t even know there were ads on WordPress sites until I saw the responses here (and I have a WordPress blog!). I also use NoScript but just getting FF+AB will greatly enhance your Internet experience AND your security. At that price (free!) what’s not to like?
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There is a classic project administered in about any small group behaviour class ever taught these last 40 or so years: the “25 Items Following A Moon Crash” list. In this project each person rank orders 25 items (e.g., Oxygen tanks, handguns, water tanks, foodstuffs, First-Aid kits) supposedly found on your LEM following a crash landing on Luna. After finishing that phase participants are dealt into groups and told to repeat the rank-ordering as a group. Optimum sequence is then provided, allowing everybody to “score” their individual and group efforts, with the (almost) inevitable result that we “learn” group decision making yields better results because participants bring greater total information blah blah blah.
I say almost inevitable result because (I dunno – ) the third time I got run through this process I found I remembered sufficient of the reasons (for example, the handgun can be fired while at the apex of a jump to boost distance traveled) to get a pretty high score but couldn’t remember enough of the reasons to persuade others of my choices — especially given I was somewhat bored and indifferent to any imperative of optimizing the group grade (also, to be frank, other group members found sarcasm, snark and an air of superiority not especially persuasive.)
So I have seen the failure if group sourcing. Problems with group grading are amply covered here, do not lack for absence of my views and thus do not warrant additional comment.
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RES,
I remember taking that Lunar Trek test. To this day, I think of the poor schmuck, mid-leap, in a vacuum, over a deep valley, the forefinger of his glove somehow stuck through the trigger guard of the pistol without firing it prematurely, trying to line up the gun and his center of mass, so he doesn’t spin and crash . . . and finding himself aiming dangerously close to the companions who haven’t jumped yet.
It might be a useful gage of group dynamics, but I really don’t think the pistol part was well thought out.
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Yeah, well, the problem with most such tests is that they reward giving the expected answer, not the BEST answer.
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“There are the people I call “the gods of workshops” — i.e. people who forgot WHY they started going to workshops (presumably to get good enough to be published?) and started deriving their power and prestige from the workshop itself, and their place in it.”
Sarah, I think you may have just articulated the core process behind Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Those who derive their power and prestige from an organization eventually drift away from furthering the goals of the organization and just build the organization to further themselves.
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I think there are many different ways to live a life, and to write. I know some writers who will not allow anyone (not even a highly trusted beta reader) to read the book before they have finished it. I know others who discuss it, critique it, and send it out to anyone interested to read and offer feedback. I believe that’s typical for fan fiction.
I don’t think either way is wrong, per se. I couldn’t do either of those extremes. I work best when I have a small group of trusted critiquers who point out where I’ve missed the forest for the trees. I do think you would need to be an extremely strong and confident writer to do excellent “crowd-sourced” type writing. Dare I say “pig-headed to an extreme”? :-) And if you listen to other people too easily, you will indeed risk falling victim to the “please everyone” story dilution problem.
I teach writing, and have participated in writing workshops, classes, etc. for thirty years. I have witnessed that effect you talk about. It breaks my heart every time I see a passionate piece of writing (with flaws, as all writing has) reduced to a smooth, passionless uniformity. I saw at the time that it was tall poppy slashing, but others in the group missed the trees for the forest that time.
I believe I have been fortunate to be among writers who cared about the story and the writer. Or maybe those are the only people I listen to. Tall poppy hammerers are rather single-minded and myopic. They’re everywhere, and you can’t avoid them (Tall poppy hammerers disparage bestsellers for being poorly written and intensely gorgeous literary works for being of interest to too few people). Most likely, we’ve all hammered down a poppy or two (but only if they deserved it :-)
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Look… Let’s put it this way — I wouldn’t read most bestsellers, but I’m not their intended audience. For those to whom I’m the intended audience, I work beautifully — Pratchett, F. Paul Wilson… I buy multiple copies of a book I just found and pass around to friends. If it becomes or already is a bestseller — yay.
Beautiful prose… depends. I’m very sensitive to “beautiful prose” because it’s the one gift. I know, it’s hard to tell from the blogs, but it REALLY is. When I’m tired or out of it, I can and do produce “beautiful prose” by the meter. What this means is that I’m sensitive when people “force” it. Which most people do. This is not a brag — I did nothing for it. It’s kind of like having natural perfect pitch (which I don’t have. I have mid range hearing loss.) I have to work at the words receding into the background. And yes, I do so.
HOWEVER when I am in a critique group or a class, I will tell people, “I think this is good, but I’m not the intended audience.” (I read widely enough to identify “good” even if not to my taste.) or “These are beautiful words. Did I mention that I hate literature, after getting a degree in it? So, I’m not the intended audience, but there are people out there who LOVE this stuff.” I.e. I try to pull “me” out of the equation.
OTOH have I ever discouraged someone. Yes. Well, I don’t think we so much discouraged her as she hates us now… You see, she’s younger than us and very talented. Our group had been together five years when she joined. By the time this happened we were going on eight years. We were… bonded? And sometimes, group mechanics, you get weird moods that infect the whole group. We’d all had sh*tty weeks. It was a Saturday afternoon. She brought in a beautiful, historic, military paranormal short. Only, if you were in that sort of mood, a few paragraphs could be read as double meanings. So we did. And once the giggles started, we couldn’t stop. Mind you, we told her, over and over, it wasn’t the story. The story was d*mn good. It was the mood we were in. She should have known us well enough by then. But it’s different when it’s you, I guess.
And no, I couldn’t write in the “cloud”. I would completely destroy the story. In fact, I almost did, even with a trusted writers’ group, because most people were not sf readers, only fantasy. And my system is much like yours.
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