Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts

A Center of Gravity and the Power of Feedback Improves Your Writing

Early thoughts on writing better 

            We can improve our writing. I have posted a few little essays about that here. We can begin to identify processes whereby we can better our writing. Here is an early post with my attempt to identify such processes.  

The following sentences point to ways to improve our writing which may be obvious:


~ Read my posts here.

~ Read for pleasure with some awareness of the writing process.

~ Read about writing.

~ Try to see how your favorite writer wrote.

~ Study under a good writing teacher.

~ Join a writing group.

~ Form a writing group.

~ Start writing.

~ Keep writing.


                We can learn by practice. I hope to be learning as I essay this writing. I intend to pass on as much of what in seem to be learning as I can. I have tried to follow all of the suggestions above accept joining a group for writing and forming a writing group.

                Participation in a writing group strikes me as being an agreeable and productive activity. I have read about writing groups and there is a special kind of group which I find attractive. A kind of group improved and practiced by a special teacher and writer, an Englishman by the name of Peter Elbow. One of his books is entitled Writing Without Teachers. The following is in large part my interpretation of some of this book.It is an accessible work which offers a variety of help for writers. A secondary title for that book might well be   THE POWER OF GOOD FEEDBACK.

                There are plenty of books about improving ones writing and some of them are very good, but this one by Mr Elbow is high in my consciousness. I have written more about this special kind of writing group in other essays on this site. I believe that we can learn a lot by helping others better their craft. I suspect that our learning can be better as members of a writing group.

                Many find that our writing practice can be part of  an important personal growth process. As our writing develops so do we. It seems a good deal As we grow and mature, our writing gets better. as our writing gets better, we grow and mature.

                We may not be surprised to find that while while completing a single piece. the writer herself may be surprised that she grows grows and matures with her writing.


My Recent Experience:

                I have found that I am now not surprised that I can find a "center of gravity" in a piece of work as I write it. I have found that it may move around as I write. But find it is most often the pleasant process of discovering the sharp short form of what what it is am really writing about.

                The list below includes ways, I have gathered from Mr. Elbow, for getting a center of gravity or unifying theme around which I can organize my writing. I am trying to be helpful and this could my way of saying that you have my blessing to stray from your original outline. Even so, discovering your real unifying theme could be more useful than your outline or your original idea.

Okay, here's the list:

~ Starting with X because it seems more believable than Y; note that as you write about X, that you are beginning to understand about Y.

~ Continue your struggle with X and Y and see "A" come up.`

~ As you write along you may honestly say, "Ah, now I see what I have been getting at."

~ Finish what you have been writing about. Put it aside for a time. See useful implications as you look it over again.

~ See that your good idea is crap. Then see that part of the crap looks less crappy. You sort out the good parts from the bad. You do not have to throw anything. Some of it may turn out to be better than your favorite idea.

~ Your first writing may prove a good scaffolding for your next writing.

~ You find a powerful spark in a tiny digression. You keep the same elements of your work, but change the whole orientation for the better.

~ As you progress in your writing, be alert to emerging focus of theme.

~ If nothing emerges, sum up that which you have written, then sum it up again.

~ Push yourself a bit to keep getting some center of gravity or summing up to occur.

~ Work gradually toward moderation of extreme positions.


                Don't try to do all of  the above at once every time! In fact you may find other ways of doing things excellent for you. For example you may find it better for you to work allout in your mind before beginning to write. I understand that some do so very well. Many of us do something very like the above, turn out good work, and find out that we learn a lot in the process. You may benefit a great deal by rereading the items above and then comparing them to your process. I have found that at times just one of these items can be saver. 

                Peter is a great teacher and better writer. The entirety of the book I have mentioned is mostly about writing groups and the center of gravity for this book of his could well be The Power of Feedback.

                Several of essays on this site deal with writing groups.

                Thank you for reading.

                You might want to save the address of this site.




                                                                                RCS


In a Writing Group

 Are you serious about having a group?

                Tell me about it. I am interested; I may even be able to offer some help, or to try to do so. And remember, you do not have to have one. Many successful writers have never had the experience of a group. Most have received some feedback and many have benefited from that feedback.

The following few paragraphs may help you in your efforts to recruit group members and even help to keep a a group to keep going:

                Talk feedback. An important, and appreciated, function of your group can be providing feedback to one another. There are effective ways of doing so. I will try to touch on a couple of those ways here.

                Other purposes for your group can include: inspiring you to write, improving the effectiveness of your words, and help you to feel satisfaction in your development. On this blog are an increasing number of posts calculated to improve your chances of pleasing a reader. These posts can help you to continue writing well with or without a group. You are welcome to explore them all.

Back to group feedback:

                Selections of members' writing may be read in group, yours too. This can be an important step toward providing useful feedback to a writer. Useful feedback begins with careful reading of her work. Often the entire group will participate in providing feedback on a given selection. I like to hear the selection read aloud to the whole group a couple of times. Group members will volunteer their comments and all are encouraged to do so. Group members will often quickly learn to make their feedback more honest and more helpful with little need for encouragement. Still, it is OK to encourage them.

                Writers may find that more reading may move them to better writing. 
A writer will appreciate a careful reading of her work. Should the writer be male he is likely to appreciate a careful reading of his work.

Reading:

              As a reader don't be nervous in telling how a given selection affected you. Your job can be well done just by honestly saying something about what happened to you as you read her selection. With this you will be making a great beginning and also doing that which will continue to be helpful over time.

                Some preparation may be called for. At times a piece may be read to you a couple of times in group. At other times you may take a written copy home to read carefully more than once. Everyone ought to be prepared to give feedback. Everyone will begin to learn a bit about providing feedback useful to the writer. The practice of honesty is a good practice to follow. Honesty can be kind and even loving as well as cutting and brutal. When you are not sure what kind of honesty is best at the time, it is usually best to choose kind and considerate.  

                Your good reading habits may get even better as you read the works of your fellow writers. You may come to pay better attention to your own feelings during your reading and even remember their occasion. Better reading often results in improved writing.

More about feedback:

                Upon hearing or reading a writers work, be ready to tell her how her words led you to react or feel. Tell her what happened to you as you read her words. You can also tell her what you understood or failed to understand from her writing. If the piece bored you, tell her so. Be honest. If you had a cold and had not slept well before your reading, let her know that it may have affected your reaction to her work.

                Do your best to complete your assigned reading. You may even suggest that it might be best for you to complete a reading during group time or to listen to a reading during group time. It's your group too. It is still unfair not to read. It is best to aim to read near your best. Read the work a second time and note the difference. Be a good reader to help others to write better and to give yourself a chance to write better. Be a better than average reader even when it feels somewhat burdensome to do so. You can tell the writer that it was burdensome. You can also tell him what you thought he was getting at and what seemed to be his main points. Your honesty can be very helpful.

                You can often help a fellow writer by telling him, or her, when and at what point, in your reading you felt perplexed, annoyed, or disappointed, enlightened, pleased and satisfied. Say what made you laugh or smile. Say when you got it and felt pleased. Say when the work felt rewarding.

                You now know some of the responsibility of a reader at feedback time.

                At that same time the writer's job is to hear the feedback, to be quiet and listen. Then to consider how to use the information to help her, or him, to write to better effect or to continue to practice his or her wonderful ability.

                Much of your ability to write well may develop with practice and experience at some distance from both class and group. Still classes have helped many, and group is helping may more, to develop their talent and ability.

                Thank you for reading.

                Keep writing.




                                                                                                 rcs

              

A Writing Group

Write With RCS: Writing Group Feedback from your group.

 
 
            Giving and receiving feedback may be the top purpose of a writing group. Here I will emphasize the job of receiving feedback. It need not be a job; we could call it the process of receiving feedback, but "job'" is shorter. Your job as a receiver is listening. Not volunteering comments or asking questions. You are the receiver of greater benefits than you may fully grasp just now.
 
            In your group you practice listening. This is not a law but rather a suggestion and what I know of how to benefit from such groups. Listen with great attention to how your words affect others. You do what to have your words to have an effect, right? You may have bee trying for a specific effect. You want to know how this group of fellow writers are responding to that which you have written. You want to know what each felt or thought as they read your work. This process is not deadly; it will help you to grow and develop as a writer.
 
            You are learning to be quiet and listen. So, be quiet. Do not tell those who read your work anything until much later. let them be uncertain of what of what you wanted your work to convey or at whom it was aimed. Let them suffer. Maybe they will notice more and be able to give you a more full and honest response. It is your task to become a better listener, and not to be a teacher or a question asker. Try changing the word "task" in the previous sentence to "pleasure." You want to know how your words in a specific piece of your writing led them to feel or think.
 
            Neither giving nor receiving feedback is easy. In both it is possible to come to feel, for a time, that you are always right or always wrong. An important activity of the imparter of reaction is is to become as honest as possible. A bit of a job. The task of you the listener/writer, is to attentive and quiet. Telling nothing and saying nothing may not come easily to you, the receiver of this treasure of feedback. But you can remember that you best teacher could probably not have given you the feedback treasure you receive from the members of your writing group. That treasure helps you to be a better and better writer. This group response of fellow writers can better inform you of how the world will receive your writing than can many an excellent teacher.
 
            Some readers of your writing may be good at tricking you into telling them more about the intentions you have for the piece in question than you intended. But you, as its writer, want only to know what your writing did to them, with no ''helpful'' hints. When you tell the readers in your group what you wanted your writing to do to them, you hinder their fresh and honest response.
 
            You, as the writer, want to know how the reader perceives and experiences your words. You want to know what it was what it was like to be him reading your words. Never stop a reader from from giving you her reactions. You very much need her feedback and she is will to give it. Let her.
 
            You can look to members of your writing group to find out what your words caused to happen in their consciousness. The better you get at the uncovering of feelings in your group and how your words effected consciousness, the better you will be at deciding for yourself when your words are most likely to be doing what you want them to. or not.
 
            It may be helpful to remember that members of your group are neither gods nor teachers, telling you how other words will work better if either this or that were changed in thus and such a way. What they can tell you very well is how they experienced a specific work of yours; how they experienced your words there, how they reacted to them.
 
            Your readers job is to provide you with a kind of movie of his mind as he read your work, and it is not your job to tell him how to do so. And it is certainly no one's job to quarrel with another's experience.
You do not need writing group to write well, but one can truly help. When you would be a writer write.
 
            More to come.


                                                                                    RCS