In the Company of Critics : County Writers Club Workshops Give Friendly Feedback to Aspiring Scribes About Plot, Character, Tone and More

One is writing about a white witch. Another lives with a 17th-Century sea captain. Two others are immersed in ancient Crete and Franco’s Spain. All are members of the Ventura County Writers Club, a wildly imaginative group of 300 perfectly normal-looking people who spend their days in other worlds.

“It’s the absolutely best writers club between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara,” says Barnaby Conrad, award-winning author, artist and director of the internationally known Santa Barbara Writers Conference.

The club has humble origins. It started in 1932 as the Ventura County Scribblers’ Club, growing out of a five-woman writing class that met in Ojai. By the ‘80s, publishing credits were adding up, along with new members. When a monthly evening meeting was started, people with day jobs could attend, bringing in a younger crowd.

Today, the members range in age from 26 to 92 and include professionals, retirees, wanna-bes and people such as Gary McCarthy and Gaylord Larsen, who make their living writing fiction. The diverse group of screenwriters, novelists, poets, children’s writers and journalists meets regularly to critique each other’s works in blunt but good-natured exchanges, listen to speakers and commiserate over rejection letters.

Genre workshops offer a friendly environment in which writers can be candid, spirited, instructive, defensive and sometimes more entertaining than their actual writing. Genres include novels, nonfiction, short story/articles, mystery, inspirational, poetry, fantasy/sci-fi, screenwriting, marketing and personal experience.

Most of the meetings are held in members’ homes, some weekly, others semiweekly or monthly, and are only open to members. An exception is the all-genre group, in which non-members are welcome.

What goes on at a workshop? Read on.

NOVELS GROUP I

Hugs are the prerequisite greeting when these 10 members get together every Thursday evening for three hours. On this night, they sit around a dining room table in Oxnard, manuscripts and note pads spread out, a platter of bakery sweets and grapes within easy reach. Egos were checked at the door.

Everyone gets to critique, with most of the initial comments confined to what the group calls “pickies,” as in “picky, picky, picky.” The workshop leader checks her list and calls on a man who hasn’t read in a while. He reads the first two chapters of a contemporary novel he’s been revising for months, so the work is familiar to all.

Someone refers to his phrase “torn shards of glass” as glib, a cliche. The author lets out a small yelp of protest as he bends over his tablet and duly notes the comment.

“Great tension, I loved it,” someone says, bringing a smile to the author.

Then, a pickie: “You switch too many times between the omniscient and first person viewpoint.”

Ouch.

“I couldn’t find the structure,” says a man whose own novel is in the hands of several publishers. He adds, “It might have been your lousy reading rather than the text.”

The author winces and gets picked on again: “Your reading wasn’t that lousy.” From another: “Don’t pay attention to them, they were busy eating cookies.” Everyone laughs.

The next reader is a woman who manages apartments so she has the time to write. After she reads a chapter from her mystery novel, the first critic says emphatically, “It was great,” then follows with a pickie.

“(The dog) pees an awful lot in this chapter,” he says. Another writer agrees. “Yes, unless the dog is important later on, he’s in this scene too much.”

A scholarly looking man goes for the jugular and tells the author to throw out the entire first page. “You don’t need it--it stops the story cold.” Then he delivers a short lecture on structure: “You state a goal, you complicate the goal, you deny the goal. You did A and B right.”

The leader says the story is moving forward but the tone is flat. She wants to hear trumpets, drum rolls, some highs and lows. The author writes down all the comments and concedes that the dog pees too much.

The youngest member of the group reads six pages of his novel and receives an especially picky pickie:

“Why do I have to know that the whitecaps were 10 to 30 yards apart? I pictured you with a ruler out there.”

A woman objects to the alliteration “Ronda reeled,” but the author makes it clear he’s leaving it in.

The last reader reads the new opening chapter of the final revision of his 17th-Century novel. At least he thought it was the final revision. Nobody likes the chapter. They want it tossed out and the original restored.

“I liked the original first chapter better,” the leader says. “I think we all agree this isn’t the place to start. It’s ponderous, heavy. Action and tension is lost in the style.”

On a positive note--as if anything could lift the author’s spirits by now--someone says, “I loved where you said, ‘Carvings of a thousand gods.’ ”

SHORT STORY / ARTICLE GROUP

Despite meeting just once a month, a core group of six to eight regulars maintains the kind of support, friendship and directness found in the novels group.

Visitors drop in from time to time. On this evening, 13 writers are sitting around a living room in east Ventura, 10 of them with manuscripts. Each reader is limited to 10 doubled-spaced pages. The leader calls on the first reader, a private investigator. He’s going to read a short story, which is obviously over the page limit.

“How many pages?” the leader says.

“There’s lots of dialogue; it goes fast,” says the man, a master of evasion. Someone snickers. Hearing no more objections, he plunges in and manages to read his entire story. It’s funny and fast-paced, a modern-day “Catcher in the Rye.” He has two endings and wants advice on which works best.

“Get rid of the breast cancer bit at the end,” someone says. “It changes the tone.” Everyone agrees and he crosses out the last paragraph. Someone else tells him to dump the reference to masturbation in the beginning, that it’s only there to titillate. The author grins, shrugs and blue-pencils the reference.

The second writer reads a query letter to an agent he’s trying to interest in his book on the paranormal. Someone says, “Too dry, sounds like an engineer wrote it.” It’s pointed out the author is an engineer.

A woman has driven down from Santa Barbara in the hopes of getting marketing suggestions for her short story, which won the best mystery award at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in June. Her British accent and stage experience give the reading an edge. The group, mesmerized, has no pickies, only advice.

“Try Alfred Hitchcock or Ellery Queen Magazine,” the investigator suggests.

The next reader does a chapter from her historical book about life in the 19th Century as seen through authentic letters she’s hunted down all over the country. One of the luckier ones, with a New York agent, she’s just fine-tuning the work, but she can’t avoid a prickly pickie.

“You use his name too much,” someone says. “Switch to ‘he’ whenever it isn’t confusing.”

Her pompous Civil War soldier isn’t very sympathetic, she’s told. “Can’t we get some emotion out of him?” Nobody much likes the guy, but that’s just the way he is, the author says, and she can’t change history. But “can’t you intrude on his thoughts a little and imagine what he might be thinking, maybe warm him up a bit?” someone asks.

LEARNING CLUB

People who show up at these workshops week after week, month after month, improve their craft noticeably. Some stop coming when they feel they’ve learned enough. Once in a while, a sensitive soul will feel stung by a critique and drop out.

The groups aren’t for every writer. Some members never attend workshops, either too shy to expose their creations to critical eyes, or so well-published they don’t feel the need for it. New members are just as apt to be enticed to join for other perks, such as the monthly speakers, the parties and the newsletter.

The monthly newsletter, The Write Stuff, is mailed to all members, public libraries and college creative writing classes. It includes writing tips, marketing information, publishing news and what’s going on at local bookstores.

The speaker’s meeting on the second Tuesday evening of the month outgrew its facilities and moved to larger quarters last year at Ottavio’s in Camarillo. Any guest with $5 is welcome to come and hear editors, agents and published authors offer advice on writing and getting published.

Ojai author and club member Gary McCarthy, winner of western genre Golden Spur awards, spoke to members at the August meeting. Scoffing at the practice of drawing up lengthy profiles of major characters before beginning to write the story, McCarthy said, “It’s just an excuse to procrastinate. Characters don’t come alive until you begin to write about them.”

In its 62 years of existence, the Ventura County Writers Club has managed to create a community within a community. It has given writers a place to bring their dreams of getting published, of landing on someone’s bestseller list . . . or maybe even making it to the wide screen.

Membership fees are $30 the first year with a $25 annual renewal fee. For information, call 642-6130, or write P.O. Box 460, Ventura, 93002.

Other Area Reource Organizations

* California Writers Club, San Fernando Valley Branch, (818) 784-1944.

* Christian Writers Club of Ventura County, c/o Karen Weldin, 851 Camelia Drive, Port Hueneme, 93041, 486-0636.

* Genealogical Society of Conejo Valley, Box 1228, Thousand Oaks, 91358.

* The National League of American Pen Women, Simi Valley Branch, P.O. Box 1485, Simi Valley, 93062.

* Gold Coast Fiction Writers, Box 106, Ventura, 93002, 642-1966.

* Independent Writers of Southern California, (310) 558-4090.

* Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, 22736 Vanowen Street, Suite 106, West Hills, 91307, (818) 888-8760.

* Screenwriters Assn. of Santa Barbara, P.O. Drawer 1410, Santa Barbara, 93102.

* Women In Communication, P.O. Box 20112, Santa Barbara, 93102.