Crime writing

This coming Saturday, it will be my third creative writing workshop. And I am actually dreading it. I will explain why and this post will be a sort of catharsis I had been wanting to write it for a while. After the first one, I was enthusiastic. The second one left me deflated and feeling a bit cheated. The reasons are the following: we had been asked to write no more than 2,000 words to share, due to time constraint. I had been requested to write a synopsis of the novel I was inspired to work on during the first workshop, so I did write one. Since 2,000 words was the limit, I thought about writing a detailed one, not only describing the plot but the main characters, the setting (Montreal and its crime world). It ended up being more like detailed note than a brief synopsis, but it was within the limit. As I still had plenty of words left, I also decided to write a bit of prose to flex my muscles. I wrote them too late, too fast, it was not very good, but I decided to share them anyway.

So come the day of the workshop. The synopsis, which had been the bulk of the work I had done, was barely glanced at. They went into the draft, not even a chapter, about 800 words all in all, the one I had spent less than a week on and which was to be honest not very good... And they pretty much ripped it apart. One of the writers said that one of my female characters, described as a tomboy in the synopsis, did not have a tomboy's name, in fact her first name was too posh and ladylike. I was tempted to tell him to ask her parents why they decided to give her that name. I simply said that I disagree. Then one of the women there said that my male character, a former police officer in his 30s, was sexist and a dinosaur and should not be written like this. I said that is how he came to be, that I imagined him like this, that I did not care about him being nice as long as he was believable. Then they said he was anachronistic, that "a man in his thirties does not think like that nowadays" (surely it depends of the man!) and they went on a tangent about Life on Mars where then such character made sense and I was simply speechless. Absolutely stunned, in fact. I remained polite, but left the workshop feeling short changed. When I got home, I was fuming. I wrote a long email to the hostess telling her that I had been sorely disappointed after the ordeal and why. She replied back to me politely, but that any criticism was meant to be helpful and not to take anything personal, etc. I replied back that while I was always open to criticism, however harsh it can be and that I had been indeed used to it both in creative courses at uni and acting classes, what I received was anything but helpful or constructive.

So yes, that's that. I might be too sensitive, I don't know, but I thought the whole thing was absurd. Since then I have written jack of the novel. I am officially suffering (aspiring) writer's block. Which is really sad, given that I was so on fire after the first workshop. I will show them an abstract of something I wrote a few years ago. If they like it, fine. If they don't well, then screw it, I won't waste anyone's time or kid myself. Maybe I overestimated my skills as a (wannabe) writer, maybe I just can't take criticism, but I did feel cheated. Okay, rant over.