I'm preparing to give a lecture next week. It's called Tools & Tactics for Creative Writers. I teach this because unless (and even if) someone's earned a Masters in Fine Arts creative writing, they won't know what steps to take to get their work published. Or, they'll be familiar with the steps only in the broadest and vaguest terms.
So, in the past year, I've done a huge amount of research not only about the steps writers need to take to get their short or long work published, but about the resources that exist to help them/us.
I'd considered naming my presentation "Tools & Tricks" for creative writers, because successful writers use tricks in their work. If the work is good, those tricks are invisible to us as readers--unless we're performing a literary analysis of the text, for some reason. (I did a lot of that as a literature major in college.)
As Somerset Maugham wrote, "Art conceals art, in writing as elsewhere. The skill of a skilled writer tricks you into thinking that there is no skill [involved]."
But I've got a dilemma. I have no idea who will be in my audience this time. I don't know what they know. As I prepare, I waver between advanced information so that the experienced writers won't get bored and introductory information so that the beginning writers won't get frustrated.
I like a lot more certainty than that, but there you have it.
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