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Storyteller: Writing Lessons & More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop
“Wilhelm really knows students and knows how to teach them to craft a professional story.”—The Oregonian
Part memoir, part writing manual, Storyteller is an affectionate account of how the Clarion Writers’ Workshop began, what Kate Wilhelm learned, and how she passed a love of the written word on to generations of writers. Includes writing exercises and advice. A Hugo and Locus award winner.
Part memoir, part writing manual, Storyteller is an affectionate account of how the Clarion Writers’ Workshop began, what Kate Wilhelm learned, and how she passed a love of the written word on to generations of writers. Includes writing exercises and advice. A Hugo and Locus award winner.
200 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2005
34 people are currently reading
696 people want to read
About the author
Kate Wilhelm
275 books441 followersKate Wilhelm’s first short story, “The Pint-Sized Genie” was published in Fantastic Stories in 1956. Her first novel, MORE BITTER THAN DEATH, a mystery, was published in 1963. Over the span of her career, her writing has crossed over the genres of science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy and magical realism, psychological suspense, mimetic, comic, and family sagas, a multimedia stage production, and radio plays. She returned to writing mysteries in 1990 with the acclaimed Charlie Meiklejohn and Constance Leidl Mysteries and the Barbara Holloway series of legal thrillers.
Wilhelm’s works have been adapted for television and movies in numerous countries; her novels and stories have been translated to more than a dozen languages. She has contributed to Quark, Orbit, Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction, Locus, Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Fantastic, Omni, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.
Kate Wilhelm is the widow of acclaimed science fiction author and editor, Damon Knight (1922-2002), with whom she founded the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and the Milford Writers’ Conference, described in her 2005 non-fiction work, STORYTELLER. They lectured together at universities across three continents; Kate has continued to offer interviews, talks, and monthly workshops.
Kate Wilhelm has received two Hugo awards, three Nebulas, as well as Jupiter, Locus, Spotted Owl, Prix Apollo, Kristen Lohman awards, among others. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2009, Kate was the recipient of one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in recognition of her contributions to the field of science fiction.
Kate’s highly popular Barbara Holloway mysteries, set in Eugene, Oregon, opened with Death Qualified in 1990. Mirror, Mirror, released in 2017, is the series’ 14th novel.
Wilhelm’s works have been adapted for television and movies in numerous countries; her novels and stories have been translated to more than a dozen languages. She has contributed to Quark, Orbit, Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction, Locus, Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Fantastic, Omni, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.
Kate Wilhelm is the widow of acclaimed science fiction author and editor, Damon Knight (1922-2002), with whom she founded the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and the Milford Writers’ Conference, described in her 2005 non-fiction work, STORYTELLER. They lectured together at universities across three continents; Kate has continued to offer interviews, talks, and monthly workshops.
Kate Wilhelm has received two Hugo awards, three Nebulas, as well as Jupiter, Locus, Spotted Owl, Prix Apollo, Kristen Lohman awards, among others. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2009, Kate was the recipient of one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in recognition of her contributions to the field of science fiction.
Kate’s highly popular Barbara Holloway mysteries, set in Eugene, Oregon, opened with Death Qualified in 1990. Mirror, Mirror, released in 2017, is the series’ 14th novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
July 3, 2018
The Clarion workshops are American science-fiction. Kate Wilhelm (Hugo winner for Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang) and her husband Damon Knight were two of the key members of the Clarion workshop, from it's start until Damon's declining health forced them to retire. Wilhelm's thoughts on writing science-fiction could be invaluable, but this collection mixes trivial anecdotes with writing advice that is better present elsewhere, and circles around what makes Clarion unique.
The workshops themselves are invaluable, a six-week bootcamp of writing and work-shopping. Wilhelm is most authentic here when she expresses her disdain at all the terrible first stories she's had to critique over 27 years. Her advice to focus on authentic characters in conflict, master the basics of point-of-views and grammar, and not play games with the reader, ensure that a story isn't an absolute stinker. Her point that a writer needs to write, and that time spent waiting for rejection letters or otherwise playing hooky are not writing, are of course true. And some writers might be gratified to learn that Wilhelm writes from scene and tone first, and fills in plot and character later.
The anecdotes are as I said, trivial. I enjoyed the name-dropping of luminaries in science-fiction (hello serious Kim Stanley Robinson, playful George Alec Effinger, and walking disaster Lucius Shepard), but you may not. Dorms are terrible, some admins are angels, Michigan in the summer sounds miserable. Workshopping is exhausting labor. But this is a collection of anecdotes, not an actual history of Clarion.
The missed opportunity with this book is that there's a reason people go to Clarion over, say the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and that's because they're writing Science Fiction & Fantasy! The advice for short stories is the advice for short stories (and you should read Rust Hill for that), but Wilhelm has almost nothing to say about writing scifi and fantasy, except that you should avoid weirdness for the sake of weirdness, think a few layers beyond the immediate, and not call a rabbit a smeep.
The workshops themselves are invaluable, a six-week bootcamp of writing and work-shopping. Wilhelm is most authentic here when she expresses her disdain at all the terrible first stories she's had to critique over 27 years. Her advice to focus on authentic characters in conflict, master the basics of point-of-views and grammar, and not play games with the reader, ensure that a story isn't an absolute stinker. Her point that a writer needs to write, and that time spent waiting for rejection letters or otherwise playing hooky are not writing, are of course true. And some writers might be gratified to learn that Wilhelm writes from scene and tone first, and fills in plot and character later.
The anecdotes are as I said, trivial. I enjoyed the name-dropping of luminaries in science-fiction (hello serious Kim Stanley Robinson, playful George Alec Effinger, and walking disaster Lucius Shepard), but you may not. Dorms are terrible, some admins are angels, Michigan in the summer sounds miserable. Workshopping is exhausting labor. But this is a collection of anecdotes, not an actual history of Clarion.
The missed opportunity with this book is that there's a reason people go to Clarion over, say the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and that's because they're writing Science Fiction & Fantasy! The advice for short stories is the advice for short stories (and you should read Rust Hill for that), but Wilhelm has almost nothing to say about writing scifi and fantasy, except that you should avoid weirdness for the sake of weirdness, think a few layers beyond the immediate, and not call a rabbit a smeep.
August 11, 2025
Wilhelm is a flawless writer, and this memoir of the vicissitudes of summer writing workshops she ran with her spouse Damon Knight is useful on many levels.
(Her depiction of hot and sultry dorm nights in the era before AC brought back many sense-memories from my years as an attendee at summer schools and conferences of the Young Socialist Alliance and the U. S. Socialist Workers Party.)
Below are excerpts it was a pleasure to highlight:
Whatever setting you use, make sure it is consistent within itself and with whatever period you are writing about. If you know what lies on the other side of the wall, enough of that information will infiltrate the story so that we, the readers, will believe in the reality of your world.
***
The situation is where the story begins in the reader’s mind, whether or not it’s where the writer began. The story happens when the situation is developed.
***
A fireman risking his life, a soldier going into battle, a deep-sea explorer going down in a submersible—whatever it is, if it is his job, something he does routinely, that’s the equilibrium. Something upsets it, and it must be resolved. That “something” is the precipitating event, and now you have a situation to be developed.
***
One way the situation can be made into story is to develop it laterally. There is visible cause and effect. The hero acts, and there is an effect—good or bad—and he acts again, then again, until by the end of the story you have restored equilibrium or order. Or it can be developed vertically. No one does much, possibly, there may be no visible cause and effect, but the situation is explored in more and more depth, its implications explored, and by the end, the reader has been informed of the true meaning of the situation and what it means to the characters. Meaning has been revealed or illuminated. At the end of this kind of story, the situation may be exactly as it was in the beginning, and what has changed is the reader’s understanding. This story may be quiet and introspective, or it may be very active with a lot of adventures, confrontations, but the action does not have an effect on the basic situation.
***
Some students said they couldn’t plot at all. The story got silly, or they couldn’t think of a way to resolve the situation. My advice is to try telling stories to children. Don’t retell stories from books; make them up. Children are a demanding audience. They insist on an identifiable situation, a problem, a solution to the problem, and a satisfying, identifiable resolution.
***
And you have to do it in a way that your audience would not have thought of. Surprise them. If you can hold their attention, you can plot.
***
I came up with an exercise I wanted everyone to try, whether they wanted to write plotted stories or not. First part: Write a sketch of a situation for a plotted story, and a possible resolution. I told them they didn’t have to do more than outline an idea, no story was demanded. Dutifully they turned them in, and some were pretty good. Then I said the next step was to put aside the solution they had come up with and find another one, a bit more difficult or complicated than the first. There was some grumbling, but they went away and tried. I had one more step. Now put that resolution aside also, and come up with a third one. The grumbling turned to howls. Unfair! Unreasonable! They had already given it their best. But they did it. And in succeeding, they wrote plot outlines for possible stories. The third resolution often was one that the reader would not have expected or furnished herself. That’s what a plotted story consists of. There is a situation that is problematic, there are attempts to alleviate it or get rid of it altogether; the attempts usually fail or make it worse; there is a crisis point where all seems lost; there is the final solution that resolves the problem and changes the situation.
***
You have to find the suitable person by asking whose story it is. There has to be someone who is intimately involved. There are a number of questions to be asked and answered, in fact. The answers could lead to the protagonist.
***
There is a template, and no matter how much the story parts are scrambled in the words on paper, if the story is restored to a chronological timeline, the pattern is discernible. Parts may be skimped, or even missing, but the story follows certain guidelines; it moves from order to disorder and back to order.
***
….much short fiction is not about overcoming obstacles. It is about how people behave, who they are, how they fit into society, how technology influences their lives, how they manage or mismanage their relationships, things of personal interest.
***
Who is behind the mask? What fears, longings, desires, what passions lie there?
***
Stories…. must have that moment of truth that reveals the meaning of the story. And the revelation must be something the reader might never have considered before in such a context.
***
The opening has to work because no matter how good the story might turn out to be, if no one reads beyond the first page, the story will not be published.
***
The things the opening must do are really quite few. It must set the tone of the story. Ironic, elegiac, comic, adventurous— whatever tone the story demands should be established on the
***
first page so that when the situation is being developed, the reader is not startled by finding a frenetic car chase in the middle of what had appeared to be a sad story about relationships. It should set a tone consistent with the meaning of the story. It must focus on one of the major story elements quickly: character, setting, or situation, or a combination of them. And it should establish a viewpoint that is maintained throughout. An accomplished writer will do much more than this, but these are basic. The opening has to start instantly to focus the attention toward the heart of the story. There is little neutral ground in the short story; every line, every word either helps or hurts it.
***
Knowing where to start the story is as important as knowing how to start it. I usually say for a plotted story start soon before the precipitating event happens that sets the story in motion. Bring on your character, set a real stage that we can accept as plausible, and let us see how things are when they are they are stable before we see things in a chaotic situation. If my first glimpse of a character shows her hysterical and incoherent, I have no way of knowing if she has been driven to that stage. Since I don’t know her, I can’t know whether she is out of character, or if that is her normal behavior.
***
Stories told by a detached observer can rarely arouse suspense or create tension in the reader who wants the vicarious experience of someone living through the events.
***
Plotted stories all have certain things in common regardless of the subject matter. They all involve conflict. Man against nature, man against culture, man against himself, man against other men, and so on. In the above story, it was man against technology or environment. Good plotted stories involve conflict, and they also have a growing sense of tension created by real suspense, or at least a mounting uneasiness until there is a climax and relief. That is where the above story failed. The suspense ended as soon as the crew members were sedated. The next ten pages were anticlimactic.
***
Use a line break to indicate the passage of time or to indicate that we are now in a different place, or any other discontinuity. Or simply say something like, “By Monday, they knew they had to decide.” What you don’t do is introduce extraneous material to account for the passage of time. And if the story is then too short or too simple, perhaps you have not developed the characters fully, or explored all the options or the complications that each option would present.
***
In short fiction, there are conventions also. One is that the first named character is the one the story is about.
***
Deus ex machina is a useful phrase to remember. It never works to have a new character solve the hero’s problem, or have fate step in, or a miracle, or God. If it is John’s problem, let him deal with it if he can or fail if that is what the story demands.
***
Anything as riveting and important as a death cannot be trivialized as background material for a story.
***
Don’t cry wolf unless a wolf is at the gate. The threat has to be real, and it has to put the character in jeopardy.
***
The character has to be qualified to do whatever is required in the story.
***
Crime and punishment should be commensurate, or the character is perceived as too neurotic, or even too psychotic, to create suspense.
***
Action and violence do not generate real suspense when they are contrived for effect.
***
The fear of the unknown, of what lay within the impenetrable forest, what lurked beneath the opaque surface of the water was much more powerful than the fear of crocodiles.
***
For the sake of this section, when I refer to you, I mean that thinking, verbal person who writes and talks and is reading this passage. I don’t mean that other part of your psyche whose form of communication is through images, dreams, impulses, impressions without form, that other part that remains wordless and may, furthermore, fail to recognize your words. For the sake of this section, I’ll consider it as another being, separate from you, even if forever united with you. Damon referred to that other part as Fred, but I don’t think there is a Fred living in my brain. I think of it as my silent partner, or SP.
***
SP is like an overworked file clerk scurrying around in your psyche taking care of things, feeding you the right file on call, nudging you to remember an appointment, filling in the blanks of your memory—sometimes belatedly, but more often faithfully— giving you dreams about every ninety minutes throughout sleep, furnishing your daydreams with images, and so on.
***
You want to arrive at a good working relationship with that silent partner. For one thing, SP has complete access to your entire database that is made up of everything you have experienced in your whole life, and you will need SP’s help more often than you realize. For another, you cannot produce art without it. You could fill in the blanks of a complete outline and have what might look like a story, but it would have the same
***
relationship to literary art as painting-by-numbers does to visual art. The finished work might show skill in following an outline, flawless grammar, good deliberately chosen words, but it would be mechanical and empty. And finally, you must cultivate SP because it is a wonderful problem solver and collaborator.
***
Although SP has found ways to communicate with you, you can never be certain you can communicate to SP. It does not use language or words to communicate with you, and from all indications, it does not comprehend words you direct at it or, at least, it does not respond in a meaningful way to your direct orders or pleas expressed in words. It is aware of you and everything you do instant by instant, but you are never aware of it directly, only of the effects it has on you. Even if it seems that two-way communication is impossible, with reflection it becomes obvious that it does grasp yes or no, acceptance or rejection.
***
Probably all your life you have imagined snippets of stories, possible scenes, situations, glimpses of characters, story ideas, images and have done little or nothing with them. Most writers have very active daydreams for years before they actually begin to write. When you begin to accept the ideas, snippets and all, and work or play with them, manipulate them, more will follow and they will become stronger and more compelling. Your silent partner’s offering has been accepted. You have communicated through acceptance. It is as if your acceptance has empowered it, and the next time it will be more forceful.
***
What follows is not a set of rules carved in stone, but just advice from two people who had been there to others who had yet to go.
***
You should write what you are compelled to write, what you feel passionate about, not to please a particular editor, or to fit into a particular market. Editors come and go and markets change, but you will endure for a very long time, and only you can write your material.
***
They all have their own rhythms. You will find yours. You will deplete your well of inspiration, and in its own time, it will refill and be ready for you to draw on again. There is little point in trying to force it to conform to a faster pace.
***
Your style develops as you solve your own writing problems because basically that is what style means: it is how each writer solves individual problems of translating nonverbal material into verbal material. It happens and becomes unique to each writer.
***
Marry rich and/or keep your day job.
***
[….] much better to complete the novel and then, if necessary, sell it on the basis of an outline and chapters. At least the novel is complete before the advance is spent, and you can take time to consider what you want to do next.
***
Read! I can’t stress this enough. We were always amazed at how little many of our students read. Choose books outside your own field of interest: science books, physics, geology, anthropology, archeology, history, ancient history, current events.
***
You can’t learn how to write a novel by reading a how-to book or two or attending a novel-writing class. The only way to learn to write anything is by writing, including novels. Your first one may become a best seller, or it may never sell, but you will know if you can finish a novel, if you can sustain your interest that long, and you may find the second one easier to write and then to publish.
***
Don’t wait for the check to come, or for any other feedback.
***
It frequently happens that a writer is stopped temporarily because he or she has reached a plateau and is getting ready for a new phase, a new kind of writing, or tackling a different kind of material. You may find that on the other side of a slump you are writing very different stories, very likely more complex and deeper than before.
***
It’s okay to give yourself permission to write a bad story, just as it’s okay to admit you were wrong about a story
***
Try the plot outline sketch, starting with a what-if situation problem, one, two, three possible solutions, and then a couple more. Do several of them. You may find that one appeals enough to you that you want to write the story it suggests.
***
Gene Wolfe once said that if he got blocked, he would not permit himself to read anything for pleasure, or watch television, listen to music, or go to a movie.
***
Try combining elements from two of your stories to create a third one.
***
I don’t know of anyone who ever died of writer’s block.
***
James Sallis once said that his first draft informed him about what he then would write.
***
Many writers feel a compulsion to make their work as perfect as possible as they go, rewriting sentences, or recasting phrases until they are exactly right, and then moving on. As long as they then move on, fine.
***
avoidance devices are many and varied. Continuously rewriting old material can become an avoidance trap.
***
A novel is a very complicated work of art, with its own rhythms, the ebb and flow of action, subplots, under story, often a slow development of characters, and its own echoes and reverberations throughout. No single piece can inform a reader about the whole.
***
Criticism that might work well with a novel the workshop wants to read might be harmful to the one you are actually working on.
***
You don’t have to slavishly follow an outline; few editors would expect that.
***
If an editor tells you a story is too long, that’s probably right. The emotional impact and length are bound together, and an experienced editor knows when it’s out of proportion. It’s usually up to you to figure out how to cut it.
***
Don’t let a bad review get you down, or a good one go to your head. In the end, neither means a lot as long as they spell your name right.
***
You are not your story. It may be rejected time after time, but you are not your story. You have not been rejected even one time. You can let it go.
***
I like the lines written by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: “Art is the imposition of pattern on experience. Appreciation of art is recognition of the pattern.”
***
One informed opinion is as valuable as the next.
***
We never advised anyone about what to write, only to write whatever they did as well as possible.
***
(Her depiction of hot and sultry dorm nights in the era before AC brought back many sense-memories from my years as an attendee at summer schools and conferences of the Young Socialist Alliance and the U. S. Socialist Workers Party.)
Below are excerpts it was a pleasure to highlight:
Whatever setting you use, make sure it is consistent within itself and with whatever period you are writing about. If you know what lies on the other side of the wall, enough of that information will infiltrate the story so that we, the readers, will believe in the reality of your world.
***
The situation is where the story begins in the reader’s mind, whether or not it’s where the writer began. The story happens when the situation is developed.
***
A fireman risking his life, a soldier going into battle, a deep-sea explorer going down in a submersible—whatever it is, if it is his job, something he does routinely, that’s the equilibrium. Something upsets it, and it must be resolved. That “something” is the precipitating event, and now you have a situation to be developed.
***
One way the situation can be made into story is to develop it laterally. There is visible cause and effect. The hero acts, and there is an effect—good or bad—and he acts again, then again, until by the end of the story you have restored equilibrium or order. Or it can be developed vertically. No one does much, possibly, there may be no visible cause and effect, but the situation is explored in more and more depth, its implications explored, and by the end, the reader has been informed of the true meaning of the situation and what it means to the characters. Meaning has been revealed or illuminated. At the end of this kind of story, the situation may be exactly as it was in the beginning, and what has changed is the reader’s understanding. This story may be quiet and introspective, or it may be very active with a lot of adventures, confrontations, but the action does not have an effect on the basic situation.
***
Some students said they couldn’t plot at all. The story got silly, or they couldn’t think of a way to resolve the situation. My advice is to try telling stories to children. Don’t retell stories from books; make them up. Children are a demanding audience. They insist on an identifiable situation, a problem, a solution to the problem, and a satisfying, identifiable resolution.
***
And you have to do it in a way that your audience would not have thought of. Surprise them. If you can hold their attention, you can plot.
***
I came up with an exercise I wanted everyone to try, whether they wanted to write plotted stories or not. First part: Write a sketch of a situation for a plotted story, and a possible resolution. I told them they didn’t have to do more than outline an idea, no story was demanded. Dutifully they turned them in, and some were pretty good. Then I said the next step was to put aside the solution they had come up with and find another one, a bit more difficult or complicated than the first. There was some grumbling, but they went away and tried. I had one more step. Now put that resolution aside also, and come up with a third one. The grumbling turned to howls. Unfair! Unreasonable! They had already given it their best. But they did it. And in succeeding, they wrote plot outlines for possible stories. The third resolution often was one that the reader would not have expected or furnished herself. That’s what a plotted story consists of. There is a situation that is problematic, there are attempts to alleviate it or get rid of it altogether; the attempts usually fail or make it worse; there is a crisis point where all seems lost; there is the final solution that resolves the problem and changes the situation.
***
You have to find the suitable person by asking whose story it is. There has to be someone who is intimately involved. There are a number of questions to be asked and answered, in fact. The answers could lead to the protagonist.
***
There is a template, and no matter how much the story parts are scrambled in the words on paper, if the story is restored to a chronological timeline, the pattern is discernible. Parts may be skimped, or even missing, but the story follows certain guidelines; it moves from order to disorder and back to order.
***
….much short fiction is not about overcoming obstacles. It is about how people behave, who they are, how they fit into society, how technology influences their lives, how they manage or mismanage their relationships, things of personal interest.
***
Who is behind the mask? What fears, longings, desires, what passions lie there?
***
Stories…. must have that moment of truth that reveals the meaning of the story. And the revelation must be something the reader might never have considered before in such a context.
***
The opening has to work because no matter how good the story might turn out to be, if no one reads beyond the first page, the story will not be published.
***
The things the opening must do are really quite few. It must set the tone of the story. Ironic, elegiac, comic, adventurous— whatever tone the story demands should be established on the
***
first page so that when the situation is being developed, the reader is not startled by finding a frenetic car chase in the middle of what had appeared to be a sad story about relationships. It should set a tone consistent with the meaning of the story. It must focus on one of the major story elements quickly: character, setting, or situation, or a combination of them. And it should establish a viewpoint that is maintained throughout. An accomplished writer will do much more than this, but these are basic. The opening has to start instantly to focus the attention toward the heart of the story. There is little neutral ground in the short story; every line, every word either helps or hurts it.
***
Knowing where to start the story is as important as knowing how to start it. I usually say for a plotted story start soon before the precipitating event happens that sets the story in motion. Bring on your character, set a real stage that we can accept as plausible, and let us see how things are when they are they are stable before we see things in a chaotic situation. If my first glimpse of a character shows her hysterical and incoherent, I have no way of knowing if she has been driven to that stage. Since I don’t know her, I can’t know whether she is out of character, or if that is her normal behavior.
***
Stories told by a detached observer can rarely arouse suspense or create tension in the reader who wants the vicarious experience of someone living through the events.
***
Plotted stories all have certain things in common regardless of the subject matter. They all involve conflict. Man against nature, man against culture, man against himself, man against other men, and so on. In the above story, it was man against technology or environment. Good plotted stories involve conflict, and they also have a growing sense of tension created by real suspense, or at least a mounting uneasiness until there is a climax and relief. That is where the above story failed. The suspense ended as soon as the crew members were sedated. The next ten pages were anticlimactic.
***
Use a line break to indicate the passage of time or to indicate that we are now in a different place, or any other discontinuity. Or simply say something like, “By Monday, they knew they had to decide.” What you don’t do is introduce extraneous material to account for the passage of time. And if the story is then too short or too simple, perhaps you have not developed the characters fully, or explored all the options or the complications that each option would present.
***
In short fiction, there are conventions also. One is that the first named character is the one the story is about.
***
Deus ex machina is a useful phrase to remember. It never works to have a new character solve the hero’s problem, or have fate step in, or a miracle, or God. If it is John’s problem, let him deal with it if he can or fail if that is what the story demands.
***
Anything as riveting and important as a death cannot be trivialized as background material for a story.
***
Don’t cry wolf unless a wolf is at the gate. The threat has to be real, and it has to put the character in jeopardy.
***
The character has to be qualified to do whatever is required in the story.
***
Crime and punishment should be commensurate, or the character is perceived as too neurotic, or even too psychotic, to create suspense.
***
Action and violence do not generate real suspense when they are contrived for effect.
***
The fear of the unknown, of what lay within the impenetrable forest, what lurked beneath the opaque surface of the water was much more powerful than the fear of crocodiles.
***
For the sake of this section, when I refer to you, I mean that thinking, verbal person who writes and talks and is reading this passage. I don’t mean that other part of your psyche whose form of communication is through images, dreams, impulses, impressions without form, that other part that remains wordless and may, furthermore, fail to recognize your words. For the sake of this section, I’ll consider it as another being, separate from you, even if forever united with you. Damon referred to that other part as Fred, but I don’t think there is a Fred living in my brain. I think of it as my silent partner, or SP.
***
SP is like an overworked file clerk scurrying around in your psyche taking care of things, feeding you the right file on call, nudging you to remember an appointment, filling in the blanks of your memory—sometimes belatedly, but more often faithfully— giving you dreams about every ninety minutes throughout sleep, furnishing your daydreams with images, and so on.
***
You want to arrive at a good working relationship with that silent partner. For one thing, SP has complete access to your entire database that is made up of everything you have experienced in your whole life, and you will need SP’s help more often than you realize. For another, you cannot produce art without it. You could fill in the blanks of a complete outline and have what might look like a story, but it would have the same
***
relationship to literary art as painting-by-numbers does to visual art. The finished work might show skill in following an outline, flawless grammar, good deliberately chosen words, but it would be mechanical and empty. And finally, you must cultivate SP because it is a wonderful problem solver and collaborator.
***
Although SP has found ways to communicate with you, you can never be certain you can communicate to SP. It does not use language or words to communicate with you, and from all indications, it does not comprehend words you direct at it or, at least, it does not respond in a meaningful way to your direct orders or pleas expressed in words. It is aware of you and everything you do instant by instant, but you are never aware of it directly, only of the effects it has on you. Even if it seems that two-way communication is impossible, with reflection it becomes obvious that it does grasp yes or no, acceptance or rejection.
***
Probably all your life you have imagined snippets of stories, possible scenes, situations, glimpses of characters, story ideas, images and have done little or nothing with them. Most writers have very active daydreams for years before they actually begin to write. When you begin to accept the ideas, snippets and all, and work or play with them, manipulate them, more will follow and they will become stronger and more compelling. Your silent partner’s offering has been accepted. You have communicated through acceptance. It is as if your acceptance has empowered it, and the next time it will be more forceful.
***
What follows is not a set of rules carved in stone, but just advice from two people who had been there to others who had yet to go.
***
You should write what you are compelled to write, what you feel passionate about, not to please a particular editor, or to fit into a particular market. Editors come and go and markets change, but you will endure for a very long time, and only you can write your material.
***
They all have their own rhythms. You will find yours. You will deplete your well of inspiration, and in its own time, it will refill and be ready for you to draw on again. There is little point in trying to force it to conform to a faster pace.
***
Your style develops as you solve your own writing problems because basically that is what style means: it is how each writer solves individual problems of translating nonverbal material into verbal material. It happens and becomes unique to each writer.
***
Marry rich and/or keep your day job.
***
[….] much better to complete the novel and then, if necessary, sell it on the basis of an outline and chapters. At least the novel is complete before the advance is spent, and you can take time to consider what you want to do next.
***
Read! I can’t stress this enough. We were always amazed at how little many of our students read. Choose books outside your own field of interest: science books, physics, geology, anthropology, archeology, history, ancient history, current events.
***
You can’t learn how to write a novel by reading a how-to book or two or attending a novel-writing class. The only way to learn to write anything is by writing, including novels. Your first one may become a best seller, or it may never sell, but you will know if you can finish a novel, if you can sustain your interest that long, and you may find the second one easier to write and then to publish.
***
Don’t wait for the check to come, or for any other feedback.
***
It frequently happens that a writer is stopped temporarily because he or she has reached a plateau and is getting ready for a new phase, a new kind of writing, or tackling a different kind of material. You may find that on the other side of a slump you are writing very different stories, very likely more complex and deeper than before.
***
It’s okay to give yourself permission to write a bad story, just as it’s okay to admit you were wrong about a story
***
Try the plot outline sketch, starting with a what-if situation problem, one, two, three possible solutions, and then a couple more. Do several of them. You may find that one appeals enough to you that you want to write the story it suggests.
***
Gene Wolfe once said that if he got blocked, he would not permit himself to read anything for pleasure, or watch television, listen to music, or go to a movie.
***
Try combining elements from two of your stories to create a third one.
***
I don’t know of anyone who ever died of writer’s block.
***
James Sallis once said that his first draft informed him about what he then would write.
***
Many writers feel a compulsion to make their work as perfect as possible as they go, rewriting sentences, or recasting phrases until they are exactly right, and then moving on. As long as they then move on, fine.
***
avoidance devices are many and varied. Continuously rewriting old material can become an avoidance trap.
***
A novel is a very complicated work of art, with its own rhythms, the ebb and flow of action, subplots, under story, often a slow development of characters, and its own echoes and reverberations throughout. No single piece can inform a reader about the whole.
***
Criticism that might work well with a novel the workshop wants to read might be harmful to the one you are actually working on.
***
You don’t have to slavishly follow an outline; few editors would expect that.
***
If an editor tells you a story is too long, that’s probably right. The emotional impact and length are bound together, and an experienced editor knows when it’s out of proportion. It’s usually up to you to figure out how to cut it.
***
Don’t let a bad review get you down, or a good one go to your head. In the end, neither means a lot as long as they spell your name right.
***
You are not your story. It may be rejected time after time, but you are not your story. You have not been rejected even one time. You can let it go.
***
I like the lines written by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: “Art is the imposition of pattern on experience. Appreciation of art is recognition of the pattern.”
***
One informed opinion is as valuable as the next.
***
We never advised anyone about what to write, only to write whatever they did as well as possible.
***
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2019
Cuando leí Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, la forma de desarrollar historias de la autora me resultó lineal. Tras leer este libro, me reafirmo: sus lecciones favorecen la sencillez en la palabra y la linealidad en la historia pero, tras su narración de las primeras décadas del taller Clarion, el más importante para escritores de Fantasía y Ciencia Ficción, rasgo mis vestiduras ante mis anteriores opiniones y no me queda más remedio que ponerme a sus pies tras comprobar su sacrificio para que algunos de mis autores favoritos pudiesen publicar.
Más allá de sus consejos de escritura, coincidentes con los de textos como Cómo escribir ciencia-ficción y fantasía, es muy interesante su lucha eterna contra el carácter humano y el efecto Dunning-Krüger, así como las herramientas de gestión del estrés que estos campamentos/campos de concentración han de usar para evitar la explosión de las cabezas de los participantes.
En definitiva, las mismas recomendaciones que encontramos en otros manuales, aderezada con historias humanas que le dan un interés extra sobre el habitual libro de texto, que es sustituible con una atención a la lectura cotidiana y un ejercicio de voluntad.
Más allá de sus consejos de escritura, coincidentes con los de textos como Cómo escribir ciencia-ficción y fantasía, es muy interesante su lucha eterna contra el carácter humano y el efecto Dunning-Krüger, así como las herramientas de gestión del estrés que estos campamentos/campos de concentración han de usar para evitar la explosión de las cabezas de los participantes.
En definitiva, las mismas recomendaciones que encontramos en otros manuales, aderezada con historias humanas que le dan un interés extra sobre el habitual libro de texto, que es sustituible con una atención a la lectura cotidiana y un ejercicio de voluntad.
June 25, 2020
This is one of the most useful & encouraging books about writing (sff) short stories that I have ever read.
It's the story of the Clarion workshops & the author's time teaching there, but its also full if advice for writing short stories & common problems their students had & exercises to overcome them.
I really enjoyed reading it & I expect to return to the advice within often.
It's the story of the Clarion workshops & the author's time teaching there, but its also full if advice for writing short stories & common problems their students had & exercises to overcome them.
I really enjoyed reading it & I expect to return to the advice within often.
January 21, 2022
4 stars, an enlightening and entertaining combination of memoir and writing craft advice. I don't agree with all of Wilhelm's takes, but she clearly knows craft and displays her considerable writing talent in her remembrances of the various workshops she's run. I'm definitely intrigued in reading more from her after this.
June 7, 2018
Never quite understood where the Clarion West name came from, now I know. Includes some useful insights on writing, nothing too deep.
July 9, 2016
Writing books written by good teachers are invaluable, especially at the right time. Not as indispensable as good teachers, but sometimes reading a 200 page book can be worth more than a $500 workshop. This book came at the right time, and helped me face up against two major problems in my writing.
One is habituation. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could write consistently, and for long stretches, and in unbroken strings of days. But I'm not consistent enough with where and when I find that time on a daily basis, and I'm missing out on the benefits my mind can get if I train it repeatedly, in the same space and same time, day in and day out. Mornings before doing anything else are best (for me).
The second problem is that I don't regularly go deep enough into my own emotional world. In a majority of my writing sessions I'm writing from my conceptual, analytical side, and then revising to inject emotional affectation. But there's often a fog or a wall between myself and my characters. If I could more often access my own emotional memory, and channel it through my characters, what gets on the page will come easier, and be stronger for it.
If any of this resonates, then this book is probably worth way more than it costs to buy.
One is habituation. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could write consistently, and for long stretches, and in unbroken strings of days. But I'm not consistent enough with where and when I find that time on a daily basis, and I'm missing out on the benefits my mind can get if I train it repeatedly, in the same space and same time, day in and day out. Mornings before doing anything else are best (for me).
The second problem is that I don't regularly go deep enough into my own emotional world. In a majority of my writing sessions I'm writing from my conceptual, analytical side, and then revising to inject emotional affectation. But there's often a fog or a wall between myself and my characters. If I could more often access my own emotional memory, and channel it through my characters, what gets on the page will come easier, and be stronger for it.
If any of this resonates, then this book is probably worth way more than it costs to buy.
April 20, 2014
A quick and interesting read. The memoir sections convinced me I didn't particularly want to attend Clarion, but they held my attention. The writing advice I'd mostly heard already, but there were some ideas that were new to me. The book is mostly focused on people who don't sell work already, so I'm not really the target market; if I were, I might've given it five stars? I don't know.
(an aside - probably not the best book to read on Shabbat, because it really made me want to write, right away... :D )
(an aside - probably not the best book to read on Shabbat, because it really made me want to write, right away... :D )
January 6, 2009
I've been a fan of Ms. Wilhelm's writing for a long, long time, and I really appreciate that she took the time to pass some of her tips along to people who weren't able to directly benefit from her workshops at Clarion.
February 27, 2019
All fiction writers--from would-bes to ares, from indie-published to traditionally-published to wanting to publish--will benefit from reading Wilhelm's reflections on her long experience at the Clarion Writers' Workshop.
July 18, 2009
This book did give me some insight into the Clarion writer's "boot camp." It also had some solid advice.
June 17, 2022
I know a lot of people who went to Clarion or Clarion West. So I wanted to like this book - part memoir, part writing advice, part history of a sort of Clarion.
And while I found parts of it I spring and compelling and interesting - I also found many sections of it very dated and the advice in many parts feels no longer good advice. And that hurt my reading and appreciation. Some of it is changing societal norms (she writes about having to chose a gender for your characters to avoid either writing a character without a gender or who is androgynous - advice that feels like even when it was written was constraining.
Much of my issues with the advice in this book also stem from feeling like in many places she conflates how she thinks and works with how you should. Not everywhere and she does emphasize that every writer has to find their own process - but she seems to have very strong feelings about what works and what doesn’t and what she enjoys and what she doesn’t and seems to often want to make that a generalized principle. (She doesn’t like action it seems to name just one example).
In part it may also be why I never ended up attending Clarion though I know many people who have (as attendees and some as instructors, some as both) - I’m more of a novelist or long form writer (or non-fiction writer) than I am a writer of short stories. I have written some short stories - and many poems - but most of what I am drawn to write are longer form works. So the focus on short stories and the intensity of writing and critiquing many of them in a short succession didn’t feel like it was a fit for me as a writer.
In any case I’m glad that I read this book but I don’t think I’ll take a lot away from it for my own writing.
And while I found parts of it I spring and compelling and interesting - I also found many sections of it very dated and the advice in many parts feels no longer good advice. And that hurt my reading and appreciation. Some of it is changing societal norms (she writes about having to chose a gender for your characters to avoid either writing a character without a gender or who is androgynous - advice that feels like even when it was written was constraining.
Much of my issues with the advice in this book also stem from feeling like in many places she conflates how she thinks and works with how you should. Not everywhere and she does emphasize that every writer has to find their own process - but she seems to have very strong feelings about what works and what doesn’t and what she enjoys and what she doesn’t and seems to often want to make that a generalized principle. (She doesn’t like action it seems to name just one example).
In part it may also be why I never ended up attending Clarion though I know many people who have (as attendees and some as instructors, some as both) - I’m more of a novelist or long form writer (or non-fiction writer) than I am a writer of short stories. I have written some short stories - and many poems - but most of what I am drawn to write are longer form works. So the focus on short stories and the intensity of writing and critiquing many of them in a short succession didn’t feel like it was a fit for me as a writer.
In any case I’m glad that I read this book but I don’t think I’ll take a lot away from it for my own writing.
September 5, 2017
I've taken 4 or 5 workshop classes, mostly non-fiction, despite thinking of myself primarily as a sci-for/horror writer. This book does a great job of filling in the blanks of those classes. While the lion's share of writing advice is fairly applicable to most writers, the places where it touches on sci-fi and fantasy do a great job of steering aspiring writers from the trappings of those genres. It can be a struggle to make your story relatable if it takes place in another time or world other than our own. This book is a great start to bridging that gap.
As you read, I recommend taking note of and trying out some of the various writing and editing exercises. Some I had done before, some I hadn't. All the same, I rewrote them in my own words for later reference, I suggest you do the same. There's also a handy table in the back with chapters the author finds particularly useful, which I bookmarked. The last section of the book is some great nuts-and-bolts advice for aspiring writers, call it a primer on the basics.
Whether you've workshopped or you haven't (and I recommend you should, if only because of the friendships you'll form) you should read this book if you're interested in being a writer.
As you read, I recommend taking note of and trying out some of the various writing and editing exercises. Some I had done before, some I hadn't. All the same, I rewrote them in my own words for later reference, I suggest you do the same. There's also a handy table in the back with chapters the author finds particularly useful, which I bookmarked. The last section of the book is some great nuts-and-bolts advice for aspiring writers, call it a primer on the basics.
Whether you've workshopped or you haven't (and I recommend you should, if only because of the friendships you'll form) you should read this book if you're interested in being a writer.
April 9, 2019
I went into this expecting yet another writing guide and was surprised to find primarily a memoir of the author's experiences running a writing course. While there are useful tidbits of advice interwoven with the narrative, overall this reads like a trip down memory lane for Clarion graduates with a lot of (eventually irritating) name dropping.
As a memoir, I did enjoy reading this. The writing style is engaging. It surprised me by making me chuckle numerous times. I also empathised with the students' learning curve and recognised many mistakes that I've made in the past. But I did start to get bored towards the end of the in-jokes and repeated exploits, and anxious for the promised writing exercises.
Unfortunately, as a writing guide, I've read better. The blurb misled me into thinking the content would be split 50/50, but 90% of the book is memoir. Don't believe me? The writing advice and exercises mentioned within the narrative - highlighting common mistakes and how they attempted to teach students - are neatly summarised in the last 20 pages.
Read this if you're fairly new to writing or are interested in the history of the Clarion writing workshops - but for experienced writers seeking advice, I'm not sure this will fit the bill.
As a memoir, I did enjoy reading this. The writing style is engaging. It surprised me by making me chuckle numerous times. I also empathised with the students' learning curve and recognised many mistakes that I've made in the past. But I did start to get bored towards the end of the in-jokes and repeated exploits, and anxious for the promised writing exercises.
Unfortunately, as a writing guide, I've read better. The blurb misled me into thinking the content would be split 50/50, but 90% of the book is memoir. Don't believe me? The writing advice and exercises mentioned within the narrative - highlighting common mistakes and how they attempted to teach students - are neatly summarised in the last 20 pages.
Read this if you're fairly new to writing or are interested in the history of the Clarion writing workshops - but for experienced writers seeking advice, I'm not sure this will fit the bill.
January 22, 2021
I bought this book because it was recommended for its tips on writing. The book was an unusual hybrid of memoir about her years with the Clarion summer writing program and the things she and her husband Damon Knight learned from and taught to the participants. Clarion is famous for the molding its participants into successful writers, especially in the SciFi and Fantasy area. (Still all the tips she conveyed in the book are good for any aspiring writer like me). For instance, she discussed the "red line of death." That is, the place where she felt an editor would stop reading. She and the students would go back over why an editor would stop there.
In the edition I read, the tips she had scattered through the book were all collected in the back, including the original page numbers. Although one could skip the memoir and go directly to the back, its important to read her writing tips in context. It's a short book that reads well and any reader would benefit from reading the whole thing.
In the edition I read, the tips she had scattered through the book were all collected in the back, including the original page numbers. Although one could skip the memoir and go directly to the back, its important to read her writing tips in context. It's a short book that reads well and any reader would benefit from reading the whole thing.
December 11, 2024
This one took a long time to get through, primarily because I kept stopping to go read something else and returning to this like a textbook, slowly working through a chapter at a time. Wilhelm's insights into the world of the professional writer (specifically writers of short fiction) are fantastic, wrapped in a fond memoir of the trials and tribulations of keeping the Clarion Writers' Workshop alive amidst budget and administration challenges for three decades. The roster of former Clarion students is a "who's who" of speculative fiction, including quite a few that went on to not only successful careers as writers, but top-tier award winners of the Nebula, Hugo, what have you.
The lessons, advice, and writing exercises that she includes throughout the book are condensed and revisited in a pair of closing chapters that I will assuredly be returning to again and again. I may never aspire to the Clarion alumni club, but the advice and exercises would make anyone, in any writing field, better at their craft if applied with discipline.
The lessons, advice, and writing exercises that she includes throughout the book are condensed and revisited in a pair of closing chapters that I will assuredly be returning to again and again. I may never aspire to the Clarion alumni club, but the advice and exercises would make anyone, in any writing field, better at their craft if applied with discipline.
June 26, 2025
Read 40% in. For a writing teacher, she doesn't seem to be very good at writing herself -- at least, not in this half-memoir, half-advice format, which fails at both. The memoirs are, like other reviewers have suggested, collections of meaningless anecdotes that make your eyes gloss over. They are the stories that she would label as "too trivial to discuss" in her own workshops.
As for the writing advice itself: it's surface-level, basic, and uninsightful. Her idea of explaining what a story is is apparently playing whack-a-mole with what it is not. It is not a wish fulfillment fantasy. It is not a dream sequence. It is not an elaborate trick played on a reader. Great -- can you tell me what a story IS?
Apparently you have to attend the workshop to find out.
As for the writing advice itself: it's surface-level, basic, and uninsightful. Her idea of explaining what a story is is apparently playing whack-a-mole with what it is not. It is not a wish fulfillment fantasy. It is not a dream sequence. It is not an elaborate trick played on a reader. Great -- can you tell me what a story IS?
Apparently you have to attend the workshop to find out.
July 13, 2018
Last year I read a lot of books about writing, but none addressed the art of short story writing as well as Storyteller. I started the book because I'm interested in writing short stories for fantasy magazines, but the most useful info wasn't genre specific, it was length specific. The dramatic structure and approach to writing a screenplay or a novel is applicable to a short story to a certain point, but there are important differences between long and short form fiction, and Wilhelm calls them out. I also enjoyed reading about the history of the famous Clarion workshop and had fun with Wilhelm's anecdotes and memories from the many years she spent teaching it.
October 14, 2018
I hosted an author event with Kate Wilhelm a couple of years before she died. She was still a force--smart, sharp, funny. I had not and still have not read a lot of her work, and at the time was not aware of how important she was in the formation and support of the Clarion Workshop. I wish I had known and had been able to ask her about it in person. As a Clarion West board member, I wanted to read about Clarion's history as it birthed Clarion West. This is a wonderful primer for writers and those interested in Clarion's approach and influence in growing science fiction, fantasy and otherwise speculative writers over the last 40 plus years.
October 15, 2017
This book can't decide if it's a memoir about running the Clarion workshop, or a writing manual. I was hoping for more of the former and got more of the latter. It's still useful, and I still enjoyed it, and I think it has helped me think more clearly about whether or not I'm at the right stage in my writing to apply to said workshop, so I don't regret reading it, but it wasn't quite what I expected.
She compiles all of her writing tips at the end for ease of reference, and I will almost certainly refer back to that. It's a treasure trove of realistic, practical advice.
She compiles all of her writing tips at the end for ease of reference, and I will almost certainly refer back to that. It's a treasure trove of realistic, practical advice.
August 24, 2021
Kate Wilhelm reminisces about Clarion workshops and offers tidbits of writing advice.
3.5 stars I liked the portions that focused on Clarion, the writers, the name-dropping, and the anecdotes about what it was like to teach at these SF workshops. There were also several solid writing suggestions. The book as a whole, though, feels very patchwork-y: one paragraph to another there was sometimes no continuity. So a fun book to read if you're a science fiction fan but I wouldn't suggest it to anyone who is not.
3.5 stars I liked the portions that focused on Clarion, the writers, the name-dropping, and the anecdotes about what it was like to teach at these SF workshops. There were also several solid writing suggestions. The book as a whole, though, feels very patchwork-y: one paragraph to another there was sometimes no continuity. So a fun book to read if you're a science fiction fan but I wouldn't suggest it to anyone who is not.
August 12, 2019
3.5 stars!
I've read my fair share of books on writing fiction and there A LOT of unique information in Storyteller, especially if you looking to write short Sci-Fi or fantasy.
There is also some anecdotes regarding water gunfights I really didn't find to very useful.
I will be applying to Clarion later this year so wish me luck!!
If you've attended Clarion and you'd like to share your experineces please feel free to share!! I'd love to hear them.
Brian Hogan
I've read my fair share of books on writing fiction and there A LOT of unique information in Storyteller, especially if you looking to write short Sci-Fi or fantasy.
There is also some anecdotes regarding water gunfights I really didn't find to very useful.
I will be applying to Clarion later this year so wish me luck!!
If you've attended Clarion and you'd like to share your experineces please feel free to share!! I'd love to hear them.
Brian Hogan
August 1, 2017
Disappointing and dull.
Picked this up on a whim, and it was disappointing. I didn't finish it -- the book is repetitious and surprisingly dull, considering what a good writer Kate Wilhelm is. Though there are moments. Likely to be of more interest to Clarion alums and aspiring students. For others, caveat lector.
Picked this up on a whim, and it was disappointing. I didn't finish it -- the book is repetitious and surprisingly dull, considering what a good writer Kate Wilhelm is. Though there are moments. Likely to be of more interest to Clarion alums and aspiring students. For others, caveat lector.
May 27, 2018
Anecdotal and a bit interesting but not enthralling. Pick up the last chapter or two if you want to read her distilled advice on writing and becoming a better writer. This book is like sitting on a rocking chair with an elderly retiree for an afternoon — a lot of shooting the breeze, but good nuggets emerge.
September 12, 2025
An assigned reading for my university Speculative Fiction Creative Writing class. I really enjoyed the advice given throughout the novel and spent much time reading and rereading this novel while writing. I am happy to have this book in my collection.
January 18, 2017
I suspect this book would be more fun for people with more familiarity with Clarion. This is, alas, not me.
May 25, 2018
Part memoir, part writing advice manual. Liked the memoir more. YMMV.
June 23, 2018
This is an excellent guide to writing short stories as well as an entertaining history of the Clarion Workshop. I loved reading this book.
August 8, 2018
This combination of memoir and writing workshop summary revealed much about the writing community and the writing process. The book is short and readable.
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