George R.R. Martin starts a worldbuilding scholarship program

[Synobun]

http://www.cbc.ca/books/george-r-r-...for-aspiring-fantasy-sci-fi-writers-1.4508462

George R.R. Martin has created the Worldbuilder Scholarship for budding science fiction and fantasy writers, which will pay for tuition, fees and lodging for a six-week intensive in Seattle known as the Clarion West Writers Workshop.

[...]

Martin said the scholarship is open to applicants worldwide and will be offered on an ongoing annual basis. Each year's winner will be selected in a blind judging based on financial need, as well as a demonstrated "talent for worldbuilding and the creation of secondary universes." The deadline to apply is March 1, 2018.

The roster of instructors at the Clarion West Writers Workshop this summer include Karen Joy Fowler, Yoon Ha Lee, Daniel Abraham, Ken MacLeod and Ellen Datlow.

You can find the actual post about it from George here.

I'm not too sure about the value of this... The scholarship paying the expenses for the workshop is nice but it's unclear if it also covers housing and necessities. This may just be a ruse to get you to live in Seattle for six weeks while siphoning funds from your savings.

More relevant to us forum-goers: do any of you see value in actual classes for worldbuilding? Is this something you would be interested in? If you have concerns, what are they and how would they be solved?

And... are you going to apply?

I'm also going to tag a few people this subject may interest: @Zkribbler, @Mouthwash, @GoodEnoughForMe, and @Valka D'Ur.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Note that it does say that it pays lodging. Have to pay to eat probably, but ya gotta pay to eat whether you are in Seattle or not so no loss there.

 

[morgenstern1]

I guess it might have value insofar as 'being a good worldbuilder' goes hand-in-hand with 'being a good writer'.

If you're a great worldbuilder, but not a good writer, then you're probably not going to strike it rich off of your ideas like GRRM, unless you get on with a RPG company and are so successful that you spin your own company off of it, or something similar.

 

[Synobun]

Note that it does say that it pays lodging. Have to pay to eat probably, but ya gotta pay to eat whether you are in Seattle or not so no loss there.

True. I suppose I'm wondering if the 'lodging' in this instance can actually be considered housing or if it's a glorified motel room. For six weeks that's doable, but I'm not sure how valuable of a program it is if you essentially live in squalor while dancing to someone's tune about what constitutes proper worldbuilding.

I have fairly bad experiences with creative teachers, though, so that could be purely personal bias seeping through.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

True. I suppose I'm wondering if the 'lodging' in this instance can actually be considered housing or if it's a glorified motel room. For six weeks that's doable, but I'm not sure how valuable of a program it is if you essentially live in squalor while dancing to someone's tune about what constitutes proper worldbuilding.

I have fairly bad experiences with creative teachers, though, so that could be purely personal bias seeping through.

Clarion West now rents out a sorority house for the duration of the workshop and we are charged rent based there being 18 students in the workshop.

That answers that.

 

[Synobun]

Well, that rules me out. I can barely stand living with one other person!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, that rules me out. I can barely stand living with one other person!

Workshop environments are different. Common schedules and mutual purpose makes people a lot easier to get along with.

 

[Mouthwash]

I'm in Israel and staying for the time being, so I'm definitely not considering it. Also, did it say they would be selected based on financial need? I'm not sure even how I would do; are there lots of penniless fiction writers?

What am I saying, that's the very definition.

 

[Synobun]

I'm in Israel and staying for the time being, so I'm definitely not considering it. Also, did it say they would be selected based on financial need? I'm not sure even how I would do; are there lots of penniless fiction writers?

What am I saying, that's the very definition.

It says it's considering international applicants. I thought of you because of your fantasy world posts. If you've done a lot of legwork on it, it seems like an idea that might merit a look by their judge panel.

 

[Mouthwash]

It says it's considering international applicants. I thought of you because of your fantasy world posts. If you've done a lot of legwork on it, it seems like an idea that might merit a look by their judge panel.

Hard to divorce my worldbuilding from the story (and I have far too many things to do over here anyway).

 

[Synobun]

To be fair, I'm not sure there are that many people who divorce worldbuilding from story. It's often the easiest way to develop a world.

That being said they specifically want an excerpt of your manuscript in the application. So it seems they don't want you to separate the two anyways.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

http://www.cbc.ca/books/george-r-r-...for-aspiring-fantasy-sci-fi-writers-1.4508462



You can find the actual post about it from George here.

I'm not too sure about the value of this... The scholarship paying the expenses for the workshop is nice but it's unclear if it also covers housing and necessities. This may just be a ruse to get you to live in Seattle for six weeks while siphoning funds from your savings.

More relevant to us forum-goers: do any of you see value in actual classes for worldbuilding? Is this something you would be interested in? If you have concerns, what are they and how would they be solved?

And... are you going to apply?

I'm also going to tag a few people this subject may interest: @Zkribbler, @Mouthwash, @GoodEnoughForMe, and @Valka D'Ur.

The Clarion Writers Workshops have been going on for decades. It's a reputable outfit that has helped plenty of science fiction authors improve their skills over the years, with workshops that really challenge the authors to dig deep and not settle for what the current fad or trend is.

This page explains that living on-campus is required.

Main Clarion website page.

Worldbuilding is critical if you want to come up with a setting for original stories and really grab the readers' imaginations so they want MORE.

Frank Herbert created Arrakis (aka Dune). Robert Silverberg created Majipoor. C.J. Cherryh created Cyteen and Merovingen, which are part of her broad Alliance-Union series. I've read these books multiple times. The planets themselves are almost like characters; the reader cares what happens to them. And yes, I want more from C.J. Cherryh (Frank Herbert is dead and Robert Silverberg has retired from writing new novels).


Some of the stories that were created at various Clarion workshops have been published in anthologies. I have a couple of these. Anyone here familiar with the rebooted Twilight Zone TV series? There was one episode called "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", by William F. Wu. That story was created at a Clarion workshop.


Would I go to a Clarion workshop? YES! Assuming I could afford to get there, had somebody reliable to house sit and care for Maddy, and felt up to it physically. And if I had some good original ideas in addition to all this fanfic I've been working on for the past few years. Oh, and I'd need some pretty good armor, since the level of critique and discussion there are absolutely not geared to coddling the students.

 

[Zkribbler]

this subject may interest: @Zkribbler,

Thanks, but I'll pass. I can only find one story of mine that's within the page limits. Plus, after my last flight over from the US, I vowed to never again fly cattle-car class. IIRC, anything better is ~$5k.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I just had a look at my writing books and I have one on worldbuilding (part of a series of how-to books on writing science fiction; it's edited by Ben Bova).

 

[Kyriakos]

It might be an interesting experience, for young people who now start to write.
Personally i do not regard writing seminars as something good. From what Valka says, this specific one is prestigious so it might be actually meaningful, but in general writing seminars are often a scam.

 

[rah]

Maybe they should have a workshop on how to actually finish a series. I'm sure he could benefit from that one.
There could be a breakout session entitled, don't wait a decade between books because your readers might lose interest.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It might be an interesting experience, for young people who now start to write.
Personally i do not regard writing seminars as something good. From what Valka says, this specific one is prestigious so it might be actually meaningful, but in general writing seminars are often a scam.

Clarion isn't a scam, and many people have been published as a result of what they learned by taking a workshop and doing whatever it took to make their manuscripts publishable.

One thing about science fiction/fantasy authors is that they're enthusiastic about teaching and mentoring new people - and while some new people go on to become competitors for new readers - the SF/F community is richer for having a mix of old and new writers. I've mentioned that the conventions I went to always had writers as the main guests, and there was one year when the GoH said that he was really impressed that there was such enthusiasm among the attendees for writing, editing, and publishing. Apparently that was a rarity even in the '90s, with most conventions being about snagging actors' autographs (and paying $$$ for it; the only time I ever paid for an autograph was when David Gerrold said he would only do autographs for people who contributed to charity), actors reminiscing about TV shows, comic books and comic book characters, and so on.

 

[Zkribbler]

... in general writing seminars are often a scam.

If the class begins with the sentence, "You can't teach someone how to write," RUN! The English translation is: "I have no idea how to teach someone how to write."

 

[Takhisis]

If the class begins with the sentence, "You can't teach someone how to write," RUN! The English translation is: "I have no idea how to teach someone how to write."

That made me chuckle.

 

[Synobun]

I'm not sure that you can explicitly teach someone how to write. I think you can put the individual in a position where they improve the skill themselves but I am not on-board with the idea that it's something objective and measurable.

I base that only on personal experience, however. When I've taken creative writing classes or workshops and they try and 'teach' me a specific style of writing, it didn't improve my actual writing skills. It just gave me a little more understanding of different styles. Possibly useful but certainly not "teaching me how to write".