This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about lessons learned from Fable’s work co-leading an anthology project.
Recently Fable has been working with another author to put together an anthology to benefit a charity. This process included inviting other authors to contribute connected stories with a common character, reading through and organizing those individual stories into an overarching arc, and communicating feedback and line edits to each author in order to prepare the pieces for publication.
This episode serves as a sort of examination unpacking Fable’s experience in real time. She shares some unexpected experiences and lessons learned, different ways of looking at things that have helped her navigate challenges that arose, and new practices that she intends to lean on if she does any future anthology projects. But, also, we feel this conversation can be useful for those considering participating in future anthologies and those thinking of leading them to help look at the experience from both perspectives, and find ways to help strengthen the initial handshake at the beginning of a project so that expectations are as clear and well communicated as possible.
Here are some of the takeaways:
- Be as clear and specific as possible up front about the rules and expectations (who does what), timeframes (when will certain actions be taking place), and level of editing (copyediting vs proofreading vs line editing).
- Consider making an anthology submission based, allowing yourself the option to select work that fits within your intention and to gently reject work that doesn’t.
- Communicate feedback as early as possible.
- At the outset, clarify to yourself what you want the work to be (your intention) and what level of labor you are commiting to the project.
- Meet difficult interactions with patience, empathy, and compassion. Try to see from their perspective and acknowledge their feelings, and hope they will do the same for you.
- Don’t take baggage from one experience into another, but use what you learned in a thorny situation to help finesse your next interactions and communications.
- As a writer, be open to feedback reminding yourself that the intention is simply to improve the work and make it better. Within the anthology setting, it’s also meant to help it fit better with the other pieces in the project. Try not to take it personally or hold your work too closely, and if critique feels like an attack consider doing some journaling to explore why.
- Plan for what to do if the relationship breaks down, allow for other’s work to be withdrawn or ensure the project allows for your work to be withdrawn if an agreement cannot be reached.
Towards the end of our conversation, we discuss how valuable having a difficult experience can be in teaching what not to do in the future and also what you can add or adjust to make a project smoother. Reviewing and assessing what you would do differently in real time during the process — while you are experiencing pain points and see clearly where there are failures — can help streamline future projects. But, also, compassionate communication and patient understanding go a long way. However, in the end you can only control how you react, so release yourself from gilt over how an interaction ultimately unfolds.
We hope you enjoy this episode and that you can take away some of the lessons that Fable learned through doing to use in your own writing life! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about lessons learned from Fable’s work co-leading an anthology project.
Recently Fable has been working with another author to put together an anthology to benefit a charity. This process included inviting other authors to contribute connected stories with a common character, reading through and organizing those individual stories into an overarching arc, and communicating feedback and line edits to each author in order to prepare the pieces for publication.
This episode serves as a sort of examination unpacking Fable’s experience in real time. She shares some unexpected experiences and lessons learned, different ways of looking at things that have helped her navigate challenges that arose, and new practices that she intends to lean on if she does any future anthology projects. But, also, we feel this conversation can be useful for those considering participating in future anthologies and those thinking of leading them to help look at the experience from both perspectives, and find ways to help strengthen the initial handshake at the beginning of a project so that expectations are as clear and well communicated as possible.
Here are some of the takeaways:
- Be as clear and specific as possible up front about the rules and expectations (who does what), timeframes (when will certain actions be taking place), and level of editing (copyediting vs proofreading vs line editing).
- Consider making an anthology submission based, allowing yourself the option to select work that fits within your intention and to gently reject work that doesn’t.
- Communicate feedback as early as possible.
- At the outset, clarify to yourself what you want the work to be (your intention) and what level of labor you are commiting to the project.
- Meet difficult interactions with patience, empathy, and compassion. Try to see from their perspective and acknowledge their feelings, and hope they will do the same for you.
- Don’t take baggage from one experience into another, but use what you learned in a thorny situation to help finesse your next interactions and communications.
- As a writer, be open to feedback reminding yourself that the intention is simply to improve the work and make it better. Within the anthology setting, it’s also meant to help it fit better with the other pieces in the project. Try not to take it personally or hold your work too closely, and if critique feels like an attack consider doing some journaling to explore why.
- Plan for what to do if the relationship breaks down, allow for other’s work to be withdrawn or ensure the project allows for your work to be withdrawn if an agreement cannot be reached.
Towards the end of our conversation, we discuss how valuable having a difficult experience can be in teaching what not to do in the future and also what you can add or adjust to make a project smoother. Reviewing and assessing what you would do differently in real time during the process — while you are experiencing pain points and see clearly where there are failures — can help streamline future projects. But, also, compassionate communication and patient understanding go a long way. However, in the end you can only control how you react, so release yourself from gilt over how an interaction ultimately unfolds.
We hope you enjoy this episode and that you can take away some of the lessons that Fable learned through doing to use in your own writing life! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing an unscripted episode about learning storytelling and collaboration lessons in unexpected places like musicals and theme parks.
Over the last year, we’ve done a wide range of topics — from writing about disabilities to writing with empathy —that took a lot of energy and preparation. We’ve also been doing this podcast for almost 5 years and as we celebrate our 250th episode this month we felt it would be fun to do a series of episodes getting back to our roots of how this first began — through unplanned conversations about life, books, and the writing craft. So, for right now we’re continuing to see where our conversations take us, without planning in advance what we’ll talk about.
In this conversation, we talk about musicals and theme park storytelling and the surprising lessons those can teach. Things like:
- The Wind and the Willows musical and how the lack of character change and growth in that story along with the absence of a central plot arc and satisfying story resolution can lead to a disappointing audience experience.
- The interesting detail that Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride does include a form of conclusion or at least consequence as part of the storytelling, which at least is more satisfying than no ending at all.
- The more recent addition to the Jungle Cruise ride of a story — along with having desrespectful elements that detracted from the story removed — led to the rides increasing popularity with guests.
- Rides we loved as kids like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and Star Tours and the immersive nature of their settings and storytelling along with the overall feeling of curiosity and wonder that they tap into.
- Things discovered from The Imagineering Story (book) and The Imagineering Story (2019 documentary series)
--- Nuggets of wisdom from Disney’s theme park storytelling and place setting rules, successes, and failures.
--- Tales of how opposing viewpoints and contrasting skill sets led to some unique and rich experiences — such as the distinctive characters provided by Marc Davis and rich backgrounds and settings provided by Claude Coats in both the Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion rides
Towards the end of this discussion, we talk about collaboration and ideas for how to set-up a working relationship to help keep a writing project centered on bringing to life a joint vision without going too far in differing directions or allowing honest feedback to feel like a personal attack rather than a process to make the overall story stronger. We feel different points of view and opposing ideas can be good, so long as you maintain focus and balance. Watching people work together, reading about how creative teams make their way through a project (like in The Imagineering Story), and talking with other authors about how they collaborate can all be great ways of learning some new best practices.
We hope you enjoy this episode and the more improvisational format of this series and that some of this connects with your own journey!
Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
Fable & The Verbivore
This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about lessons learned from Fable’s work co-leading an anthology project.
Recently Fable has been working with another author to put together an anthology to benefit a charity. This process included inviting other authors to contribute connected stories with a common character, reading through and organizing those individual stories into an overarching arc, and communicating feedback and line edits to each author in order to prepare the pieces for publication.
This episode serves as a sort of examination unpacking Fable’s experience in real time. She shares some unexpected experiences and lessons learned, different ways of looking at things that have helped her navigate challenges that arose, and new practices that she intends to lean on if she does any future anthology projects. But, also, we feel this conversation can be useful for those considering participating in future anthologies and those thinking of leading them to help look at the experience from both perspectives, and find ways to help strengthen the initial handshake at the beginning of a project so that expectations are as clear and well communicated as possible.
Here are some of the takeaways:
- Be as clear and specific as possible up front about the rules and expectations (who does what), timeframes (when will certain actions be taking place), and level of editing (copyediting vs proofreading vs line editing).
- Consider making an anthology submission based, allowing yourself the option to select work that fits within your intention and to gently reject work that doesn’t.
- Communicate feedback as early as possible.
- At the outset, clarify to yourself what you want the work to be (your intention) and what level of labor you are commiting to the project.
- Meet difficult interactions with patience, empathy, and compassion. Try to see from their perspective and acknowledge their feelings, and hope they will do the same for you.
- Don’t take baggage from one experience into another, but use what you learned in a thorny situation to help finesse your next interactions and communications.
- As a writer, be open to feedback reminding yourself that the intention is simply to improve the work and make it better. Within the anthology setting, it’s also meant to help it fit better with the other pieces in the project. Try not to take it personally or hold your work too closely, and if critique feels like an attack consider doing some journaling to explore why.
- Plan for what to do if the relationship breaks down, allow for other’s work to be withdrawn or ensure the project allows for your work to be withdrawn if an agreement cannot be reached.
Towards the end of our conversation, we discuss how valuable having a difficult experience can be in teaching what not to do in the future and also what you can add or adjust to make a project smoother. Reviewing and assessing what you would do differently in real time during the process — while you are experiencing pain points and see clearly where there are failures — can help streamline future projects. But, also, compassionate communication and patient understanding go a long way. However, in the end you can only control how you react, so release yourself from gilt over how an interaction ultimately unfolds.
We hope you enjoy this episode and that you can take away some of the lessons that Fable learned through doing to use in your own writing life! And keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
