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By Charles Deemer |
"Although the potential for world-wide teacher conferences and the like seems exciting, in actual fact the IRC is rather vapid. Most IRC channels resemble something like a science fiction convention crossed with a single's bar, except that the anonymity of the Internet prompts some users to explore new worlds of rudeness and immaturity."-- Teaching With the Internet
IRC is probably the most under-utilized Internet resource for writers, screenwriters included. The "real time chat" between two or more people that is allowed by IRC is perfect for such things as Screenwriting Workshops, classes and professional brainstorming sessions.
Yet even the "official" IRC chat of the Screenwriters List (see my second column) is more tavern-talk than serious brainstorming. These relaxed "real time" moments with colleagues in cyberspace are great, of course, but they also are seldom matched by constructive and serious use of the IRC resource.
You get access via a client. If you have a shell account, your server probably has IRC on a menu - or try typing "irc" at your Unix command line.
You also can "telnet" to IRC clients or download and use special IRC software (for Windows, for example). You can learn more by following the links at the end of this column.
Once you have access, you need to know a few basic commands to get you started. Each IRC command begins with a slash (/); the command "/help", for example, will do just what it says.
IRC operates on different channels, and the first thing you do is join or start a channel, which can have any name but is always preceded by a #. Let's say we want to start a #workshop channel. Once you have accessed IRC, here are the steps to take:
You may want to log the IRC session into a permanent file. You do this as follows:
You may want to know if you are getting mail while on IRC. Do this:
There are many other commands: use "/help ?" to get a list.
Once a chair is in charge, people can request the floor by typing "!", the equivalent of holding up your hand. When the chair recognizes someone (perhaps by typing "go cdeemer" or simply "cdeemer"), that person then can type a comment.
While this protocol can get cumbersome, it does help to keep the discussion on track. The chair can call for "free discussion" in which the "!" protocol is dropped and later type "! protocol" to regain leadership of the discussion.
Or you can make up your own rules of procedure.
The chair also should handle strangers (non-workshop members) who wander onto the open channel. There are ways to secure private channels but IRC is intimidating enough to newbies without adding complexity for a problem that is rare, especially if you give your workshop a #channel-name unlikely to draw attention to itself. If you do find the need for privacy, the resources below can tell you how.
But this fact does not lessen IRC's incredible potential as a learning tool. IRC chats that are structured as workshops can be shaped to suit the particular needs of the writer-participants.
For example, I plan to use IRC a good deal in my upcoming Screenwriting Fundamentals course on the Internet. Other classroom teachers also use IRC to advantage. There is no reason why a group of screenwriters can't get together and put together their own workshop on IRC, also taking advantage of this "free" "real time" resource in cyberspace.
I urge you to learn as much about IRC as you can. For more information:
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