In the 1600s, groups of writers would gather for an evening of poetry and music. Known as a literary academy, the all-men or all-women groups would be a meeting point for discussing politics, sharing new writing, and holding competitions. This column honors that sentiment with ideas on craft and writing.
Recently, I was in a year-long manuscript class where we got paired off every month to read and share feedback with our partner. We swapped chapters of our novel-in-progress and then chatted over Zoom. While working with one peer, I noticed his face fall. He expressed his confusion about how to handle some of his opening chapters based on class feedback. Half of the class liked the over-arching summary worldbuilding while the others wanted a detailed scene. What to do?
Workshop is interesting because no one is really taught how to do it and then how to deal with revision post-workshop. I personally had a hard time with workshop in my early years, the gist of it stemming from my disappointment that the group didn’t think my pages were perfect, and also the set up of having to be quiet while everyone said whatever they liked about your work.
When it was critique time, I took it as a sacred ritual. I feared missing some nugget of wisdom that will fix my draft in a manner of minutes. In being hyper-alert I was over-stimulated, taking in everyone’s comments as sound advice and not thinking about whether they really ring true to my artistic goal.
So here are my unsolicited tips about approaching workshop.
Make up some questions
When I hand over my pages for critique, I ask the group to summarize what it’s about. So many times in feedback, I get so many varying voices that I don’t know if they actually understood the narrative. Going to brass tacts helps ground me. If my writing got too literary and vague, so they didn’t understand what was happening, I can note that.
Having this as the groundwork in their feedback helps me to see what is basically working in the plot and what still needs work. Anything else they include in their critique is icing on the cake.
As a sidenote, when you are in a workshop and you receive a piece where you feel you don’t know how to give feedback on it, consider this approach. There are times where I have received pages to edit where the content is something that does not fascinate me or where I’m not the audience for the work. In those cases, I provide comments of what I got out of it as a reader.
Only take what resonates
When I would leave workshop with eight or nine copies of my essay, I would stack them by my desk and review each one, making all the changes they noted. This was a horrible strategy. I would move through one edited essay where the advice said to skew one way and then I’d move to the next where the advice would be another.
I used to take everything everyone said in critique as gold. But in doing that, I was allowing in all of these outside voices with different ideas for my work. Many peers provided advise where they projected what they wanted my work to be, instead of asking what my artistic intentions were.
This is the challenge with feedback. If you rely too much on it, it can become a crutch. You have to develop your skills in evaluating the feedback in itself to see if what they are saying makes sense to the goal of what you are writing. When someone gives you feedback and you think, “Hey! That’s a really good idea!” and it alights in you an excitement to get back to revising, then you probably are on the right track.
When stubbornness is your enemy
On the flip side of listening to everyone there is the risk of resisting helpful feedback. You feel so strongly about your artistic choice that you refuse to make changes.
One teacher provided a brilliant method for reflection. Let’s say you finished workshop and most to everyone in your group said to take out character X, but you don’t want to. Write a list of the reasons why you need to keep character X. What do they do for the story? Next to that column, write down the reasons to remove character X. Use the ideas presented in workshop, and your own thoughts. If you find you have more reasons to keep the character than remove them, you have your answer. If the reasons to remove them are larger, then it might be a good idea accept the feedback.
Appreciate the journey
We are obsessed with the end product. When writing, we want to get the story published immediately or land the agent in a week. It’s hard to reel in the sense of urgency. But if you can, you’ll find a great deal of joy in the atmosphere of workshop.
Shameless Plug
If you are in need of an editor for your nonfiction work, please note that I am available for freelance editing services. You can find information here, along with my rates and testimonials. I’ve had a few people hire me as a beta reader, an affordable option where I provide feedback on the whole of your work. Please note that if you are looking for editors for fiction you are welcome to contact me for some recommendations.
I also will be teaching the following classes in the coming months:
Essay & Opinion Writing I at Gotham Writers’ Workshop
Writing for Social Media at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop
This was so helpful. I have had real trouble with feeling hyper-focused and thus over-stimulated when being workshopped. Thanks for sharing great tips born of experience!
Thoughts of good thoughts. It is always difficult not to be swayed by workshop comments.
Thanks!