the workshop, pros and cons

Creative writing workshops have been a hit or miss affair for me since I participated in my first one as an undergrad student in 2000. When they’ve been ‘good,’ I’ve noticed substantial growth in my writing, my ability to usefully engage with peers’ writing, and my sense of genuine community with classmates, such that we supported one another’s creative development beyond the duration of a single semester. But when they’ve been ‘bad’… wow, it’s been something of a tragicomedy unfolding week to week! Worthless feedback, weird power dynamics, static/stagnant writing from/among much of the class, and a widespread inability to get beyond individual stylistic leanings/preferences in discussion of others’ work. I’m laughing under my breath just recalling certain instances as I write… and think I understand more than ever why creative writing teachers at the college/university level would want to avoid a traditional workshop format, even in classes deemed workshops.

Let me start with the good. I think a lot has to do with the personalities in the room, and the readiness among students/writers to stretch beyond their individual prejudices around favored writing styles, and look at work not from the perspective of ‘Would I have written it that way?’ or ‘I don’t like how they’re doing x, y, z,’ and more from ‘Alright, this is the way the writer’s trying to approach their topic; how can I support them in strengthening their chosen approach/method/means?’ When I’ve read and commented on peers’ work from that vantage point, and when my peers have done similarly for my work, constructive feedback’s often been the outcome. Essentially, getting out of our comfort zones, safe spaces, etc, and trying to get a sense of the writer’s motives/intentions from their work, before giving feedback on the content of what’s on the page, or what’s just been read aloud. I’ve found that this commitment to supporting the writer, irrespective of whether one especially digs the content of their work, or the genre/s they’re working in, facilitates trust-building among an assemblage of writers who may be total strangers when a semester or workshop series starts. That trust in one another, and the intentions with which folks are offering their critiques, is usually what lays a foundation for legitimate community, and for folks to take away something valuable from peers’ comments. It’s a tricky thing, though, because folks usually need to prove their trustworthiness early on; that is, participants need to show that they’re invested in supporting the writer, not just tearing them down for the purpose of ego-enhancement, or in the case of a university-housed class, impressing the teach. There’s a certain level of grace and humility with which critiques need be delivered, particularly ones that may be difficult for the writer to hear. We’ve all got egos, and we all love praise. In the case of the workshop, starting one’s feedback with one or two comments about what’s working well in a piece of writing can set the stage so that tougher-to-hear critiques will be better received (at least early on, before folks know each other well enough to allow critical feedback from jump). To some extent, that’s more about the maturity of folks in the room—personalities, as noted above—than anything else.

Beyond that, I’ve found workshops can benefit from specific exercises/prompts a teacher/facilitator asks writers to utilize or experiment with, week to week. That ensures that participants are forcing themselves to break out of their well-rehearsed writing patterns, which is good prep for breaking out of expectations that you’ll only receive praise when you’re poem, story, etc gets workshopped (as someone else already noted, outside of the workshop setting, most writers are accustomed to only receiving a ‘Yeah, I loved it’ from peers who aren’t writers, and much as we might lament the lack of depth to such feedback, I think we get comfortable being lauded as such). I think the role of the teacher/facilitator is also crucial when it comes to folks who are dominating a space verbally, or, in the opposite sense, shirking from their responsibility to throw some feedback into the mix. It shouldn’t be on the participants, at least not from early on, to manage the ‘step up, step back’ dynamics when they’re trying to thoroughly get into a piece of writing and adequately respond to it.

As for the bad… I think I’ve actually already given voice to some of the treacherous dynamics that can play out in scantily managed, or inadequately engaged-with, workshop spaces. The ego play, the constant ‘I would have done it this way…’, the readiness to trash individuals’ work (and, beyond just the pieces of writing, a trashing of people’s very intentions in writing them), the over-talkers, the under-talkers, the ghost facilitator who’s thrown their students to the wolves without laying a foundation for how responses/critiques ought be offered, and so on. We’ve all been there, I think it’s safe to say. I’ve also found that just commenting on work in an individual class or meeting usually proves insufficient, as a re-reading of someone’s material after a group discussion on it turns up new thinking, new avenues of engagement. To that end, I’ve appreciated having time to respond in class upon a first reading/hearing of someone’s work, but then having to keep a writer’s printed materials for the week, return to it on my own time, write out even more specific feedback on the actual page/s (or separate sheets), and return that to the writer the following week. This ensures that, as peers/readers/critics, we’re not just staying stuck to our initial interpretations of a piece of writing, and are instead allowing ourselves a deeper investment with it, which ultimately/usually means more insightful/useful feedback for the writer. In my experiences, too little emphasis has been given on taking more than a week (or in many cases, the day of) to offer writers feedback. How thorough, or helpful, is our feedback to writers really going to be, if assembled/delivered on the fly?

Some initial thoughts. I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing. Look forward to chopping it up further this afternoon…