Workshop Guidelines
Workshopping creative work is tricky. Too many guidelines can shut down healthy debate but not enough lead to people falling back on old ways of thinking that may be less than helpful. Taking the phrase from the idea of a “good enough” parent, here are some notes with a mind to finding a way forward and having a “good enough” workshop. (Subject to change as we do.)
We take inspiration from both the “cold read” and the “critical response process” models. That said, here are some guidelines.
THE BIG PICTURE:
Actionable Feedback
The comments should give the author actionable information to help make the text better. Keep in mind the author’s intention and the overall aesthetic of the text. Helpful feedback often finds the “sweet spot” or Goldilocks point, neither being too hard nor too soft. Too hard can be discouraging; too soft is often less useful. It is good practice to refer to “the author” rather than “you” when giving comments; this abstraction helps limit the personal aspect (and emotions) associated with getting feedback.
Earning the Trust of Your Readers
To help keep your readers engaged in your text, you need their trust. Key to this is being aware of the representation of your characters. When characters (or events) echo as somehow real (even in a fantastical text), readers engage. When the representations feel hackneyed, there is a sizable risk of losing your readers. Or worse. This is especially the case with characters who have less power in society, namely women and other underrepresented populations. While an author should be free to write about anyone, thought of what the groups themselves would think of those representations — what you would think if you were them — is good to keep in mind; the results almost always pay off in reader engagement.
Violence and Cruelty
While we all want to move our readers’ hearts and minds, it is hard to unthink thoughts. As such, please give your readers a head’s up — a “trigger warning” — before having them read a text that shows violence or cruelty. This fit into the question of reader trust and engagement: if you throw in violence for shock value, you can easily lose the trust and engagement of readers. Best not to direct such violence or cruelty at a vulnerable population unless you vet the text well.
Keeping Readers Engaged
To keep your readers engaged and feel they are helping the author move forward with the work, please only share a text if it is somehow still a work-in-progress. If you are planning to keep working on an old text, that is fine; if you have no real plans to keep going with the text, your readers should be told of this before they put in the work of giving detailed feedback. Likewise, if you are sharing a longer text, it is only kind to do a few quick revisions — based on the last round of feedback — before you share the next section. Again, this helps readers to feel that their efforts are doing some good.
What to Do With the Feedback
Keeping in mind what this is all for — to make your writing better — questions to your readers should mostly be geared towards better understanding their take on it, not defending yours. This is not show and tell. If the feedback does not generally feel useful, perhaps take note of it and think about it later; some feedback may not be useful but some may take time to see. That said, no reader is perfect or they very well may not be a good fit for your writing. Ask yourself, “Was the feedback I received in this group useful for my edits or further writing of this text (or others)?” If not, seek out other readers. Any given feedback is biased and limited.
SOME MORE DETAILS IF YOU ARE NEW TO WORKSHOPPING WITH US:
(Note that these following guidelines largely repeat the guidance given above. They do break it down a little and are useful to read if you are new to workshopping. Even if you are not, if you are serious about committing the time to joining us, these expanded guidelines are a good foundation to that investment.)
People experienced in workshopping may think they’ve seen it all and hold to the holy grail of the cold critique but here are some guidelines to keep in mind …
Inasmuch as a text should speak for itself, if you think it would be helpful to contextualize your text within a tradition, a brief introduction of a minute or so is okay. We would rather know if it is memoir or fiction, meta or not. Workshop is a process of returning one favour for another — we read yours; you read ours — so we want to keep the feedback within the bounds of the helpful.
If there is some level of general confusion about the text, allow either the writer or a reader to instigate a “time-out.” Better to invite the author for a moment than spin our wheel when we have a question. We try to save questions till the end but better to break a rule than break our heads.
As Orwell suggested in his Politics and the English Language, “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
GENERAL FORMAT
Writers are asked to be (mostly) a fly on the wall to a discussion of the work while the group discusses the text as though the writer were not in the room.
The upside of this is that the writer can hear what readers think.
The downside is that readers may not be sure of why the writer made certain choices.
If readers are left scratching their heads, it may make most sense to simply ask the writer some basic questions about the work. The writer might also (rarely) interrupt if the discussion seems to be at a loss for the purpose or general tradition a work is trying to fit into. This is not an opportunity for argumentation (or plot summaries), just a quick check-in for clarification.
Once everyone’s had a chance to comment — but before the discussion seems exhausted — we invite the writer to join in for further discussion.
The writer can then ask or answer questions (etc.) to better understand reader responses, perhaps framing responses in terms of questions for the readers.
GIVING FEEDBACK:
Feedback should be geared towards saying what you went through as a reader, keeping in mind what the writer is trying to do. Their goals and models may not be yours.
Ask yourself, is this the time to get on my hobby horse and say what it needs?
Are your suggestions in the spirit of the work?
Are you proposing a tweak or a reworking?
If you think the work needs substantial revision — a reworking — ask yourself if you have misjudged the aim of the work. Sometimes a work simply needs to start on its second paragraph or page (or chapter). As writers, we are prone to some throat clearing. This is one of the more common and more helpful large-scale improvements that can be found through workshopping.
When giving feedback BE SPECIFIC! The best feedback is grounded in the text.
Vague feedback is best couched in “I statements” (e.g., “I was confused here.”)
To help the writer, home in on exactly what passage is causing your feeling.
Give actionable information — as a critic, please “show don’t tell.”
When giving feedback ASSUME THE BEST!
Critical feedback is best framed as a question for exploration. Maybe something is not so much offensive as clichéd or lazy.
If something seems offensive, ask what the intentions might have been. Did the writer not realize it? Flagging something is useful. Name calling is not (i.e., rather than saying this is sexist/misogynist/racist/homophobic (etc.) maybe ask what the author is trying to do here; maybe they are trying to challenge the reader’s unconscious prejudices. Maybe the passage needs work. Jumping to conclusions is best left to the internet.)
Ask yourself if the writer is introducing a useful way to highlight our unconscious biases; remember that labelling can be useful but it can also shut down discussion.
GETTING FEEDBACK
The workshop is a way for writers to get some live polling on their work — what came through, what didn’t, what hit, what missed. The idea here is that the writer is a fly on the wall, listening to feedback as though eavesdropping on a book club geared towards how the text creates its effects.
After getting feedback, please, don’t spend your time telling us about the work, what we missed or got wrong. Your text has spoken. If one or several readers didn’t understand something, maybe that’s something to think about during your next draft.
As such, your time is well spent asking your readers some questions.
If you think you might be defensive, try taking notes so you can read the thoughts later.
If the author has a quick question on a certain line of discussion, a quick interruption is okay. Waiting till the end can mean lost opportunities for probing the audience. What we want to keep in mind is that the author should be doing this with the aim of learning more from the readers — not telling the readers what to think. If this can be managed well, we’re good.
To be sure that we're a good fit, we will have a periodic, rolling review process. If a member seems not to hold or carry themselves with respect to the above guidelines, we will ask them to leave. We are reasonable people and will give such members a "learning chance" but only so many times.
Be human and be kind. We want to cheer each other on but also build each other up. ◊◊◊