āBut let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, donāt know how to workshop.
āAnd one of the things theyāll try to do is theyāll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.
āAnd that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.
āNew workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, theyāre really good at doing a bad thing, and theyāre doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story.ā
āBrandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy
And this is why many writers (including me) donāt ask for concrit on their publishedĀ stories - theyāve told the story they want to tell.Ā
If thatās not the story you want to read,Ā you are welcome to write your own version. š
He goes on to say that to give good feedback, tell them how the writing made you feel. Donāt say, āinstead of that you should do this.ā Tell them, āthis part confused me.ā Or, āmy attention drifted during this scene.ā Your job isnāt to tell them how to fix it or even that it needs fixed. Your job is let them know what impact their story had on you, the reader. Then they can determine if itās accomplishing what they want it to and if not, they know which parts need attention.
It isnāt just young writers who do this! Until last fall, this is what I did because this is what my teachers taught me to do. And I hated writing workshops. I kept going to them because I needed to learn how to be a better writer, butā¦did I actually learn? Mostly what happened was that my work got picked apart and I became depressed and left the story behind because I no longer thought it was any good. My teachers were operating with the best intentions in the world too, but with their help, I ended up with the worldās worst case of writerās block and a chronic lack of belief in myself.
Then, last fall, my very last semester of college, I took a class with a professor who told us that we were not going to use the classic workshop format. Instead of writing down everything that we thought our classmates should do, we were assigned to ask them questions. And as writers, we were assigned not to sit passively while feedback was fired at us, but to ask questions, to explain what we had been going for and ask if it worked, and if not to brainstorm together how we might make it work.
It was miraculous. Instead of shutting my mind down, this workshop process blew it wide open. Instead of going home after class dispirited, never wanting to touch my story again, I went home inspired, with a hundred new ideas.
So I am a big advocate for this methodāand I think it is important to underscore that it isnāt just students who need to be taught it. Writing teachers need to learn it too.
This is so important! And itās also the reason 90% of āconcritā sucks ass. I have been ignoring āconcritā cheerfully ever since 2003 when people were actually awkward enough to say things like āIād like this story so much if there werenāt any slash (or het) in it!ā
Telling people to write what you want to read isnāt concrit. Itās begging.
Speaking from a past life in journalism, that also counts for changes of style. Maybe you wrote a sentence and used the words you wanted, but an untrained editor might try to change that the words they would use instead; to say the same thing but not in your style - or, as we say it, ācalling six half a dozen.ā Only suggest change of style if the sentence gramatically doesnāt make sense, as itās often the case with non-native speakers (like me, but Iām blessed with the best friends and betas!)
