On Workshopping: a response

A friend of mine recently expressed some chagrin with the process of workshopping, and I wanted to add in my two cents.

I understand the frustration many people feel with workshops, and I think that people often give advice that isn't worth following or that doesn't take your work where you wanted it to go. I've been in a lot of workshops in a lot of different places (from an undergraduate classroom to a writing collective to the graduate program at UB), and every time I start a new workshop, I ask myself if it's worth the frustration. And again and again, I find that it is.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a writer (one who is published, and quite successful) is to find a group of writers/friends you trust to read your work and give you feedback. This writer then turned around and said "but don't listen to them." He gave an example of a story he wrote that everyone told him was garbage. He put it away for 20 years. Then by chance he took it back out and realized it was actually pretty good, and he got it published.

The problem with a workshop class is that you don't necessarily "trust" the writers in the room. Maybe they have less experience writing than you, or maybe you come from such different writing styles or backgrounds that it's hard to cross that gap.

But what's good about any workshop is that you've got a room full of readers telling you how they reacted to your work. And it's important to think of them as readers. The fact that they write helps them more easily articulate their feelings, but it's their role as readers that matters. It's like a focus group to find out how your words are perceived, if what you meant is getting across. What they say is worth listening to, even if you don't take their advice. It will help you look at your poem in a different way and get some of the distance you need to revise. And I honestly mean that. I'm always really enamored of my poems when I start, but then during workshop I get a chance to look at it with a critical (not judgmental; there's a big difference) eye and, with my readers, reconsider if I've said what I want to say, if my work is effective, etc.

The best example I can give is a poem about lightning I recently had workshopped. When I brought it in, I was feeling really good about it. I felt like I had gotten my somewhat bittersweet, somewhat sinister point across. I knew people were going to pick up on the feeling of stasis, on the fear of getting involved with the world instead of just watching from a window. But they didn't. A lot of people thought the poem was childlike. They wanted me to tighten here and expand there. They liked this image or phrase, but they didn't get (or even hated) that image or phrase. Some got a vague sense of foreboding because lightning+umbrellas=bad. Some just didn't get it at all.

I didn't agree with everything everyone said, and I'm still in the process of revision. I'm not going to change everything everyone pointed out. As a matter of fact, unless I agree with someone's change, I won't make it. I may tweak the entire poem. I may cut and add and copy and paste and take something out only to put it back in, but I'll make my own changes.

But just hearing everyone talk about it showed me that I still had work to do. And I'd much rather have them say, "well, I think this stanza needs some stronger images" or "i think your pacing is off here" or "the way you've phrased this is confusing, and i'm not sure what you mean," than "i like it" or "it's okay" or "maybe you could make it funnier?". Because vagaries mean nothing. They don't show me where the reader got really pulled in or totally lost. I'll have no idea which image really spoke to the reader or which word I misused. And even if I don't agree when you tell me that you would really like to see me change "scrumptrulescent" to "fabulous," you may cause a small spark in my brain that leads me to "ambrosial." Or you may point out something I never even saw (like that my use of "heave" has a potential double meaning that's worth exploring).

And so I'll go back and work on my poem some more until it's moved from first draft to something worth sharing with an audience, something that will move them or make them think. Because what's the point of putting my work out there if what I want to say doesn't get across?

The point of a workshop is not self-validation. It's not about getting everyone to love your work. That's just never going to happen. It's about beta-testing your work. Unless you don't ever plan to read your work aloud or have it published or generally put it out in the world in some form or fashion, it's probably good to see what your audience will think


I think that sometimes people get discouraged in workshops, or think that the only way to get positive comments on their work is to tailor their writing for the class, so they turn their writing into a parody of the group's aesthetic preferences. That's the wrong way to go about it. Every week I will write for me, what I want to write. I have to trust myself and my artistic vision or I'll be paralyzed into never writing anything, into needing the approval of someone else just to put pen to paper. And I'm not always going to have people around to give me honest feedback. But I'll take it when I can get it, because I want to improve my writing. Because in the end, I'm not just writing for myself. I'd really like to have an audience, and I don't want to lose them after just one stanza.