Official Sherwood Smith Site: Young Adults

Especially For Young Adult Writers and Readers

Suggestions to Young Writers:
Part 4:
Workshops and Critique Groups...

IV. Workshops and Critique Groups...

Let's look at the easy ones first.

Established Workshops

Free online workshops: (there are many of these, but here are a couple I recommend)

For young writers wanting to write science fiction as well as fantasy, writer Jeffrey Carver has a good workshop here.

For young writers over sixteen, there is always Critters Workshop. This is the best-run free workshop online, with lots of good suggestions about critiquing and other aspects of writing. The thing is, though, there are over a thousand members, so of course Andrew Burt, the "Critter Captain" cannot know each one. As a rule of thumb, though, I suggest that teens set up a hotmail or Yahoo account, and always use an online name. And never, under any circumstances, give out any home information. No one needs to know your phone number, address, or anything else. It is your writing that is under discussion, not you!

Orson Scott Card's Hatrack River also has an adult workshop. Card has some excellent ideas about how to switch around groups before they become too accustomed to one another's quirks, and his group tries to avoid many other pitfalls.

Fee-Charging Professional Workshops located in a specific place:

for novel writing, you just can't do better than to attend Viable Paradise.

for short story writing, your best bet is Clarion West.

For a fee-charging on-line group, the Online Writers Workshop is excellent--a bunch of current professional writers got their start there, and they still participate. I wish I could afford to join it myself.

An added benefit of both of these workshops is that they support a dedicated "graduate community" with on-line and e-list discussions, and newsgroups.

Joining an Established but non-Professional Workshop:

Let's say there's a workshop at school, or the local B&N, or the library, that you've heard of. You are invited to join, or it's open to new people. I strongly encourage first timers to attend a couple of sessions before joining a workshop, and see if it's really for them. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, I hear as many stories about bad workshops as I hear about good. Or I hear about what a young writer thinks is a "good" workshop that is cheerfully and innocently reinforcing bad habits.

Workshops are like any other human relationship. Everyone attends hoping that the others will love their work, and their emotions can get in the way of giving and receiving critiques. That's just human nature. The best workshops either have a moderator or have a group so well balanced that they can proceed without a moderator, everyone obeying the rules. And you need rules. A good moderator will try to be even-handed, seeing that everyone who is prepared gets a turn, and that critique etiquette is observed. A good moderator will look past human tendencies to cluster around natural leaders or forceful personalities and will break up incipient cliques during the critique sessions. A good moderator will not let the plainest person in the group suddenly become a scapegoat for the popular ones' humor or sarcasm.

Yes, this happens a lot. Orson Scott Card calls it the "Golden Boy or Girl and the Goat." That means there's probably in any given group large enough one person, usually good-looking, poised, or verbally very quick, to whom others begin to defer. That's the Golden Boy or Golden Girl. When this happens, almost always there is also a Goat--the least popular person--because humans tend to establish hierarchies. If there is a leader, there is usually someone at the other end of leadership. The Golden One gets lots of praise for their work, even if it isn't necessarily deserved, because human beings tend to want to win social points in any group where there is a perceived pecking order, and the Goat can't do anything right, because humans will try to make themselves higher on the totem pole by picking on the one they see as lower. On-line groups often avoid this syndrome because the usual visual social cues are missing. But it can happen, someone becoming a Golden One because they are good with wit and sarcasm. They become leader through their skill with on-line communication, even if their stories aren't the best in the group.

If you perceive any sign of Golden One/Goat behavior, it's best to get out of that toxic situation--even if you might be the Golden One! You won't get real critiques, and editors are not going to see that you are a Golden One when wading through their submission piles. And likewise, if you find yourself regarded as a Goat in a group, it's usually not your writing at fault. It's social gamesmanship, and it's toxic. Quit. Don't look back, and don't waste a second thought on "what they think." They're not thinking like professionals or that situation wouldn't happen, so they are the losers. They might very well say "Ha, ha, got rid of that dweeb!" but guess what. The very next session they will be looking at each other to figure out who is the next Goat. And you are moving on in your life.

Critique Etiquette

Let's say you have a good stable group, and you like what you're hearing. They will tell you the rules, which might include these general suggestions:

Begin your critique with what you liked about the story.
When you come to the problems, phrase it so that the Focus stays on the work, not on your emotions. In other words, don't say "I didn't like the part about the dragon meeting the thief." Even worse is "The dragon and thief scene was really badly written." Instead, say, "The dragon and thief scene didn't quite work for me," and tell the person why. You are discussing what you found in the text, not the author's intentions, motivations, or emotions. The author is able to see how you reacted to the text, which can help them see past their own view of the story. .

This is really important, resist the impulse to tell the writer how to rewrite their story. If you want to illustrate a point to make sure you're clear, that's one thing. But telling the writer to insert a car crash or a treasure hunt to beef up the story, or lecturing the author how to change or present their character is hijacking their story, not helping them in any way. If a writer asks to brainstorm on plotting, or throws open a discussion on tricks for making characters distinct, that's the time to offer your ideas on how to better the story, but phrase them as suggestions, not as instructions.

If you have a problem with some aspect of the story that you know is personal, be up front about it first, so the author is able to filter your words. Here's a surefire turn off, saying, "This isn't bad for a dragon story," implying with your tone of voice that dragon stories are stinkeroos by nature. Better something like: "I have to admit up front that I'm not really into dragons--my reading tends to be in science fiction. So take my reactions to the text with that in mind." Then you offer your critique, and the author can see your comments within the context of your tastes. Nobody is told their taste is better or worse than anyone else's--the focus stays on the story itself, and not on the people in the room.
That's really important. Never criticize the writer, only the text at hand. Let's say the writer is really into elves, and you loathe elf stories. Or the writer somewhat obviously has a particular political hot button he or she just has to write about in every story, one you find utterly repellent and you disagree strongly. Like before, it's okay to say, "I am going to admit that this particular hot button has me rooting for the other side, so keep that in mind," or "I haven't read many elf stories, as those aren't where my reading interests lie, so . . ." (etc) It's not okay to say, "Can't you grow up and stop writing about elves?" or "Anyone who believes in [insert hot button here] is a total whackoid sicko." No one is going to be listening at that point, instead they will be arguing, because the issue is no longer that story on the table, it's become personal.
When it's your turn, stay silent until the end of each person's critique. This is actually a requirement at Clarion: the writer on the "Hot Seat" is not permitted to speak until everyone's had their turn. I think this is a tad draconian, because what if you didn't quite hear the person, and got confused? Therefore it seems reasonable to me to add to this rule. Only ask for clarification when you didn't hear or didn't understand something the critiquer said. Resist, always, the human impulse to argue, to justify, to explain--unless the people ask you to explain what you were trying to work toward with this character or that scene. Remember, that is what they read in the text. You cannot go to the home of every reader and stand at their shoulder and explain every scene or sentence, to make sure the reader knows what you really meant, or how you felt when you wrote it.
Always come prepared. That is, for a group that sends out stories beforehand so you can use your time getting right to the critiques instead of reading them aloud, do the others the courtesy of reading their material. That way you are more justified in expecting them to have read yours.

When to Move On?

This is a real tough one. Let's say you've found a group that you just love. Everyone is supportive, eager, loves your work and you love theirs. Especially if you are a beginner, this might make you feel wonderful after every session, but are you learning?

True story

I was involved with a small press fantasy magazine almost twenty years ago. Well, we got a submission from a writer in City X. The story was lively in pace, and showed some talent, but it was riddled with grammar mistakes and repeated tropes and phrases, and the resolution was one we'd seen over and over again in forgettable stories. We made some suggestions for rewriting and returned the story; a week later we got another submission from City X, but from a different name. The story, again, had some interesting elements--but it was riddled with grammar mistakes (mostly the same ones as the first story) and it, too, had those same overused tropes and phrases. Again we wrote back with suggestions. Well, two more came, both from City X--and when we saw those same problems, we thought the same writer was bombarding us with these stories, and we wrote back saying that sending a whole lot of stuff and changing the name wasn't quite a professional approach.

Well, we got a very hurt letter back from the last writer (to whom we'd sent that letter) explaining that they really were four separate people, and not the same person, and they all wrote very different stories and if we'd read more closely we could have seen that Writer A writes about dragons, Writer B only writes about vampires, Writer C writes about elves, and Writer D only writes about the Sidhe. And what's more, they belonged to a Writer's Circle that they'd formed in high school, and they critiqued each other before they sent out, and they thought we were wonderful, at first, because we were the very first market to write back why we were rejecting the stories--they'd never gotten feedback before, though they each sent out twenty or thirty stories a year, and had been writing diligently for six years.

The thing is, we as writers need feedback, if our stories are not just written for our own pleasure. We also want encouragement, because writing is hard work, a lonely business, and the long waits to hear, the tiny advances, and after you sell, the mean reviews from careless reviewers can be discouraging. This is why the best workshop is one where one not only hears the good things, and where the members actively support one another and sympathize, but where one can hear what didn't work for other readers so one can learn how to better it.

So if a workshop begins to feel too comfortable, and one is coming away with a stroked ego but no real criticism, then it might be time to look for a workshop that can help you reach the next skill level--or to invite in new people who have new viewpoints and skills to offer.

Organizing your own On-Line Workshops

Let's say you find a bunch of friends on-line who like the same books you do, and like writing the same sorts of stories. Again, all the rules above apply: try to find people to join who might write outside your interests, who are better writers, who can articulate problems and suggest new approaches. That way your skills improve. Always come to the sessions prepared, try to stay away from personality conflicts, and keep the focus on the story.

One good thing to remember is that people's motivations for coming to a workshop can vary as much as the individuals in it. I belonged to one many, many years ago in which some of the fellows ("Dill" and "Tim") came specifically to harass the girls for dates, and a couple of the girls came specifically to get praise and not criticism, because of course they were far better than anyone else. (I should mention everyone was awfully young.) Anyway, I belonged for a time and then went traveling, so a friend obligingly wrote up one of the sessions after "Dill" and "Tim" were told that they could not come any more unless they actually wrote something, and here is a quote from it, with all the names changed, but no other details: The workshop from Heck.

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