The Writing Group

The fiction that artistic labor happens in isolation, and that artistic accomplishment is exclusively the provenance of individual talents, is politically charged and, in my case at least, repudiated by the facts. While the primary labor on "Angels" has been mine, more than two dozen people have contributed words, ideas and structures to these plays. -Tony Kushner

The Need for Feedback
How To Create Trust
Setting Guidelines for Discussion: A Practice Approach
Learning To Give Useful Responses
A Workshop Checklist
Creating Your Own Workshop Group
Try It

I have just received a joyous e-mail from my friend Dan, telling me he has placed his latest manuscript with a university press he admires. It is an outpouring of both personal and group pride: my husband and I have been part of Dan's writing life for more than a decade, since the two of us met him in graduate school. That was fourteen years ago.

Our workshop originally comprised a group of six graduate students. I can't remember whose casual suggestion it was that we begin meeting in a special room in a Charlottesville tavern that's always been something of a grad student hangout. The small room holds old Moet and Chandon champagne posters crammed on every wall, curvy Art Deco women holding bottles. Each piece we put up for discussion we distribute the week before, and talk about for twenty minutes to half an hour. The feedback is smart, bracing, encouraging. We find both value in everything and room for the writing to flower into something even finer. And, of course, there's always time for chat and catching up before and after the workshop part of our get-togethers. In addition to our workshop meetings, we soon celebrate each other's successes, throw each other parties, help each other search out publication venues.

Now, almost a decade and a half later, we have mail and e-mail. We still share our work, albeit less regularly and much more slowly. We still feel a kudo for one of us is a kudo for the group, as we have nurtured, edited and prodded each other for much of our writing careers. Between us we've gone from beginners at the art of literary writing to having published twelve books between us. And all of us know, as Dan's e-mail shows, we couldn't have done it alone.

-- Suzanne

The Need for Feedback

Tony Kushner, in the quote introducing this chapter, states the case strongly but not, we think, too strongly. Writers need feedback. The myth of writers as loners who follow their vision and remain true to their inner muse, bucking rather than embracing outside help, is very much a myth. It was created largely by the writers of the British Romantic period, whose artistic mythologies we still cling to, though those writers themselves used one another unceasingly as idea sources and sounding boards. Virtually all writers do. "I write," said Terry Tempest Williams, "in a solitude born out of community."

If it is hard for you to give up the idea that as a writer your only duty is to heed your interior voices, consider that the greatest artistic flowerings have always occurred during periods of collaboration, not isolation. Think of Michelangelo going as a fifteen-year-old boy to apprentice in the workshop of the great sculptor Donatello, working on a marble hand, a toe, learning from a master and building the skills he needed to sculpt his first great Pietá while still in his early twenties. Or think of the Romantic authors Byron and Shelley, reading their works aloud to each other by the banks of a lake in Geneva. The great prose authors the Brontë sisters did the same, sharing and critiquing one another's work over the supper table at their home in Haworth Parsonage.

The modern writing workshop is not a new innovation but a form of learning that can be traced back as long as literature and the arts have flourished. If you are using this book inside a classroom, use this chapter now as a tool to sharpen your approach to workshop critiquing. After graduation, come back to this chapter to find ways to create your own workshop group, one with members you trust, who can grow with you and your work. Even if this desire seems improbable now, trust us: if you keep writing, you will want caring and responsive readers.

If you are reading this book outside of a classroom setting, consider forming your own workshop group a project that may turn out to be the most productive gift you can give yourself as a writer. If you're fortunate enough to have a writing group already, consider our ideas a source of new ways of looking at each other's work with the goal of being as supportive, challenging, and useful as possible.

How To Create Trust

There's no two ways about it: it is difficult, sometimes painful, to expose personal writing to a group for responses. This is especially true in workshops, given that workshop responses are by their nature going to be a mix of support and suggestions for rethinking or revising your material. You psych yourself up for the process as best you can, but there are always moments that sting, in addition to moments that give you the exhilarating sense you've actually accomplished what you wanted to. Sometimes the parts of your piece you like best are the ones others feel aren't working; sometimes readers don't "get" what's important to you, and what you thought you had made clear.

If you're working with a group of people you know and trust, well and good. If there's an instructor moderating the discussion, good too. But at some point you will be a practicing writer, seeking out readers for your drafts, and you will need to learn to control the process of getting feedback.

Setting Guidelines for Discussion: A Practice Approach

In the following section on learning to give useful responses, we will provide very specific suggestions for shaping workshop discussion. You may use or adapt these as your group sees fit. For now, it is a good idea, in or out of the classroom, to have a preliminary talk with your peers about what does or does not work for you as a group in receiving feedback. You can and should discuss the entire process of workshopping, come up with a procedure, and devise your own workshop etiquette -- a collective sense of what is OK and not OK in talking about your writing. Logistical questions to discuss include how far in advance you will share your work, whether you will read pieces aloud at any point, and whether you want to include written comments or limit yourself to oral critique.

It is essential to find a method of discussion with which the group feels safe and comfortable; don't flounder around trying to shape your valuable writing without first defining what helps you. To guide this process, try this: find an essay, perhaps from a literary magazine, for practice. Read the piece and offer comments as you would in a workshop setting, and together monitor the discussion for responses that seem diminishing, unconstructive or unhelpful. You may want to ask the group to rule out feedback based on "I do like," "I don't like" formulas. These are by their very nature subjective comments, and hard to use in the revision process. All of you together can watch out for unhelpfully critical language -- "stinks," "sucks," "lame," "one cliché after another."

Of course we don't advocate only praise; those words probably do hold suggestions for revision that need to be made. What's important is that you work together as a group to find more constructive approaches. "This doesn't come up to the level of the rest of the essay," "I'm not seeing this scene yet," "the language here could be more original," might be suitable comments to replace the offending ones.

Even when you hear responses that feel appropriate, use this practice session to sharpen them. If someone says he or she can't quite get a feel for a character, question why that is and try to formulate the most specific response possible: "I can't quite see David because he's never described and never speaks until you find him crying in the kitchen." Try reformulating your feedback comments two and three times to make them as specific as possible. Practice together until you feel good about one another's feedback style, and the comments flowing from your discussion feel supportive, encouraging, and full of ideas to take back to your writing desk.

The Agenting Approach

One workshop strategy we have had great success with is the agenting approach. It is a role-play method. All the members of the writing group agree to function as one another's literary agents for the duration of the group.

Literary agents take on their author-clients because they believe in them. Agents feel certain they can sell their clients' essays and books: their income derives from sales of their authors' work, so their faith in their authors is concrete and tangible. At the same time, agents become valuable critics and editors; they must bring their clients' work to the publishing market in its finest possible form.

As literary agents, then, you believe absolutely in one another and in the value of the group members' writing, and the fact that it can be brought to a final, polished form worthy of publication. At the same time you have an interest in making the essay or book extract the best it can be. And so you will provide substantial encouragement and substantial feedback.

As an agent your comments are always couched in terms like, "I think this will really work once (the dialogue feels more authentic; Jack has a fuller character; we know where Luke ended up)." Like an agent, you will always begin your responses by citing what does work, and, where appropriate, providing ideas for transferring that success to less polished parts of the essay.

It can help, at least when beginning this approach, to write out comments in the form of letters -- the type of communication you'd likely get from a literary agent. These letters will begin with an affirmation of your faith in your "client," a summary of what works well in the piece, and a careful, detailed listing of what needs to be addressed before the piece is finally ready. These letters can be used to fuel discussion, and passed to the author at the end of a workshop session. A wonderful side benefit of the agenting approach can be, when you reach a phase in your group relationship where lots of revision has taken place (perhaps the end of a semester), you can decide to devote an hour or two to browsing at the periodical section of a bookstore or a library, finding suitable publication venues for one another's work.

Learning To Give Useful Responses

Sometimes it feels like nothing's harder than learning to make comments in workshop that actually help. To examine that process let's look at some writing and possible responses. Here's a paragraph from a student essay by JoyAnna Singer and a list of possible comments.

In December, I rented a cartop carrier for the white Rambler station wagon, strapped two tricycles on top and packed in clothes, toys, a few books, and the sterling silver. Bill sat in the house killing a fifth of Scotch while I loaded up 5-year-old Andy and 2-year-old Karen, threw in Herbie, the white miniature poodle, and headed for the Ohio border, leaving our blue MGB in the driveway. A friend had warned me that Michigan law could prohibit me from leaving the state with the children if Bill had time to get to a lawyer. Somehow, in the rush to get on the road, Karen's pink blanket was left behind. She sobbed inconsolably until exhaustion finally pulled her into sleep as night closed down around us. Heading south, I watched in the rear view mirror the year's first winter storm, roiling dark and mysterious, pushing -- or was it following -- close behind most of the way between Ohio and Arkansas. Two songs played over and over as we made our way across country: I can see clearly now, the rain is gone and I am woman, hear me roar. AAA maps and TripTiks laid out the entire trip, and with my five year old navigator, Andy, we only made one serious wrong turn the entire way.

I love this. It seems very real.

I have a hard time reading this -- I don't have kids and have never been married.

I love the way you use verbs all through this -- the child is "pulled" into sleep, the storm "pushing" or "following" you. It gives me a really strong sense of how out of control you are, how everything is acting on you. The storm does that too.

I hate "five year old navigator." It's sentimental.

I love the use of the songs -- they seem to express your situation -- seeing clearly and taking charge of your own life. I wonder if they could come back in this essay. Maybe other songs too could reflect your situation as you go on.

I love the use of details here -- the pink blanket, the TripTik, the Scotch. It's great. I wonder if the same kind of detail would help __________ (refers to another scene in the essay).

I can't believe you did all this instead of just cleaning his clock!

I wonder about the children here -- what they were feeling and saying, besides the blanket. I wonder if we could hear their voices.

Before we provide our commentary, go over these responses: which would you find helpful? Why? Your take on these questions will naturally be individual, and you may want to use this short piece and checklist as a jumping-off point for discussion among your group or your class before proceeding any further.

What We Like To Hear

OK, here's where we put our two cents in. Comment 1 would probably make the author feel good, but would have little effect, except perhaps a negative one, on revision, which is ultimately a disservice to the writer. It doesn't really help to know somebody "loved" something unless you know very specifically why that person did -- otherwise you run the very real risk of never doing the right thing again. "Seems real" is too vague and abstract a comment to mean anything.

Broad responses -- those that give some kind of a gloss on the whole piece -- are rarely useful, particularly if they are evaluative ("good" or "bad," "liked" or "disliked"). Remember that while it may seem welcome to tell an author you loved her writing, once your group picks up on your response style, the times you withhold that broad praise will feel to the author like bitter rejection. We writers always have our antennae out for that sort of "damning by faint praise." Make it clear you understand your job is not to put your stamp of approval on (or withhold it from) the piece.

Comment 1 is too subjective to be useful, and comment 2 is even more subjective -- and hurtful to boot. Announcing your lack of interest in/experience with a subject, be it parenthood or sports, damages the writer's esteem for no reason -- he isn't responsible for your personal history. If the writer assumes an informed audience, that may be a problem worth addressing: explain kindly and concretely why you feel shut out of the experience ("I wonder if you could tell me about how scary it was to think about not getting the kids") or focus on what you do know. Surely this responder has rushed out of the house at some point in her life, and can use that memory to read this. Comment 7 is also a personal, subjective response that has nothing to do with the essay. This type of response shouldn't be part of a workshop discussion, unless you can frame discussing JoyAnna's forbearance as a strategy she might use.

Let's look at several comments we find more helpful -- 3, 5 and 6. Three provides the author with a clear and useful way of understanding a writing move she may have made unconsciously -- those are indeed powerful and unusual verbs that underscore her situation. These types of comments help an author realize what she has done successfully, and why readers are responding favorably to a section of her essay. Comment 5 provides the same kind of service, and expands on it by giving a suggestion for using the motif of songs throughout the rest of the essay, framed in helpful language: "I wonder if you could" rather than a less welcome, directive comment such as "You have to" or You should."

Comment 6 also points out an element of the piece that works, and -- wonderfully -- adds a specific place in the essay where the author can make the same kind of successful move she made here, using detail to establish the scene and create the mood. As you go further into your writing career, you find that sort of specific, kind and encouraging comment is blessedly welcome -- and hard to come by. Six is another helpful comment, and nicely put. JoyAnna may decide that her essay should focus only on what she was feeling at such a traumatic time.

You, like JoyAnna, are the author; you need to make the final choices about your work. When you hear a comment from a reader you trust, however, even if you choose not to accept the suggestion, bells should go off about why it was made. In this case, JoyAnna might realize she needs to add a sentence about her state of mind to clarify why the point of view is so focused: "I was so frantic I barely noticed the kids crying in the back," or something like that. Comment 4, on the other hand, is poorly worded. "I hate" constructions are pointlessly negative, and simply declaring "it's sentimental" sets you up as the final authority on things literary, which members of a collective never are. We agree with the thought behind the comment, however. A better way to word it would be, "This feels a little sentimental to me. Can you think of something else?"

Do's and Don'ts

In summary, do avoid broad comments and responses that simply provide your evaluation, your stamp of approval: "I liked this," "I couldn't get into this." Use language that reflects your awareness that your opinion is simply your opinion, not the word of a literary judge speaking from on high, and try to use language that addresses the problem: "This feels sketchy to me," not "This is weak writing." Be as specific as you possibly can. Always include in your discussions a session, either at the beginning or the end, where you only talk about what works well in the piece. It's too easy for workshop conversations to become centered wholly on the negative.

A few more guidelines to consider: don't use pointlessly critical language. Don't be subjective or start talking about your own experience unless there's a specific reason to, such as an expert knowledge you can add to the work at hand ("I've worked at an Emergency Room and I don't think it would be painted bright pink," not "I've worked at an Emergency Room; isn't it weird?") When you give praise, see if you can add even more to your comment by suggesting another place where the same writing tactics can help the essay. Do provide revision suggestions freely, along with support and encouragement. The other side of the workshop coin from the pick-it-all-apart session is the lovefest, which ultimately disrespects the writer's ability to bring his work to a higher level, and does him no good.

Remember always that as you give to others in your group, you will get back. You have a deep commitment to their growth as writers and to the productive workings of the group as a whole, so always act accordingly. Also, we often learn the most about our own writing while listening carefully to critiques about someone else's work. What is true for that person struggling with a satisfying ending is probably true for you as well. Don't assume that the only time you learn anything is when your own piece is "up" for discussion.

A Workshop Checklist

This chapter contains two workshop checklists -- one is more based on gaining an intuitive understanding of the essay, and one's more comprehensive and oriented toward covering all the writing bases. The second one is given at the end of this chapter. The first we give you here. It's designed to elicit responses that are useful, comfortable, challenging and fair. Your workshop group may want to use this approach for a while, then move on to -- or alternate with -- the approach that has you cover all the elements of an essay, from imagery to content. Discuss this as a group, and try both until you figure out what works best for you.

Here is the more intuitive way to read an essay to be workshopped:

Jot down the scenes, descriptions, images that stick with you: the "Velcro" words and phrases. Put the essay down and make note of the first thing you remember about it. Generally these passages are the ones that not only are the best written, but the most key to what the essay is doing at a deep level.

Identify the emotional tones of the essay and its prose. You may sense the pleasure of a friend's visit, of a hike, the anxiety of sentences that all begin with "I think" or "I believe." Do you get the sense of over formality in a phrase like "I am perturbed as I begin my first day . . ." Do you wonder why the author calls her mother by the definite article, "the mother"? Does it feel somewhat chilly? In all cases, are these feelings ones the author intended to convey, or do they seem unintentional, and perhaps working against the movement of the essay?

Identify your curiosity. Make note of where specifically you want to know more: I want to know more about that distant definite-article mother, about that feeling of perturbation in the pit of the stomach, about the author's uncertainty, about the rest of the family, etc. What locations/characters would benefit from more description? What characters' voices do you want to hear? Where do you want to know more about the author's responses and feelings? These curiosities help locate places for expansion.

Creating Your Own Writing Group

The veteran publisher Stanley Colbert wrote, "Your journey to the best-seller list begins with a single reader." All of the people you come in contact with who share your interest in writing and literature are resources for forming a writing group. We have each been in a series of groups, composed of classmates, colleagues, and friends. Neither of us has a workshop that currently meets in a group setting, but we both have three or four regular readers who see what we write and provide feedback. And we give regular feedback to one another. Being a member of a writing faculty is a privilege, of course, in that potential readers surround you every day. There are plenty of people in the world, though, eager to share their writing and become part of a literary community. We'll explore various resources for finding the right people for you.

If you're reading this textbook in a class, you may feel that this "forming a writing group" discussion doesn't apply. But take a look at what's ahead of you. Are you graduating soon? About to start summer? Given that few practicing writers function well without some sort of feedback system in their lives, it might be time to take stock and begin thinking about continuing your workshop outside of the classroom. You have a rich resource around you now: you're probably surrounded by a dozen or more peers whose workshop skills you know. If you can identify two or three, or four or five, whose feedback style helps you and whose critiquing skills you're comfortable with, approach them and ask about continuing to meet and share work. Many workshop groups meet as little as once a month. That once a month feedback and encouragement can be just what you need to write productively for the remaining four weeks.

If you're not in a class, look around. Who are your friends or acquaintances who love to write? If you've never talked with them about forming a response group, try it. Most writers spend their lonely computer or typewriter time dreaming of an audience of enthusiastic readers -- chances are, you will be proposing something they'll regard as a dream come true. If you're shy about your writing and find it hard to think about sharing it with your cat, let alone a group, try this. Look at the questions in the intuitive list, given previously in this chapter. Now think of a piece of your writing and imagine answers to those questions. Chances are the thought of hearing a list of your Velcro scenes and images, the places you've made a reader curious, will actually seem pretty pleasant.

The fact is, when we worry about sharing our work we imagine ourselves handing an essay to someone and saying, "What do you think?" and standing, knees trembling, for the final judgment. Well, first of all, no one has the all-knowing literary judgment to do that (a contemporary of poet John Milton, author of the great Paradise Lost, wrote of him, "His fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff and his memory will always stink"). Second of all, delivery of verdicts is not what writing groups are for, and you should never let yours drift into that destructive habit. Remember, you can and should exert control about the feedback process, and talk about it as a group until you get it right.

Kate Trueblood, an author and teacher of writing, formed a group with three other writers she knew who seemed compatible. Though the group was friendly and supportive, the workshop did spend a few meetings having to fine-tune their discussion style. "At first it was a little jumbled and unfocused, and feelings were hurt," Kate remembers. The group communally generated a list of rules that's kept them going successfully for many years now: "We talk about what's successful first, then acknowledge amongst ourselves when we're moving to critique. We work from global issues to smaller issues. And each time we pass out a manuscript we designate what kind of feedback we want, and what stage the work is in."

If you don't know anyone interested enough or compatible enough to form a workshop group with you, you still have another excellent resource -- your local bookstore. It's a well-kept secret that many bookstores have active writing groups that meet regularly and often welcome new members. Our town has a writing group that meets once or twice a month at a local Barnes & Noble. New members join by making a phone call to the group's founder and coordinator, who makes sure they are serious and committed to the group's style before letting them in.

If you find your bookstore(s) does not have an existing workshop group, start one. Ask to speak to the store manager of a bookstore you like or, in a larger store, the community relations coordinator. These folks will generally help you, by posting signs and advertising in store newsletters and calendars, to find other folks in your community interested in sharing their writing. From the interviews we've done with bookstore personnel, the response will almost certainly be strong: there are a lot of writers seeking readers out there. From the bookstore's point of view, it's a way to lure literature lovers into their store on a regular basis. From your point of view, it's heaven: a group of peer reviewers, and a comfy place to meet.

Try It

Gather these ideas together and find yourself a group of compatible friends or writers, if you don't already have a classroom group, and agree to workshop one piece from each group member, one at a time. You can decide, if it helps you to get started, that if you feel incompatible one run-through is all you'll have. Chances are you'll be invigorated by the stream of new ideas you'll get, and will want to continue meeting.

Here are a few tips for making the group work: agree to distribute copies of writing to be workshopped (photocopies or laser-print, not handwritten, which makes it hard to read professionally) no less than forty-eight hours in advance of your meeting. Even with all the goodwill in the world, things come up, and with less than two days to prepare comments, members will come in scanning the essays as they go, a frustrating experience for reader and author.

Set an amount of time you will spend on each essay, with a five or ten minute degree of flexibility (twenty minutes to half an hour usually works), and have one of you agree to facilitate the discussion. Facilitating means making sure the conversation stays within, or lasts until, the assigned period. Facilitators can also throw out topics or questions as necessary (each piece under discussion can have a different facilitator). We remember one poorly run graduate workshop in which the instructor simply allowed the group to go on as little or as long as it liked, leading to discussions that ranged anywhere from five minutes to an hour. That's a frustrating, insulting experience for an author, so agree in advance to monitor your time and keep comments on track.

Here is the second of our workshop comment lists, the more technique-oriented and comprehensive one.

Content questions

What is the organizing force of the essay, and does it sustain the piece? If this essay has a clear narrative (a story to tell), is the story clear? If it is a lyric essay organized around images, do the images keep it going?

-- Are characters effectively presented and fully developed?

-- Is dialogue believable, important to the overall essay and used where it needs to be? Does it help shape character?

-- Are there places where exposition should be replaced by scene for greater reader involvement, or scene replaced by exposition for greater compression?

-- Is the point of view working well? Would it help to try another point of view, e.g., substitute first person for second?

-- If this is a meditation or essay of ideas, is there an ideology behind it? Is it presented clearly? Is it presented in a way that respects the reader, rather than becoming preachy or heavy-handed?

-- Are the images used fresh and interesting? Do they work together in a way that supports the essay?

-- Is the language fresh throughout, avoiding sentimentality and cliché?

Form

Does the form of the essay add to/enhance its content?

-- Is the organization effective? Look closely at elements such as collaging, the use of white space "jumps" between material, and whether the piece's organization is purely chronological, following the order in which events happened, or something else.

-- Does the piece begin and end in a way that feels satisfying? Note that "satisfying" does not necessarily mean providing closure, or full answers to any questions it might raise. Does the essay open in a way that makes you want to keep reading, and end in a way that provides some sort of aesthetic stopping point?

Diction

C. Does the language seem appropriate to the subject? Is it at times overly fussy or formal or overly slangy and flip?

-- Does the essay contain any archaic or outmoded language -- a trap we all fall into in literary writing -- that doesn't belong?

Are the sentence structures and rhythms appealing and effective?

We suggest you use these questions when you read, picking and choosing as seems appropriate, rather than marching through them one-by-one in the group. Facilitators can also keep this checklist handy, as a way of sparking conversation when it begins to lag.

***

Most of all, be excited about one another's work, and your own. Use your writing group as a place to generate writing as well as to critique it. Set aside time to create writing prompts together, or agree to try separately to tackle a difficult subject, providing each other support as you go along. Have writing time together with music that inspires you playing in the background. Meet at museums. Bring a piece of writing each week you've fallen in love with and share it, then talk about what it can teach you.

Remember that a group of writing friends once sat in the house during a thunderstorm and challenged each other to write a ghost or horror story, and then met again to share their efforts, one of which was Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein. It was a book that would never have been created any other way.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Denham Haines, Dawn, Susan Newcomer and Jacqueline Raphael, Writing Together: How To Transform Your Writing in a Writing Group

Malone, Eileen, The Complete Guide To Writing Groups, Conferences and Workshops