The Worth of Workshopping..
Posted by Stephen on
October 26, 2006
I mentioned a little while ago that I went back to school to learn Mandarin, and to take my writing up a notch by enrolling in a Magazine Article Writing Class. The Mandarin course is going so so, but I think I’ll at least be able to talk like a Preschooler.
The Magazine Writing course has been quite a surprise. Led by a talented writer by the name of Brian Payton, the class flows easily like his prose. I’m finding that the course is really pushing me to adjust my writing and the way I look at articles. It’s quite different from the blogging that I do and from the articles that I write for Futurelooks. I’ve always wanted to open up the writing I do, to include a wider audience. I think this course is getting me off to the right start.
One of the activities that we do in the class is called Workshopping. Essentially, we read eachother’s work, and tear it apart after, to make it better. I personally, had never done workshopping till this point. I know this is something that my writing needed because I tend to be a horrible Editor of my own work. Since I am the Editor, who do I pass it to?
This week, we had our first workshopping session, and there was some surprising, but not unexpected behaviours during the session. For one thing, what I noticed is that everyone was afraid of offending eachother. We would all start off with phrases like “I liked it” or end with “It was Great”. I felt the critiquing was a held back. I guess we all wanted to push gently for our first couple sessions.
While critiquing an article for one of the participants, we somehow got away from addressing the group, we started to address the writer. The writer got really upset, started to defend his work, and really was not into any of the comments or suggestions. I think I got the worst of it because when I commented on taking down the intensity and angle of attack of his article, he got really angry. Brian quickly pointed our attentions back to addressing the class, and defused the situation somewhat.
The problem with his article was that he wrote like he spoke, and it was tiring to listen to this level of intensity without a bit of contrast. It was very “David Chalk” like, but even Chalk knew that he had to have peaks and valleys througout his keynotes, though when he ramped up the intensity, you could feel the rage. The story didn’t have a good balance between the contrast that he was trying to portray. It was so intense in the first half, that the last half in the counterpoint or contrast was lost and kinda fizzled in comparison to the first half.
As his article got commented on, he just closed up in the back of the room. If you’re going to put your work out there, you are going to get feedback, good or bad. If you can’t handle getting your work picked on, poked, and prodded, then getting it workshopped is clearly not something you’ll be able to handle. As we went to workshopping the work of others, he really didn’t have much to say anymore. If you want to write better, you’re going to have to take in the experience. Instead, he punched out.
The worth of workshopping is based on the quality of feedback and what you get out of it. If you bottle yourself up in the back of the room and consider every comment a personal attack, then the session becomes worthless. This is a course about publishing your work and writing for others, and writing for others means listening to others. No one is asking you to agree, but you do have to listen as this is the audience that listens to you.
Interesting post. This sounds a lot like the design crits we did in school.
At the time a lot of folks found it hard to have such intense and particular criticism heaved at their work, but eventually, the folks who could take it, were able to separate themselves from their work, and realize that the criticism could be dismissed or, better yet, acted on, ended up becoming better designers.
Those who insulated themselves against what other people had to say might still have been talented but pigeon-holed themselves into styles or approaches that were familiar or within their known abilities.
Sadly, that kind of approach never affords the opportunity to prove to yourself what you alone are really capable of.
Thanks for the comments!
The problem I saw with what happened, was that this course was built around getting you to the point where your articles and you were ready to be submitted for consideration in publications. Clearly, if you are not writing for your audience, then you might as well quit the course.
Just because you think your article is great, does not mean that your editor, or your public will. You have to be able to sell your article at the end, and if no one buys it, you only have yourself to blame. The public is not as supportive or forgiving as your fellow workshoppers. This behaviour is definitely not appropriate for such a venue. I expect my work to get torn apart. Heck, I get torn apart all the time on my blog, or whatever I write that makes it online. I welcome this because each time I get the feedback, i learn to do something better. If people say nothing, I just keep doing what I’m doing, which may suck really badly. I’d never know. Like you said, I can dismiss or act on what is said to do much better. It is still up to me.
I can definitely see your point about your best work being inside you, and sometimes that is not nurtured by seeking the wisdom of others.