On Workshopping Part 1: Getting Started
This is the first installment of my thoughts on workshopping. I’ve had a bit of practice with the matter, over a broad range of experiences, and I hope to impart a few of the things I’ve learned to you. In this series I’ll go over everything from workshopping rules to how to deal with annoying group members, to putting a group together in the first place. If anyone has any questions about writing groups, I’m always willing to give advice. You can contact me at brian at e-mcclellan dot com.
The idea of workshopping is a pretty simple one. If you’ve given your writing to friends or family, or enemies with a weak heart, and asked any of them to tell you what they thought of the work, then you have workshopped. Pretty much anyone who is an aspiring writer has workshopped at some point.
The most common method of workshopping is giving it to your mom/sister/girlfriend. This doesn’t count. She will tell you that anything short of jabber on a piece of paper is “really, really good.” The second most common is your dad/brother/boyfriend. He’s a bit easier to trust, because men don’t have that problem of being nice all the time. So they’re a lot more honest when it comes to this sort of thing.
But handing out your work to random friends and family is really quite unreliable. First off, relativse are suspect in anything they say. They probably want to maintain a decent relationship and avoid offending you. Second, regular people have set schedules and horribly busy days because they aren’t trying to write the great American novel and watch every episode of every TV show ever made. And eventually, even the most patient friend or relative is going to start avoiding you and your rabid writer’s anxiety.
That’s why we put together writing groups. A writing group is a bunch of people you can meet with on a regular basis who will all read and critique each other’s work. Basically, it is a place to workshop.
Here are a few tips for starting a writing group:
1) Find writers with similar interests. The ideal is to work with people who write what you do, (ie, mystery short stories, fantasy novels, science fiction poetry, etc). Of course, the ideal is not always reality, so work with whoever you can find. Generally, people writing genre fiction work well with other people writing genre fiction. Finding writers in the first place can be hard, but the online community is excellent for this. Either Google “writing groups” or go to places like TimeWastersGuide and surf the posts. I wouldn’t suggest simply sticking to an internet writing group, so I’m not really going to talk about those. The web can be fantastic for communication, but there’s nothing like sitting down with fellow writers to really explore your problems and depth. Although I’ve been in groups as small as three people and as large as 20 (only in an organized, educational environment, mind you ), I like to work with a writing group of between 4 and 6 people. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether you’d like to take less time per person and get more critiques, or more time and less critiques.
2) Once you’ve found a group of writers, establish a day and time you can meet. Sometimes your local library will allow you a room to meet in for 2 or 3 hours every Tuesday night, or you can use someone’s house or apartment, or even just the local Burger King. Being consistent is really important, as well as making sure that everyone is contributing to the group with their own writing and critiques all the way around. Often involving a rotating food schedule, or even just snacks, will get people to come every time.
3) Create a set of rules and etiquette for your writing group, and stick by them. My next installment will be on rules. Rules are very, very important to a writing group.
4) Get going.
