It has been three years since I joined the critique group that my fellow Kernelists and I attend biweekly. Since then, I’ve also participated in workshops through The Kenyon Review, Tin House, and SmokeLong Quarterly. It’s no secret that I am a proponent of writing workshops, and there are lots of reasons why other writers should explore them too: they make your stories better, they make the work of writing less lonely, it is good literary citizenship to engage with your peers, and it is plain old fun. I will be the first to admit that there are bad workshops out there (I have, unfortunately, participated in those as well), but when you find the right group of people—dedicated to their craft and generous with their thoughts—the rate at which your own writing evolves is exponential. I can attest to that in both my own work and in the work of my peers. And those bad workshops I mentioned? They are always the result of bad workshoppers.
While you can’t control other people’s actions, you can ensure that you are a good workshopper and, with a little luck, attract other good critique partners. Here is the advice I would give a first-time workshopper on critiquing another’s piece. Feel free to include your own thoughts in the comments.
Make no assumptions
Every mind is unique, and that means you bring a distinct perspective to each situation you encounter, writing-related or otherwise. It also means that you cannot know everything, and you certainly can’t fully know another writer’s objectives. There will be times when you are reading someone’s work when you will not understand why an author made a particular choice. Rather than disparage that passage, try to understand what the work is accomplishing or trying to accomplish. If you cannot see any purpose, ask the writer. You would be surprised how often there is a compelling reason and how often asking for that reason will lead to a comment like, “that isn’t coming through,” which will lead to the breakthrough the writer needed to make their story great.
Tell them what you like
I would wager that most people associate a negative connotation with the word “critique.” But in truth, a critique is neither intended to be negative nor positive. A critique is an analysis. Rather than solely focusing on what you believe a writer needs to “fix” in their work, also incorporate analysis of what is working. Writers are people, and notoriously self-conscious ones at that. It is entirely possible that a writing partner has no clue what they are doing right in their story. Noting what is working—solid pacing, exceptional description, great characterization, the things that surprise you in good ways, the language that wows you—is also a way to provide direction. We can’t lean into our strengths if we don’t know what they are.
Focus on problems, not tastes
You will also have to tell a writer what is not working in their piece, but you want to make sure that the things you address are problems, and not simply things you dislike. In one of those aforementioned bad workshops, I had a participant list all the reasons she felt my piece was not literary enough. In that same workshop on a different day, another participant admonished me for writing domestic drama. To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with writing genre or commercial fiction. I urge you to not waste anyone’s time with your tastes. Focus on craft and whether a story is meeting its own objectives.
Respect boundaries
It can be tempting to include every comment that crosses your mind when you are adding notes to someone else’s work, but that is not usually helpful to the writer. If you are in a workshop where the writer includes an author’s note, first, be sure to read it in its entirety and ask any necessary clarification questions. Second, respect the author’s boundaries. If someone says, for example, “I do not want line level editing,” refrain from commenting on the syntax, word choice, etcetera. Similarly, if the author indicates they have finished their structural and developmental edits, do not offer major rewrite suggestions. You are not doing someone a service or giving them something extra by disregarding their instructions. Rather, you are undermining their authority as the master of their own story.
My kernel of advice: Critique others with the same care and respect you would like to receive.
Inspiration, Information, & Insight
In attempting to revise a short story to have a second-person point-of-view, Sarah reread George Saunders’s “Love Letter” and Rachel Cusk’s Second Place, which both use this perspective in masterful ways. Then she did a deep-dive into Cusk’s oeuvre, trying to pin down how Cusk challenges the conventions of character and plot, reading: this interview, this essay, and this profile, as well as the famous “hatchet job” of her memoir, Aftermath, just to name a few.
Natalia finished George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain and loved the way he breaks down great Russian short stories. However, she was often struck by how different her writing process is to Saunders’s and it was causing her to question her ways. She also finished Second Place by Rachel Cusk and has been peppering Sarah with questions in order to understand the perspective choices Cusk makes in her writing, more present in the Outline trilogy. Natalia was struck by the reality a writer faces in trying to be objective or at least in having the reader perceive the story or the reality presented in the novel as objective. Also, Cusk’s ability to question character as a literary element, as Natalia understands it, has to do with this: how much does a writer or reader need to have in common or shared with the character in order for there to be empathy or understanding or, arguably, validity in the human experience?
Shelby has been taking notice of the synchronicities in her life lately—from small things, like unexpectedly finding the perfect checkered bookends a day after noting she’ll need some for a funky bookshelf she intends to order, to larger things, like potential opportunities (she’ll keep to herself). And while it feels good for her to believe her energies are aligning with the universe or that she manifested these moments, she knows it might just be a combination of proportionality bias, confirmation bias, and frequency bias, a smart conjecture made by Amanda Montell in her forthcoming book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality.
Neidy finished Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell, but she is still working on a few other books she's previously mentioned. She started reading Woodrell's book for its distinctive voice, but stayed for the dramatic shift in pacing that happens halfway through. As is her monthly goal for 2024, she wrote a complete short story draft during January, and she is excitedly plotting out her February story.