 Thank you for having me back. It's great to come back to this place and actually sort of lead a seminar. This, by the way, is the same seminar that I led in the summer, which was my graduation seminar. To graduate, you have to lead a seminar. You have to do a 15 minute reading. And there's this business about a thesis. But this is what I put together for my seminar in the summer. And I'm grateful to Bill for asking me to come and do it again. And in the summer, as now, we asked ourselves, why would it be important for us to have a seminar about workshopping? We all know how to workshop. That's not really the title of, this is really how to workshop better. I mean, we all know how to workshop. We're graduate students. We've done this this morning. How did workshop go this morning? Any tears at any freakouts? So there's no doubt we know how to workshop. We also know how to write. Yet here we are in an MFA program trying to hone our skills to write better. So the thinking behind having a seminar about workshopping is the same thing about all the seminars and workshops to do about writing. Writing is a process that works differently for everybody. And yet we can come together and talk about craft and hone our skills and actually become better writers and sort of examine our process and see what works and what works less well and how to make it all better. I think you can do the same thing for workshopping, which I also see as a process, not just a finite thing that you go to at 9.30 in the morning. It's a process. Just like writing, it has multiple stages that kind of happen in a cyclical way, where you sort of do one and then another. Then you jump back a couple of spots and then go forward. And it's continually happening. And I think that as writers who are engaged and becoming better at everything we do, it's important to really take a critical look at the workshop process and see how we can make it even better. That's why we're here. Thank you for coming. OK. The other part is like, I mean, there's a lot of things we can look at as writers. One of the things that I think is interesting about a workshop, especially in an MFA program and especially in a low residency MFA program, where we see each other twice a year. We come here for 10 days. We have chock-full days with readings and seminars and so on. The majority of those days are spent in workshop. We spend almost three hours a day in workshop. And it has become, especially for a low-res program, a very central part of getting an MFA. So I think it's just in everybody's interests to make sure you're doing it as effectively as possible. So I am going to examine the workshop. We are actually together going to examine the workshop as a process. And I'm going to just divide it into three phases, even though there's probably more. One is before the workshop. Second, we have during. And even though it never really ends, even at noon and even when we leave this island, what do we do after the workshop? How do we do each of these effectively so that we get as much out of the workshop as we want to and we're paying for? So let's start with before. So let's engage you guys, my wonderful-looking audience. Before we actually get here to the island and we go to our respective rooms at 9.30, what happens before that? What is the first thing? Before, yes? Submitting samples and reading samples. Submitting samples and reading samples. What happens before that? We're going all the way back to the beginning of time here. You decide what you're going to write. Excellent. You figure out exactly what you want to workshop. Please. Yes, that's on the do's and don'ts. What happens before that? Yeah, this? You live. You read a lot. Yes, of course. These are all things that we do as writers who experience the world. But with specific regard to the actual workshop, one of the first things that I think has to happen is deciding to do the workshop in the first place. It's not just a random thing. And when you say, as a writer, this is something I think is going to be important to my development as a writer, just taking this workshop, you have to be very deliberate about that. So it's almost like writing. One of my processes in writing is I always start with a very loose outline. But you start somewhere. You write something like, kind of like, why are you writing this piece almost, right? And I think that before we do anything to do with a workshop, we have to kind of answer in some way for ourselves, why are we doing this workshop in the first place? What are our goals? What are our ambitions? What do we want to get out of it? Decide what you want to get out of it, then you will be actually better able to do things to make that happen, right? It's less effective to go into it blindly, because I'm doing an MFA and we're doing workshops, right? OK, so question is, why? I like to ask this question of everything. Why? Why are we having the seminar? Why are you doing a workshop? Why would you want to workshop a piece? What are the benefits of workshopping? Get to see other people's reactions. OK, so you get real time reactions and feedback. Writing can be lonely work. We're there at the keyboard and it's just us and the screen and maybe a couple of people will read it. But a workshop is a fantastic opportunity to actually open up your work to a slightly wider audience and get some real time feedback. What else? Good, so I don't know if you can see behind here, but I'm going to use the entire board, so that's why I have to start over here. Get some directional assistance, maybe? Sometimes you have a map. Sometimes you have to stop and ask for directions. It's OK. Everybody does it. What else? Do perspective on your own writing. See what others are doing. Let's call it just perspective. Exactly. Yeah, what else is people writing? It's often the case where you don't know what you're writing. You've told the story, but you don't know what it's about. Yeah. And you suddenly find out what it's about. Yeah. It's almost like you get insight into the identity of the piece. Like, what does this mean? I may know what it means to me. What does it mean to somebody else? Yeah, it's very often a very different thing. Anything else? The workshop itself can be a motivation to write. Motivation. Part of the motivation is that you have a deadline. You've got to get it in. Yeah, deadlines are really good for writers. Anything else? Oh, accountability is a good one. Yes. Correct. Yes. These are all correct, by the way. We're just reviewing here. Anything else? Yeah. So again, I think it's good to start off at the very beginning saying, why am I doing this workshop? And how can I adjust everything I do to make sure that I achieve what I set out to do? And I think, basically, I see it as everything here can be distilled into, basically, one, getting the feedback. So you actually get readers. And two, getting that perspective or that insight into your own writing. So basically, sometimes, separate from the actual feedback you get. Sometimes reading and commenting on somebody else's work teaches you stuff about your own work. Have you ever found that? And it's so important to learn how to properly critique writing. Why? Because you should be critiquing your own. It's hard to do that. So practice with somebody else's. And it's very, very, very important. So I mean, OK, so this is good. I'm going to leave this up here, because this is going to be the thing that we always refer to and say, OK, if we're ever going off track with a workshop, let's go back to why we started in the first place. And that will help bring us back on track. OK, good. OK, so now what happens next? We're still in the before. This is all before. What happens next? After you decide that you're actually going to do this for very deliberate reasons, not just because it's something to do. OK, now you have to say, what am I going to workshop? OK, so what does that involve writing a piece? Panic. Panic. Don't panic, panic. Setting up the font? Yes. Yes. All right, we would have to go through every single step. But that's actually true. That's actually true. Don't use windings. I learned the hard way. OK, so you know that the deadline for handing in pieces for workshop, Elizabeth sends out the deadline sometimes very early. She's like, the semester just started, and submissions are due already. And she says, by November 20th, I need your piece. How do you decide what to send in? I'm asking you, how do you? Yes. Are you sending what needs most work? OK, what needs most work? I'm sending what I've been working on. Something you've been working on that obviously needs some more work? So there are questions on exactly. Yes, what else? I said, there's something that you don't really know how people will react to. Yeah. Yeah, again, so going back here to, OK, one of the things you're doing this is for actual feedback. So I think there is sometimes a pull and tug between what's to send in for a workshop sample or whatever fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama. We like when people tell us that we're great writers. It's a nice feeling. So you're not going to send in, sometimes you're like, should I send this in? It's too raw. People are going to hate it, except that's the point. So but then you actually want feedback. You want meaningful feedback. So do you send something in that you've worked really hard on very long and has gone through multiple drives and is closer to being polished? So no, you don't want to send in something that's too brand new and raw, because sometimes a piece needs some time with you before it can enface the world. And of course, you don't want to send in something that's too perfect, because everybody's just going to tell you it's great, and that's not useful feedback. So you want to find that center and that what that is may it will be different for you. But you can help yourself find it by thinking about the specific questions, did you say? So if you have specific questions about a piece or you've gotten through a couple of drafts or you're trying something new, or anything that you think you can actually use meaningful feedback on, do not send in a piece that you don't need or want meaningful feedback on. This is a true story. I was in a workshop one time here, and not in this room, but you know. And we were workshopping a piece from somebody, and the person said, it doesn't matter too much, because I'm not really working on this anymore. So don't do that. She's no longer with us. So I do want to refer to, so this handout where it says workshop, do's and don'ts. I sent out an email to Fairfield faculty, and I asked them, you know, just give me, like, from your experience, and they're professionals, and they're very generous, and they were able to. I didn't identify what came from whom, but these are all verbatim. I just copied and pasted them into this little handout. It's a nice thing to refer to. And on the first don't, on the flip side of the first don't, you have this thing where you say, don't send out something that you haven't proofread. Workshopping is not proofreading, OK? And getting feedback about your grammar or your punctuation is actually not meaningful feedback. So don't say, well, yes, of course this piece is raw. That's why I'm putting it here. Raw doesn't mean bad, right? It's not helpful for you. I mean, this entire discussion, this entire examination is very selfish in a way. It's really asking yourself, how do I get everything I want out of this workshop? And if half the feedback you get is about punctuation, it's just not helpful for you. OK. On the do, front side, about five or six down, the second to last one, this is something that I think is very important. And we read it together. It says, do give readers all of the information that they need to make intelligent and informed comments. When you prepare your own sample for the workshop, give a clear statement at the beginning, specifying if it's a complete story, an incomplete story, or a novel excerpt. If it's an excerpt or incomplete, fill the readers in on the overall context and where the segment fits into the piece. That's so important. Especially when we get 18 pages, and maybe if you're taking a master class, if you have 30 pages, you don't want to waste time and meaningful feedback with questions that are answered elsewhere in the text. Just tell them everything they need to know so that when they actually write the feedback to you, you will get actually meaningful feedback. You don't want to waste time saying, oh, well, I actually covered that in chapter two already. You didn't read that. Well, you didn't tell me that. So the idea is to give them all the information they need. And I think there's also, oh, well, I can't find it now. But anyway, one of these things says, which I think is a very useful practice, you submit your 18 pages, and you give them, you contextualize it. You say, this is what you need to know. However, you're submitting those 18 pages for a very specific reason. You know there's something that you want to know about it from other readers. You can ask directly. Don't be afraid to ask specific questions, requesting specific feedback if that's what you're looking for. Because again, you want to get everything you want out of this. Don't just say, read it and tell me what you think. If you may not always have a specific question, but if you do, ask it, because actually it'll help the reader focus on that and give you the kind of feedback you need. It's all about getting feedback to become better. OK. Great. So we've selected 18 or 30 pages. We've sent it in just in the nick of time to Elizabeth. Then what happens? You're then we wait. And then what happens? OK. Come back, guys. Great. So then Elizabeth does some kind of alchemy with Bill and Michael. And somehow you get grouped in with three, four, five, six, sometimes seven other people in a workshop. And those submissions get emailed to you. What do you do with them? Read them. How do you read them? With a glass of scotch. Very carefully. What does that mean? Yes? So I always read them once. OK. The first time. How many people read more than once? How many people don't? Be honest. It's OK. Good. I'm glad that nobody raised their hand for that, because obviously we know that there's specific advantages to reading something more than once. You read it differently the first time and the second time. I also do that, Tom. I may have told you. That's probably where you got it. To go through the first time, no pen, no pencil. You're just reading it to just get its overall sense of it. Sometimes, because you want to give many people feedback too. I mean, this is part of why we end this thing is to actually read critically and speak, knowledge being critically about work. So the first thing you might want to do is just find and get a sense of what kind of critique does this work need? Where is this? What is the author trying to do? And sometimes more important, what is the piece trying to do? Which doesn't always cohere what the author is trying to do. So here, we can refer to the handout from Charles Baxter. The front side and the third paragraph, he says, when preparing for the workshop, participants should first try to discover the work's intentions. Setting aside for the moment your own taste. So that to me is like, that's your first read. You're not marking things. You may put an asterisk, you may underline something to come back to, but you're not spending time. Because it's almost like when you're having a conversation with somebody and they're talking, and you say, oh, I have something to say to that, right? And you're like, OK, I don't want to interrupt that's rude. So I'll try to just keep remembering it. But while you've got that in your head, you're actually missing what else they're saying. So using that analogy for the piece, read it the first time without anything in your head. Listen, listen to the piece, listen to what it's saying. And then the second time, again, I go through now with a pen in hand. Maybe I've made some notes to specifically comment on and try to write some meaningful feedback on the manuscript itself. Has anybody ever been in a workshop and gotten back a piece with no writing on it? How did it make you feel? Think about that when you decide whether to write on some of these. You have to, right? This is why we're here. So yeah, so that's the second read. And then I actually do a third read, one up here. And sometimes that's a couple of weeks past. We usually have about five or six weeks before the residency. So I let it sort of simmer and bake in there. And then maybe right before the residency, I'll give it another one last read. And because sometimes that may change some of your feedback. One kind of feedback that's interesting to give authors is what was your first impression? And maybe what was your second impression? So now you have sort of layered context to give some feedback on. OK, and then the other thing I do sometimes, which you don't have to do for the entire piece because they're very long, but certainly try for maybe a page or two to read an excerpt aloud. Maybe on your first read. Again, the feedback is most meaningful when you try to help the person who wrote it, not just force your own sensibility on it. Now, of course, they want different feedback. So your sensibility is going to be important. But when you read it aloud, sometimes you can get into that frame of the piece. You can actually hear it and say, OK, this is not what I would have written. That's why I didn't write it. But now I can speak to it on that level. OK, questions? Yes? I just wanted to add that because that's actually super important when you're workshopping. Poetry or verse. Oh, exactly. Yes. Yes. You hear some of the rhythms, and then so it adds another whole element to your workshop if you understand like, OK, I know what you're trying to do with the rhythm here is where it doesn't work. Exactly. Exactly. And I mean, you're right. It's a very important poetry. But I think even in prose, you hear certain things that you may not see. And that might actually help you sort of write a little bit more detailed feedback and catch things that maybe the author may have missed. Great. So, good. We've written our submissions. We've read the submissions. And now we're going to get into what to do during the workshop. But before we do that, we sort of look at the benefits of workshopping, why we would want to do it in the first place. This is where we get out of it. There are also what I might call challenges to workshopping. What are some of them that you maybe have experienced? One of the biggest challenges I've faced is with my attitude to look at these submissions, including my own point of view of respect and not like this is a chore. When I start to zone out on somebody's writing, I put it down, I go away, I go off to something to come back and give it my full attention because that's what it deserves. And sometimes it's hard. It is hard. And it's always hard. Yeah. What else? Do you have somebody that takes a little trouble with it? Yes. So someone dominates the workshop. Right? We've had that. Yep. I think sometimes when people are just so painfully self-conscious that they apologize and they're worried, they get in front of them. Yeah. They're in front of the order. Yeah. Yeah. And before you read this, let me just say, I was really sleepy when I wrote this. Like, OK. I was sleepy when I read it. Yeah, this is why we're here at a workshop. This is exactly what we're here to do. There's no need to apologize for anything. Yes? Is it probably especially true of later workshops after you really get to know a lot of the people looking at one of your best friends' works and trying to use the cash from that time? Yep. Very hard. It's nothing personal, man. You're just a terrible writer. Don't say anything. So the opposite, just receipts. Yeah. What did you think about my piece? You didn't tell me. Yeah, exactly. What else? Yeah, and that's hard. A couple levels. One, it makes it hard for you to discern what they're trying to say, but sometimes they're indirect on purpose, because they're trying to couch a critique in the nicest way possible. And that's, again, not helpful, because we're here for the feedback, not for our egos. Yeah. I have a question. Because I haven't been that many, honestly. But how do you, I think it might be a statement about our society, and that we're all, you know, everybody's a critic. But what is the gauge between telling somebody honestly what you think, and it being too harsh? Yes. I think that's what everybody really thinks. This is exactly that. Thank you. Did I plant that question? That's what we're going to try to answer, right? Because it is an important one, again, to have an effective workshop. We can't all just say, this is really, really great. And we can't all just say, this was horrible, right? There's got to be some kind of way to give somebody what I would call, and I think what a lot of this boils down to, is this two-word phrase that we almost always hear in the context of a workshop. Can you tell me what it is? It's a very, very, almost, at this point, cliched phrase that we know we talk about in terms of a workshop. It covers all of this in terms of dominating and finding the balance between honesty and being respectful. Constructive criticism. You took that seminar before, so that's a. OK, so this is the thing that I think a lot of our workshop boils down to is constructive criticism, OK? And we use it almost, you know, just sort of, you know, almost glibly sometimes, without some sort of consider. What does it mean to be constructively critical? What does it mean? It's not just saying this doesn't work, but telling someone why. Yes. Yes. Getting to the why. Now, I, yeah, Jill. But it also responds if the writer of the piece has asked a question, along with the submission, constructive criticism will answer that question to the best of people. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Did you think the opening was too fill-in-the-blank? Here's what I thought about the opening, yeah, absolutely. I, you know, we're all sort of engaged in sort of academic inquiry here. And I want to, I like this, you know, constructive criticism. I'm very curious as to what it means. So I did some digging, extensive research, and here's what Wikipedia says. It's a joke. This is from Wikipedia. I actually like this. This is why I'm sharing it. The purpose of constructive criticism is to improve the outcome. Constructive criticism must always focus on the work rather than the person. Personality issues must always be avoided. Constructive criticism is more likely to be embraced if the criticism is timely, clear, specific, detailed, and actionable. By adopting an open attitude to criticism, one may achieve greater personal development and help uncover blind spots. So, you know, I think that covers a lot of what, you know, what we understand constructive criticism to be. I like this three-word phrase. I think it helps us answer the question of how we actually approach constructive criticism. I like this phrase they use. It's intended to improve the outcome. Okay, so I think thinking about that way takes a little bit of pressure off of us, right? Because sometimes you get a piece and you think this piece needs a lot of work and I know exactly how to fix it. And you want to do everything, right, that you can. And that may sometimes make you feel like you're, you know, going overboard or something, or you know, like how do you, you know, it takes some pressure off of you, right? As a participant in a workshop, our goal is not to rewrite pieces. It's not even to make them great. That's their author's goal. Your goal is to help the author improve it. That's it. Get it from A to B. And if you think about it that way, I think it really helps us sort of create and couch those critiques constructively. I wanted to read from, yeah, okay. So on the backside of the Charles Baxter handout, second to last paragraph, he says, the tone of the workshop should be supportive but rigorous, analytical but not judgmental, non-competitive, vigilant against workshop jargon or preferred aesthetic strategies. Everyone should try to put their egos away. That part's in bold. Now here's the thing about, you know, about dealing with people we know personally, which you know, we're really kind of tight in the community here. And dealing with how do you be honest but respectful is that part of that onus is on the person being critiqued. Okay. That phrase open attitude criticism in your Wikipedia definition. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you toughen up your skin so you don't feel pummeled and, you know. It's tough. Like I said, we're writers. It's the gold that draws. We're writers, we're fragile, we've got egos. So, you know, I think part of it is just to kind of remember that this is not the place for your ego to be stroked, right? Going back to why you're here in the first place. This is why I keep this up. You're not here for everybody to tell you how much they loved your writing. Okay, that's not helpful to you. So you have to expect that people are gonna tell you certain things about your writing that did not work as well for them. And that's okay. That's what you're there for. So, you know, that helps check that ego a little bit. You have to walk in. We have the benefit of having, you know, again, a really great community where we're very supportive and very genuine about it. So, the workshop at Fairfield, I think it's a very safe space. You know, you can walk in and know that you're not going, and be vulnerable and know that it's gonna be okay. You know, right? And that helps you to sort of lower your hackles and, you know, on the back of the do's and don'ts. That's why I said don't read them first because we're gonna jump back and forth. You can read them at the end. One of the don'ts that I think is important is near the end, it says don't react defensively to a critique, okay? The workshop is not a courtroom, Tom Siegel. He's a lawyer. There is no need for defense. And depending on the group, no need for explanation. Okay, somebody says, oh, I didn't understand this. You don't have to explain it to them. That's feedback, just take the feedback, okay? It's not our job to teach reading comprehension. In some cases, a reader may actually have missed something. Okay, and that's okay. That's again, that's okay. It's not about going back and forth. Apollite, thank you very much, along with the Smiles Off and the Best Response. That's how I think we get past the back and forth. You know, I've been in workshops where that happens, you know. Sometimes we use a cone of style and sometimes we don't. And somebody says something on the author. It's quick, I mean, these are our babies. We know that. We're very close to our writing. And your natural impulse may often be to defend it and say, well, you read it wrong. So, there. I'm gonna have to say something. Please. And so for me coming in here to this very difficult thing to have your people shot has kind of adopted that. Yeah. I am a child in the writing world. I'm gonna take it. Yeah. Or think of your peers as your children. I guess I'm, you know, but no, you're right. I mean, yes. Well, we get to that too. You have to, you know, you get the criticism. You can take it and go for it. And you can, and in some cases, you may not do anything with it. And that's okay. We'll get to that in a second. Yes. Okay. One was. What is a metaphor? No, go ahead. Sorry. It's like a simile answer. Yes. Yes. Yeah. One is getting ready for something occasion and your best friend's helping you. She says, no, you are not leaving the house and this fair price don't let friends go out of this. I make up, but you should wear this because it brings out your color. That's. That's constructive criticism. Yes. And the other is coaches. Sports thinks about people. If they're true in it, it will help them play the game better. Yeah. And so, I'm working on my game. Well, we're writers. We have no idea what sports are. But you know, but I think it's a good example. Here's a quote. I don't think I put this in your handout, but here's a quote from Neil Gaiman. I don't know Neil Gaiman. He says, I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight out unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed naked praise. Arriving by the shift load every 15 minutes or so and that's true. So that's the challenge of us going into it is to say, this is actually again, why we're here is to get that constructive feedback and we won't take things personally, even if they're given in a way that makes us feel fragile by our friends. Okay, so what I would like to do, let's see, we can erase this. Yeah. It's think about constructive criticism in terms of verbs, remember what I said? Verbs, just verbs. What are some verbs that you associate with constructive criticism? I'll write them down as you say, just yellow. To be. To be. To be. Or not to be. Are you being serious? Can you explain that? What I mean is that if we use the word that the verb is or was too much. Oh, I see. It's very passive. Got it, got it, yes. And it doesn't do a lot of work in a sentence. Okay, got it, got it. Yes. Now this is something of course that is not always effective in our writing, being passive, it's not always ineffective, but it's mostly ineffective. But also in a workshop, right? This is not the place to necessarily be timid, right? We're again, it's a safe space and this is what we're here to do. You're actually not helping the author if you're holding back. What are the verbs? Flesh out. Yeah, you don't need the infinitive form. Okay, sorry. Flesh out. That's a very common thing that we get, especially in prose, I don't know about poetry, but often what the writer wants to know is like, what stood out to you? And maybe that's something that could be fleshed out. You know what else? Perfect, perfect. You should teach this next time. Yeah, I mean, I think that the important thing about prioritizing is that you know that we do have a finite time in a workshop. And so it's actually not always possible to get everything out. And just make sure that everything is written down. And in that workshop, you wanna address the bigger things where you have the opportunity of all being together in one room. Sorry, there's a hand. Compress, yes. Sometimes there's too much of something. You say this actually doesn't need to be 17 pages. This could be a paragraph. I would just say lift up, because there's feel hopeful and excited. Absolutely, absolutely, okay. Yes, we are gonna check our egos. However, we're still human. And you know, there's definitely ways to tell somebody that something is not working in their piece without making them feel like shit. We know that. There are ways to make them feel like shit. And that's also not very effective, okay? So that's a very good one. We do have a responsibility, I think, to each other to lift up, yes. Build. Again, we are here because we are writers. We're all writers. We're all accomplished in some way. But we're writers in training. We are still building our profiles. And yeah, that's what you mean. Like, you know, we're helping each other, you know, construct. So send in a build. I mean, you have so many other people. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Deepen. Deepen, yes. Yeah, yeah. Feel the pain. Yeah. Okay, good. The reason I wanted to, anyone? Nothing is too vague here. Young Jesse. Detail, yeah. So as a verb, right? So the reason I wanted to think about it in verbs because, I mean, it is a very, again, it's not a very passive thing. It's very active, you know, these are things that you're consciously doing to help the author in the hot seat improve the outcome of their piece. Okay, so, you know, I wanted to think of it, you know, and I think these are all actually great verbs because they show sort of different sides of it, right? I think that, you know, you do want to encourage, right? That's the word I like to use with my students. You did this not so well, but I would encourage you to do it better, okay? But, but, don't lie. Don't lie to people. It's not helpful, though. It's not easy to hear that something is just not working, but if it's not, tell them, right? You have to be honest. I think we want to critique. Okay, I mean, what I mean is that even when a piece seems really good, sometimes we do get to a piece that's further along in the process, you're like, this is really good. You gotta find something that's less good. You know, you have to find, this is why they're here. However, we know, because we're all writers, that we can all write a story, you know, a paragraph that's very effective, and there's, let's say, 30 of us in here. We can write it 30 different ways, each of which are very good, okay? So one thing that I like to say is that we should allow writers to be writers. Just because you would write something differently does not mean that that's not a good way to write it. And I have to stop myself from doing this all the time because I think I'm the best writer ever. So I'm like, well, no, no, no, I would write this. But you know, like, it actually is one way to learn sort of different ways to write something. So you have to allow people to have their own voices. And I think, you know, it's always like, you know, do this, but temperate. Do this, but temperate. And the overall watchword I would say in constructive criticism is to find that balance. I will in a second. Slow your roll. Yeah, this might feel a little obvious, but there's one thing that I always have to probably do in a workshop, and I try to stop myself from doing, is that I think I spend more time focusing on what I'm going to say next about this person's work than actually listening to what this person or other people have to say. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not just in the workshop or the conversation as well. I always find myself trying to think about, okay, because this person said this, I'm going to say this. Okay. I'm always trying to insert myself. And personally, I try to stop myself from doing it all the time and try to really listen. Yeah. And put more focus into listening than actually kind of my own response out there. Perfect. I think I planted YouTube because that's exactly the segue that we were going into. Yeah, so this is all about sort of, how do we give constructive criticism? The other side, of course, is that when you're in the hot seat, you have to learn to receive constructive criticism. That's checking your ego, but as June said, a lot of it is just listening. Many workshops use what's called the Iowa format, which was, I think, kind of pioneered at the University of Iowa. And anyone know what the Iowa format is? We're just letting everybody talk first before you respond to it. It means the person being critiqued cannot speak, exactly. You get there, you wear the cone of silence, whatever people call it. It means that you have to sit there and just listen to everybody, just beat up your piece, and you can't say squat. I think that that's one way, it's not the only way to do it. However, we know that even if you're not being workshopped, there's such a great opportunity to be in a room with all these other writers and to hear what they had to say about the same piece that you read. So listening is vitally important. Let's see what, I think Charles Baxter has something to say about listening. Yeah, on the backside of the Baxter piece, he says, some people, usually Iowa format, some people don't, but it may be useful to experiment with how much the author can participate in terms of asking questions, raising issues, responding to questions, but certainly the author's certain responsibility is to listen carefully. You want to hear everything, this is why you're here. You want to hear everything that people had to say, how they reacted, what made, what moved them. You don't want to miss anything, right? Steven Tyler said, okay. And then, all right, I jumped ahead there. What we might do now, what time does this end? 3.15, I think we have time, is do a listening exercise. Does anyone want to do that? I need three volunteers, because I have three chairs. One, two, please come, three, great. Okay, so did you, any of you take the seminar with me in the summer? Yeah, no. You did? Yeah. You can still do it. Well, you already did this. It was a long time ago. Okay, I know. On the morning, please have a seat, of September 11th, 2001, I was asleep in my dorm room as in college, and I remember my roommate waking me up and saying, you gotta look at the TV, something's happening. And so together we watched, the first plane already hit, we sort of watched dumbstruck as everybody else as the second plane hit, and then Mayhem and pandemonium and buildings falling and people dying. And the rest of the day, of course, classes were canceled, major cities were on lockdown, and I think the rest of the day and the rest of the week, a lot of us walked around and it was kind of a stupor, kind of wondering what was happening. So when I give you this piece of chalk, you will start on the morning of 9-11, 2001, and give us just 20 seconds of what. Okay, my kids had all left for school and I was supposed to go see the funeral. I was on the computer and a friend text message me from Helsinki saying, could you please turn on the news? We heard that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. And I texted back, wow, was it an accident? And he texted back, I think not, because a second plane crashed. My sister worked at Morgan Stanley. We live in Stratford, which is about an hour from there. And I stayed on the phone until I found her. And then I went to the funeral late and I told everybody at church what happened. And the priest gave me a very hard time because I missed the funeral. But they couldn't get the body to the burial because all the bridges to New York were closed on some charles in New York. And he said, I've lived through a great many things, including the bombing of Dresden, and this is like pulling off a scab that's grown over that. But what I've learned that got me through it is you have to keep in mind two very important things. Things over which you have some control and things over which you have absolutely no control whatsoever. Said you have no control over this bombing, and should I control over whether or not you're in the funeral? Yeah, pass the truck on. So I lived in Brooklyn and I happened to be outside on my porch going to a list of what I needed for groceries and then the plane to the building. So I honestly thought an atom bomb had been dropped on the city because it was so loud. And it was just something so shocking and loud. And I just immediately started shaking and then I heard people screaming and I looked up because I was on the fourth floor of a brownstone without me facing the water. And then I saw all these people on the rooftops and I'm thinking, what is going on? And I was so shocked and afraid. I don't think I've ever been on terracotta. And then of course I ran in to turn on the television and then I, I was, my father was a pilot and they were saying, I think it's a small plane. And I said, oh, there's no way that was a small plane. It was like an atom bomb. I mean, it was so, so loud. And so I packed things and while everybody was running toward the water, which is the promenade in Brooklyn, I ran to the bank and took out a whole bunch of money and shaking and there's stealth bars. I mean, it was just insane. It was a surreal, surreal moment. And the woman in the bank, there was only me in the bank by the way. The woman in the bank said, you really need to calm down. And I was like, there is nothing to be calm about. And then the rest of the day, my husband was in the subway when it happened but he got out at Canal Street and it took him about nine hours to get home. And so I ended up with probably the entire Brooklyn Heights in a bar getting completely shit-faced as we watched like more horror, you know, but that was like the only place you could feel like safe was with your neighborhood getting clouds. Well, not to make light of a serious situation, but I was in Korea then, so I guess I was asleep. Well, I grew up in Korea and I came to Canada kind of two years ago and I remember, for Koreans, well, yeah, of course it was big news, it was very big news, but I was in high school back then and the next day it was, there was more excitement to be honest about, wow, something big happened. This is, wow, and conspiracy theories and all that, but what we had more reaction to wasn't the event itself, but the aftermath because South Korea itself was not just because of North Korea, but in other cases as well, has encountered some terrorism. A few years before that, an entire airliner was blown out of the sky and what the reaction we had after that was a few months later. Well, you have to understand that for South Koreans, America is kind of like a palm sign, you know, even till now there's still a distinct idea of the American group and I guess in a way I came here with a similar idea and a lot of people back home have a very idealistic idea of America, you know, about everything about America. Now, I remember talking to my dad and he said, you know, something bad, you know, politicians would never do something bad like that in America, you know, cops would never do something like that in America. My dad would always say that when he got to South Korea. My mom actually said that a couple of days ago because there's a big demonstration in Korea right now. But the most common thing that came up was that, wow, so two buildings went down a lot of people died. But when that happened to our country, you know, we moved on, but wow, the whole world is like, you know, people go to this and it just, for us at least, it was like, oh, wow, because that's their white people, you know, they have that kind of white people privilege. Oh, because it was white people, you know, they get to do that. And it wasn't contemptuous, it wasn't that we hated white people, it was that kind of just acceptance that because this happened to white people, oh, it makes no sense that it's been used. And this kind of, at that point, it just makes sense to me. Okay, so somebody tell me what Garrett's story was. Looking at grocery list, and heard a sound and it was her first knowledge of what had happened, that she said it was such a huge sound that was physically affecting, sounded like an atom bomb. And when she noticed that there were people in the buildings facing the water, she waited inside to turn on the TV and realized that something had happened and understood what had happened, but also understood that it was much bigger than what people were saying, because her dad had been a pilot and she knew that for the small thing. I mean, she drank up the entire bank. Perfect, wow, were you taking notes? I know. Okay, that's very good. June, can you tell me Ann's story? Yeah, she was, she was, the first thing she did was she talked to her husband and I'm sorry. It's tough, okay, yes, okay. I remember she, her husband was caught in traffic, but yeah. Okay, obviously that was the intent of the exercise, don't feel bad. You know, when somebody's talking and this happens around the table of a workshop and somebody's saying something, Jared's saying something in your mind, you're like, I can't wait to say that. This is exactly what you were saying earlier, right? So when we're thinking about what we wanna say, we're not listening, that's it. So I wanted us to think about, in a workshop setting, actively. Oh, that's why you called on June to comment on Ann. Yes, exactly, because obviously, everybody in the audience was listening, you guys weren't thinking of, but yeah. We just tried to think about what Ann did. Exactly, exactly. So he had something on his mind and was not in a position to actively listen. And I wanted us to think about listening as a very active thing, like, I mean, it's not just, again, nothing would be doing a workshop as passive. Train yourself when somebody's talking to listen, to focus on the important things, maybe listen to some keywords, whatever strategies you use, I mean, maybe work on some listening strategies. It will help you immensely, both as a workshop be in a workshopper. So thank you so much to our three volunteers. The other part of the workshop, obviously a lot of it is discussion, going back and forth, speaking, actively listening. A big part of it is written. So let's look at the workshop do's and don'ts on the first page, do. This comes from one of the Fairfield MFA faculty. At the very last paragraph, it says, do type out a paragraph or two on a couple of craft elements for each workshop's piece you read. In fiction, for example, this might mean writing about point of view and dialogue in one piece, and let's say character and setting in another. As you've written notes on the manuscript, take time to formulate your thoughts on some technical elements that seem particularly important in any piece, perhaps they're particularly strong or not, and then express those thoughts coherently to your classmate, referring to examples on specific pages. And remember that it's not your job as a workshop commenter to fix something you think is weak in a piece, it's your job to point out the problems, allowing the writer to formulate his or her own strategies. A couple of notes above that, it says, do cite page numbers and use quotes from the text to illustrate a point when critiquing others. I think these are super important, right? Again, this goes back to when we do our second, maybe third reading, we're making notations on the manuscript, we're doing this in a way to help the person. So, you know, don't hold back. Be very generous with your critique, even if you think you're being harsh. Be generous because that's actually helping the person improve the outcome. Write notes on the manuscript and then synthesize them in a, you know, short, could be just a one page. Some people write much more than that. Obviously, we know we get from our mentors sometimes very detailed notes, but you're in that workshop too and it's your job to write detailed notes and to not just say, I liked this, okay? I think it says on the back, the fourth one down, don't say that you liked or disliked something because that's only telling the author something about you. It's like saying, I like chocolate ice cream. That's great for you. What worked about it? You know, it's very subjective, right? So, you know, don't just say, oh, this character, what, you know, point to an example on page three when this happens and, you know, that's actually helpful feedback. And when you don't do that, you're doing a disservice to the workshop and to everybody involved, including yourself. Oh, and I wanted to hand this out. Because I think it's helpful, you can just take one and pass it on, to use a fairly consistent language when we're talking about our writing and to use fairly consistent notations. I mean, you know, if you're doing it by hand, sometimes people use track changes and word and I think that's very fancy and I don't do it, but that's great. But if you're doing it by hand, you know, make notations that are intelligible, that are understandable and you can refer to this sheet that's going around, it's just a list of very common copy editing notes, right? So that, you know, if we're using the same language, then it's much easier to communicate. That's the general rule. You can quote me on that. Okay, okay, actually now is where I want to talk briefly about this story with Bird that, no, singular. There's only one bird, it's the same bird. Maybe there was no bird. What do you guys think about the bird? Oh, I'm sorry, some of you guys didn't get it, here. It's just a short piece. Let me, did anybody get a chance to read it? Yeah. Did everybody get a chance? I said the instruction was to treat this as you would any workshop piece. So did anybody do that? You want to show me like, well, how did you do that? Maybe get a couple of volunteers to show. Okay, so okay, we see some markings up there and there, great, good, good. Yes, the idea is to not really, you know, is to not have any page without some kind of notation because, you know, I mean, not to be too arbitrary about it, but is to read it closely and find something to note. Did anybody write a short critique of it as you would in any other workshop? Did anybody want to share any part of that critique with? Heather, thanks for volunteering. I said in general, the story has too much to speak, the author works so hard at setting up symbols and intention and succeed, but the symbolism doesn't seem to connect to anything in the sentence, government, or your time. Who is responsible for the consideration of this relationship and for the alcohol, all through, particularly as it relates to digitizing. The writing is so subtle, can't be said at times to confuse. Okay. Anybody else? That's great, thank you. One paragraph. However, the interesting thing to me if I'm reading this, rereading it, was discovered that there's not one word in dialogue which lacks both the author's intent and the weakness. The filter of his head, so this remembrance, very economy of the prose goes down slowly, but advances the heavy predetermination that begins the first clause in the first sentence, somewhere near the end. Excellent. So you're on a downward trip right from the beginning. Excellent. Very good. Anybody else? Did anybody recognize this story? It was published as the title story with Byrd in the October 6th issue, 2014 of The New Yorker. And it was written by somebody who's published very widely and been very well reviewed and awarded. I deliberately chose this piece, but I really can't stand any of the fiction that they publish. But as examples show that you can always workshop a piece. I mean, this is a piece that has been published in The New Yorker, which is, in some circles, some measure of success. But there are things that this author can look at. Okay, restraint is a nice word to use for this. I was getting a little impatient with this as I read it, but of course, this is the nice way, the constructive way to say it. You shed a lot of restraint. You were very subtle. What the fuck does this mean? You know, I like that you had an impression of first reading and then unre-reading, right? So you had a different impression. You focused on the lack of dialogue. Couple clunky passages. I thought so. I mean, again, I think it's obviously, it's a story that accomplishes a lot. I mean, you know, and I deliberately shared it without any identifiers so that, you know, you wouldn't, you know, to one, to show you how you might read it differently if you knew it was published in The New Yorker. But the fact is that, you know, any piece you get from in a workshop is not done. That's just the nature of writing. There's always more you can do to it. Did anybody really like it? Yeah? I mean, there's only one dimension up here. But the delivery of the inevitability and sort of on-way of the breaking down relationship about, I mean, I thought the texture of it was sort of smothering, but. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It did have a very determined focus to it, which I like. Yeah, that's true. Yes? Mm-hmm. At the beginning of it, you know, so we stopped cold, both of us. You know, it was sort of like that where he's using, you know, February cold and the season were cold, and I didn't buy it. Yeah. And at the beginning, I didn't really find him genuine, except for when he was talking about the bird staring at him, because that I thought was, you know, when he weaved that back into the memory of him and his girlfriend making love and the world full with the scheme. Yes. And then they, And the deer. Steered up at the sweet spot. That was freaky to me. Yeah. But it was really well. It was very well. Yeah, now I think, again, you know, this is a, I think a good example of how something can be very accomplished in some ways and how things, you can critique about it. Okay, that's the point. You can't just say, this is a really good piece. It is a decent piece for the New Yorker. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, I wanted to hand this out to you, because now we're going into, anybody else wanna share anything about their critiques of the piece? Any responses? That's right. Yes. Yes. So you just ripped it apart. Oh my God. Yeah. What is your, are you new? I'm sorry, I don't know your name. Yes, I was just gonna ask your name. I can't see your line of your, Beth, excellent. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. But I wanna say. Yes. Yes. I was saying one thing about that. So that was an exercise, it was practice. To say that this is nobody in the room, don't worry about hurting feelings. But however, now that you've done that, you've ripped it apart, that is actually what you have to do with the poems in your workshops, right? Is to not couch or change or coddle because you know this person. Not everybody here is even that nice, so you have to be nice to them. No. So now we're gonna go to, yeah, so the big chunk of obviously is during the workshop where they're for almost three hours and a lot happens. So that was all the during. Then after four days of being in the same room and finally wanting to kill each other, we get to after the workshop. Okay. And here's where I think it gets trickier, but also here's where things happen. We know that the workshop is not done just because we've left the island. It continues. There are things that we have to do after the workshop to make it effective, okay? What are some of those things? You get, sometimes you have two people who read the same paragraph and have exact opposite reactions to it. This was my favorite part. I think you should cut this. Okay. What to do and what to do, what to do? What else? Yeah? They don't disappear and they're usually very happy to help. I like to rewrite very quickly and then save it as a new version but rewrite it quickly. Yeah, so that goes back to timing. Yep, anything else? Okay, so again, a lot of this is reviewing and it's good to actually be in this room where we can share the best practices. But yes, one of the first things, sometimes, let's start with timing. After four days of critique and sometimes very intense and sometimes very emotional critique, you're just fried and sometimes you do wanna give yourself a solid week where you just don't think about it. But you do have to come back to that because you've gotten now maybe half a dozen pieces of feedback on your writing and now you have to figure out what to do with that feedback. We know that responding to the feedback does not mean just going through each critique and making every change that it suggests. We know that. But how, the question is how do we decide, first of all, how do we even understand what the critique is saying? Sometimes, as we said earlier, sometimes the critique's a little indirect. Sometimes it's hard to understand what they mean and that's why I handed out this handout here. I think that we know the delete symbol and the insert transpose. Sometimes, you just wanna tell somebody, this would make a really good doorstop. Or as Larry Bloom used to like to say, you have one too many exclamation points when you only had one. I like this one, needs more about Chick-a-wow-wow. So that's just a little bit of humor. I wanted to hand out this piece too. You can't read it now. This is a piece that was published in the New York Times earlier this year that kind of talks about how do you, one, understand to synthesize and three, assess the feedback you get in a writing workshop. I think the answer to that is obviously going to sort of vary from person to person, right? You are the author. Ultimately, you are the one who must make that choice. And that choice can be made by thinking about what your original intention with the piece was, what the piece's intention has become, right? Everything must be, I think you can use the same guideline as the constructive criticism, okay? Does this piece of feedback help improve the outcome? That's it. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And it's okay, you may bid it adieu with fond wishes. If it does, it does, you can try to find a way to synthesize it. It may not be immediately clear. And as, I forget, somebody said, you can follow up with one of your workshop participants and say, hey, can we talk more about this? Can you elaborate on what you meant by such and such? Charles Baxter on the back has really good advice here. Near the third to last paragraph, he says, a workshop may be frustrating if there has been wide disagreement or if the author feels especially attached or vulnerable about a piece. The buddy system can sometimes help, singling out some other member of the workshop to ask a few hours later or a few days after for a summary of what was said or even to review the critique you got from the instructor together, right? I mean, again, most of the work we do as writers is in isolation. So when we had this opportunity to actually collaborate with others, use it. Say, hey, can you go through this with me and see what you think? It's immeasurably helpful because it just expands your insight and sometimes it reveals something brand new that was not even said in workshop, but just talking about it can spark that awakening. And then the idea is to keep working on that piece, rewriting, revising. Sometimes you do a really quick rewrite. Sometimes you wait a few weeks and say, now let me see how this works. But the idea is to not think of the workshop, to never think of the workshop as a finite thing. It doesn't end just because the workshop is ended here because now you have to go and actually do something with that feedback, which is what you wanted to in the first place. So we have a couple minutes. We don't, but I'm going to anyway. Is this any questions, comments? Any, feel free to, yes? Ms. Gorton. This thing, when I first started workshops, hi everyone, I'm an alumna, when I started, I thought it was my job to shred everybody's pieces. I thought that's what a writer did. Found all the bad stuff and when you critique, critiquing is only about the negative. But by the time I left here, I realized that the feedback that I used most and that was most helpful was identifying what was really working in a piece so that person wouldn't cut it out. Exactly. And also finding what was confusing. So it wasn't always about, this is terrible, you need to redo this, it was, I was confused here. So make sure in your workshop you're asking questions and also listening to the questions that people are asking each other about your work. Exactly. Because you're not going to be able to defend it when it's in a book. You want the readers to not be confused. Exactly. That's a signal. Yes. Yes. I totally agree. And I think that goes back to the idea of not just critiquing but critiquing constructively. And he said, part of our goal, actually, sometimes a more effective way to make somebody a better writer is to lift them up and say, this part you did here was really, really good. If you make more of it like that, this piece would be that much better. This is a really funny thing on the backside of the don'ts. The faculty member who sent this to me shows me that these are all real lines that were uttered in a workshop. The faculty member has a notebook in which he or she writes these down. Don't ever say, oh, this is brand new, and I didn't spend much time on it. Don't say, hey, this piece nobody sent is to just drop it. Don't say, yeah, I knew it was crappy, but I didn't have anything else to send. These things really hurt people because they spend time on it. Don't say I send the good part to the other workshop. I think I was in that workshop. Don't say I wrote this piece when I was a sophomore in high school and I still love it. Don't say my mother, boyfriend, girlfriend thinks nobody cares. Don't say this character is based on my grandma, and she really is that sweet. Don't say this is an experimental form and I don't think you understand it. That may well be true, but maybe you shouldn't do it. Don't say nothing happens in this story because the character is clinically depressed and can't get out of bed. Don't say, why didn't you write the description of his dream on pages 5 to 19? Oh, you didn't know it was a dream? Been down that road. And don't say this character is based on me and I'm clinically depressed. I think if you follow these instructions, you'll be well on your way. Thank you very much. Thank you.