My Writing Workshop Experience

I attended my first writing workshop recently and another DUer requested I report on the experience afterward so here it is:

I learned of the workshop back in February from an ad in Harper's and since the campus where it would be held is only 15 miles south of where I live I thought, why not? So I submitted my writing sample and was accepted the next day. I only went for the two-week workshop and I could have arranged lodging on campus but I figured I could easily do the commute. The workshop was held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for three hours each day, but there were other events every day except Saturday—panel discussions and author readings/Q&As—for which the workshop fee, $1900, gave me access.

Part of the fun of these events is meeting other writers and at the opening reception on Sunday I happen to meet a charming young fellow who was there for the advanced poetry workshop. We had a nice chat, both of us quoting "Prufrock" and discussing the benefits of structure in liberating creativity. I didn't even realize he was British until later when I also learned he is the great grandson of one of my favorite authors!

The first week workshop was wonderful! It was taught by a novelist who had given us reading assignments, fiction from The New Yorker and one story from a bestselling collection, that we would discuss along with the student manuscripts. There were fourteen of us including twelve college students from various places plus myself, a YA agent, and a retired high-school teacher. We had previously submitted manuscripts for discussion, limited to 30 pages, so I had put together seven of my stories while the others had one or two stories and the opening chapter of a novel. As we started discussing one of the assigned stories and the manuscripts from two students, I realized I was in over my head. These folks were writing literary fiction, which has lots of detail and extravagant language and is all about character feelings and such, and I was writing sci-fi.

For the student manuscripts, two or three were scheduled for each session. We'd go around the room answering the question: what is this story about? We would comment on what we liked about the story, what we didn't understand about it, and how it could be made stronger. Most of the students were well versed in this and wrote notes on printouts which they handed to the manuscript writer after the discussion. When it came time to review my stories, the teacher had asked that we only discuss three of the seven I had submitted to save time. But the students wanted to discuss a story called "Bogie and Betty", about the filming of a billionaire's movie script using androids that were perfect replicas of Bogart and Bacall. They loved the story even though I bet most of them were not familiar with the famous movie stars on which the androids were based. What intrigued them was how the artificial intelligence was developed so that the androids were believable, and they loved the character of the Bogie android. They provided very helpful feedback on all the stories, as did the teacher when we had our on-on-one meeting about them. I was pleased that they enjoyed my crazy little stories and it was great talking to other writers about the mechanics of crafting them.

The Sunday after that first week we had a public reading that anyone in the workshops could sign up for. Each reading was strictly limited to 5 minutes and there were thirty total. I had signed up early (as had my "Prufrock" friend) and was lucky to get a spot because they went fast. Most of the readings were poetry but I had a complete story that I had clocked at around three and a half minutes. It was terribly literary and not sci-fi and extremely dismal as it dealt with dementia and alcoholism. By Saturday, though, having seen the positive reception of my sci-fi stories in workshop, I decided to do a different story that clocked at four minutes and 19 seconds, which only added to the pressure. I told one of my classmates, Carlos, that the story was about post-apocalyptic elephants and when I first stood at the podium and looked out at the audience, everyone looked dour and serious except for Carlos, who was smiling broadly, looking like the only Nazi at a screening Schindler's List. Public speaking is a particular phobia for me and I had practiced all day Saturday, misreading words each time. I had decided to read it straight on Sunday, without drama or special voices for each of the three elephants, but once I started, I read it dramatically, including the character voices, and didn't screw up a single word. It was greeted with thunderous applause and many people caught up with me afterward to tell me how much they loved the reading.

The next day began my second week and the workshop had the same students but a different teacher. When we discussed the first manuscript, I thought I had figured it out and explained how the main character's heroic impulse had been awakened by an earlier event, leading to the story's climactic moment. Well the teacher would have none of that saying that the "hero's journey" is too reductive a means of literary analysis and was only useful for myths and Star Wars and Marvel movies. I wanted to argue but I didn't want to use up precious classtime, which the teacher had wasted by having us talk about the age of our inner child (!?) and insisting that each student read their manuscript aloud before we discussed it, which the students noticeably hated doing. The second week wasn't as productive as the first due to the readings and the classes ended a half-hour early (the first week's classes had gone over by thirty minutes). I would not take another workhop with that guy again. Later, I checked the Kirkus reviews for his novels, which were all negative while the reviews for mine and the novels of the first week teacher's were all positive.

So I would say that if you have the means and the time to attend a writing workshop, go for it. A teacher and classmates can provide valuable feedback in that setting and, as one of my classmates said, it's wonderful just to be around people who like to read and who care about literature.