There are three sorts of workshopers: The people who love it. The people who hate it. And the people who think they don’t need it.
I’m an oddity. I enjoy workshopping and revising. Not just enjoy, I love it. There’s a certain thrill that comes from printing out the words I’ve sweated and bled over andgiving them out to others to read and assess. The week between handing the pages out and getting them back I’m always filled with nervous, excited energy. Quicker to smile. Easier to laugh. After, I spend hours revising and with each word I delete, the lighter I feel. It’s like the freshest breath of air I could take. I love it.
But many don’t feel the pleasure of the thrill. It’s uncomfortable for them. It’s not pleasurable pain, but simply and exclusively pain. I get that. I do. It’s scary. Your babies, your words, are going to be scrutinized and picked apart into unrecognizable thrashing pieces. That’s terrifying and not something many people truly enjoy. Totally understandable.
What I don’t get are the people who think they don’t need it. The people who refuse to take the advice they’re handed with goodwill just confuse me. They sneer and turn away, but offer their two cents like it’s a gift straight from god’s ass, when really it’s like everything that comes out of an ass: shitty.
Okay. So, I’ve had two workshop groups so far. My last one and the one I’m in currently. They’ve both been immeasurably beneficial to me both personally and as a writer. I’ve gone from ‘holy shit this is shit’ to ‘this is pretty alright.’ Big leaps, I know. In each group there have been people who look at it with sour faces and upturned noses like their nostrils are a gift that everyone should be gazing into. It’s not because they don’t like workshopping, because I could understand that. It’s because they think they don’t need it because what they write is already good enough…. like……..????
Now tell me how a writer, an artist, is going to look down on improving their craft and refuse to accept they might need some advice on their words. Writing is an art. Even the crappy little harlequin romance novels they sell at Krogers are art. They may not be good or original art, but they’re art nonetheless. And as any artform it can always always always get better.
That isn’t to say that all advice is good advice. It’s not. I’ve gotten some truly shitty advice in my time. Some monkey scratching its head in confusion advice that I laughed at with friends later on. One girl told me I needed to add some steampunk elements to my realistic modern day novel. And that I should only use white characters because it would be discriminatory not to have white people in my stories…. yeah, sure. Let me get right on that. However, I’ve also gotten critiques that were life changing, at least the live’s of my characters. My writing is better for them.
Part of growing as a writer is being able to distinguish between shit advice, and good advice. Thats’s what the people who think their work doesn’t need critiquing are missing out on. Yeah, maybe they’ve been turned against it by crappy advice or people who genuinely didn’t understand their work. That’s a shame and it happens. There will forever and always be people like that. To be honest, wading through the people who can’t tell their own asses from a hole in the ground or the difference between your work and a toilet is worth it. There are gems out there that will make you better. They might make you feel like shit, but that’s only so that your work will cease being crappy. Workshops are worth it. Your art will thank you.
Strange Writes 