Workshopping tips

I wrote these for Writing for Children, Picture Books last year and have rediscovered them after some prompting from my Gippstafe colleagues.

Different people have different approaches to workshops and are capable or want to give different levels of feedback. The biggest rule is really to respect the material the writer presents. It's not up to the workshop to do a massive structural edit, rewrite the story or, indeed, to do a close line-edit. Participants in the workshop make suggestions - always acknowledging the story as presented. These suggestions should have the common aim of wanting the material to live up to its best possible potential.

So, for example, comments on grammar could be just 'check your grammar, there are some wonky bits' as opposed to anyone going through and doing a line-edit on the story. Structural comments could include, 'it seemed to me that the resolution was a little too open-ended' or 'the characters seemed a little flat and could have been better developed'. Those general comments should be backed up by more detailed explanations: 'I think it would be wise to have the resolution stem from the actions of your protagonist, rather than by chance' and 'Perhaps some more details about how your character identifies with their family would help us understand her more.' It's always a good idea to go from the general to the specific as people tend to comprehend that more readily.