Workshop Guidelines
Best Practices
Work with the writer’s intention and intended genre
Assume good intentions of both writers and workshoppers
Form a group contract so that your workshop group knows what to expect of each other
Complete and share feedback letters prior to the workshop
Ground all feedback in craft elements (i.e plot, character, dialogue, setting, tone), aiming for specificity and transferability. Your group may also decide to reactive markups of each other’s documents, leaving comments on areas that strike you so that the writer can track your reading experience.
Cameras on during workshops
Identify the intention of the piece and critique to this point. You may not be the intended audience for this piece, which is okay! You still have valuable craft knowledge, and the writer will benefit from your thoughtful feedback.
Workshop material, including manuscripts, feedback letters, and ideas, are confidential. Please don’t share the material with folks outside your workshop group. We want to cultivate a workshop culture of trust, vulnerability, and safety. If, however, you find something concerning or triggering, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Equity & Belonging Manager (Katherine) for support or conflict-resolution.
Workshop Contracts
At the first workshop meeting when you meet your group, please consider these questions and establish your group norms so that you know what kind of feedback and workshop etiquette you expect of each other. You might like to have someone from your group bullet answers to these questions as you discuss, creating an informal, personalized contract for everyone to cosign and uphold.
What kind of workshopper do you want to be?
What workshop/feedback culture do you strive to build together? What are your group values, and how will you hold each other to these values?
How do you make a critique both enlightening and empowering?
What feedback do you find helpful–and what makes it helpful? Conversely, what feedback do you find unhelpful, and what are the implications (craft and otherwise) of this unhelpful feedback?
How does it feel when feedback seems to cross a line? How might you handle feedback or etiquette that strays from your agreed-upon culture?
Are there any additional trigger warnings you request from fellow workshoppers? If submissions include these triggers, how would you expect yourself and others to approach the submission, letters, and workshop?
What tend to be concerns, insecurities, or questions for your writing? How does this submission tackle or perhaps exhibit these things?
You may prefer your workshoppers to have a blind reading of your work, uninfluenced by background knowledge. In this case, consider what disclaimers and what silences facilitate your ideal reading experience.
Are you open to prescriptive feedback and radical revisions? How can you devise and deliver prescriptive feedback so that the writer knows it’s in the best interest of the story?
Do you prefer that the writer remain silent throughout their workshop, per the Iowa method? Or should the writer converse with workshoppers?
If a workshopper seems to have misinterpreted the story, what can fellow workshoppers or the writer do to get the workshop back on track?
What will you do if someone experiences a tech issue during the workshop?
How do you want to exchange feedback and communicate with each other outside the Zoom meetings?
Feedback Letter Guidelines and Prompts
Your feedback letters (about a page each/per your group’s workshop guidelines) should reflect what most captured, resonated with, and puzzled you as a reader, keeping in mind the writer’s intentions and genre.
Your letters can be personal to your noticings and feedback style or specific to your group’s agreed-upon preferences, but attention to specificity (what confused you? Where? Can you provide a quotation, scenario, page number?) and transferability (is there a name or craft lesson associated with this concern? Is there a skill you can coach the writer toward?) will make your feedback effective for the growth of both the story and the writer. If you’re stuck, consider these prompts:
What do you find to be the overall arc (plot and emotional) of this piece?
What was the central question that arose for you at the beginning of the submission and drove your reading? What challenge or misbelief did the protagonist face? Where do you see the protagonist’s growth?
What do you take to be the intention of this piece?
Where does the piece fulfill the intention? What creative moves are most effective and resonant? What excites you about the piece?
Where does the piece struggle to execute the intention? What craft elements are missing or unbalanced in that part of the story? What possibilities or craft elements would offer a solution?
Did the ending deliver on your expectations? Did it work for the characterization or character development of the protagonist?
If so, what made this ending strong? What should the writer keep doing well?
If not, what made this ending ineffective? What solutions can you suggest? What alternate endings might serve the protagonist, tie up loose ends, or enhance the story’s resolution?
If the above questions sound like a lot, don’t worry. You don’t have to answer them all. The goal of your feedback letter is to reflect honestly on the reading experience so that the writer understands where their intention came across or didn’t and to explore these strengths/issues in terms of craft elements that will help to fine-tune both the story and the writer’s skills.
Feedback Letter Suggested Outline
It may help to group your feedback in paragraphs by craft concern and, as in an essay, provide a quick opening paragraph with encouragement, general impressions, and an outline of the letter itself. One way you might structure your feedback is:
Thank the writer, offer praise, and outline your letter
Explain what you perceived to be the intention of the piece and what gave you that impression
Explain what worked well and most resonated with you as a reader
Offer suggestions for revision
List any pressing or lingering questions (points of uncertainty, plot holes, options for another installment)
Sign off with gratitude and encouragement
Contact
If you have any questions or concerns about the workshop, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the facilitator/interim Equity & Belonging Manager, Katherine Holmes (kpfholmes@gmail.com) or the Executive Director, Sarah Burton (popficcollective@gmail.com).