My set has been having a lot of discussion about a Twitter thread that popped up a few days ago by S Qiouyi Lu:
https://twitter.com/sqiouyilu/status/1560229177915166720 that was at least partly inspired by this Tor.com article:
"The Ghosts of Workshops Past..."
I never went to Clarion, so I can't comment on that experience, but I've been teaching writing with a heavy focus on "workshopping" at the Loft for over twenty years now. I have a lot to say about the Milford style, as it's called.
If you're unfamiliar with the term Milford when applied to critique, it's got a few basic "rules." The author stays silent (the "gag rule") while the critiquers speak. Each person reads/says their critique, out loud, and is limited by some amount of time, typically five or ten minutes, depending on the class size. Sometimes the critique facilitator will use a bell or a buzzer to move to the next person. At the end, the author gets a chance for a rebuttal, but it, too, has a strict time limit.
This model has been under fire lately for a lot of good reasons. I've attended an Anti-Racist Workshopping lecture through the Loft (actually taught by the woman who wrote the book referenced in the Tor.com article) and I've been thinking about changes I can implement in my classroom over the last several months since. I will get to those, in a bit, because first, however, what I want to talk about is my sense that one of the big failures of Milford isn't NECESSARLY inherent in its structure, but my sense that there are facilitators, instructors, teachers, and professors out there NOT doing their jobs.
This article from 2019,
"Unsilencing the Writing Workshop" is also going around, but I could only get a few paragraphs in before I blew a gasket. The readers of this person's submission got lost in the weeds about dim sum. It's insane to me that they didn't know what dim sum is, but it is ERGREGOUS that they spent so much time debating it. Reading the description of that moment gave me flashbacks to moments like this in critiques I've had, etc., but it also triggered my inner writing instructor who would have broke into that bullshit and said, "Chad! Stop talking! This is not constructive. You don't have good friends who take you out to yummy food and I'm deeply sorry about your life, but it's time to talk to Beth about character, setting, plot, and STOP CIRCLING THIS PARTICULAR DRAIN."
And that just made me wonder, in all of this talk about Clarion experiences and critique, WHERE are the instructors?
First of all, they should be teaching people how to not do this terrible stuff.
There is mistaken idea out there (which has a corollary in writing in general) that anyone who reads can critique. (The corollary being that anyone who can string sentences together can write effective prose). Critiquing well is actually a skill set that needs to be learned with the same kind of care given to learning the craft of writing.
An instructor should be doing a bunch of things before the first critique session, not the least of which is setting up expectations.
When I teach my writing class, I spend the first half of the class before our first critique explaining not only the nitty gritty of how it will work (like, who hands out when, how long a piece can be, what the requirements for class are, etc.,), but then also talking about expectations. Some of the expectations I tell my Loft students before they begin to write critiques are things like: I expect you to help this author write the best story that
they are trying to write, not the story you would write. We talk about this one often for a long time, because it's important to understand how to meet someone where they are. I really think that this goes a long way toward decolonizing the classroom, because if you remind students that their job is to help the writer tell
their story effectively, you are shifting the focus away from some "idealized" version (which is often bland, white, middle class, MFA writing) towards a personal expression of someone's own authentic story, in their own voice.
Likewise, I tell my students that as part of helping people tell the story they are trying to tell, I expect them to read all the genres that are handed out, even if they're not ones that they particularly like or even feel they understand the rules of. However, I tell them that they can start a critique of a mystery story, for instance, by saying "I am not normally a mystery reader..." and then try to talk to the author about the basic story things that worked, i.e., "the dialogue felt very natural," or didn't, i.e., "The description of the murder scene was confusing because I could not picture how the body was positioned and that seemed to be critical to the detective solving the crime."
In my class, because I teach working adults, I also tell them that they are always allowed to say "pass" when critique comes to them. What I say is, "We are all adults here. Sometimes life interferes." Then, I explain that I will never ask them why they are passing and no one else is allowed to either. I am explicit, though, that it's actually OK to use a "pass" for stories that triggered something for them or in a case where they just could NOT figure out how to tackle what was wrong in a piece. I caution them, though, at this point, that while it okay to "pass" when necessary, this class runs on the idea that you get out of the class what you put into it. So, if your critique every time is either pass or "it was okay, I guess," then you can't expect more than that from your colleagues when your story is up for review.
I also have some other expectations that I feel make the critiques run more smoothly. One is that we don't waste time on grammar or spelling errors. My class happens once a week, so people have a lot of time to read and mark-up (either on the actual paper if we are meeting in person and handing out or electronically,) and so they are allowed to red ink as much as they like on the person's manuscript. But, they can only mention grammar or spelling in passing if they feel that it got in the way of the story. It can NOT be the focus of their critique. I remind them if they are aiming for professional publication grammar and spelling are the purview of the copyeditor anyway. Editors and writers do not sweat the small stuff.
I tell them they don't have to repeat anything six other people have said. They can just acknowledge that they had the same issue and move on.
I always remind them of the golden rule, which, in this case, translates to: talk to someone about their writing the way you want to be talked to about yours. Always assume best intentions (that bit of sexist dialogue might have been an honest mistake or blind spot and not malicious intent, after all!) and always assume the author is as smart as you are (yes, they know ain't ain't a word, but are using it intentionally here for effect), speak to them from that place.
Then, after we talk about all these expectations, I ask them if they have questions or concerns. We set up what kind of critique environment we want together. Often, students want to know if they can add an artist's statement on the front of their story or novel excerpt to help forestall some issues, ala, "I am writing wet Venus. I know the science is bad, but I'm going for a retro, space opera vibe..." and can they ask people to answer specific questions, like, "I am experimenting with not saying what gender Captain Xanoth is, does it work for you?" THIS IS ALWAYS OKAY in my classroom.
Again, this was one of those things that was discussed in my Anti-Racist Workshop that I would have thought was kind of standard, which is allowing students the freedom (and responsibly) to direct the kind of feedback they're looking for by being able to frontload these questions before people even start thinking about critiquing.
Then, after all of this... and it is usually a full hour of discussion... we start talking about how to critique effectively. I talk about an approach that I learned long ago that still works surprisingly well, which is, if you have the time, read the manuscript twice. The first time, read it like you would any story. When I am marking-up stories on paper, I will use a different color ink for each read, and so my first read comments will be things like "Ah. The villain is on scene," sometimes followed by "Wait, she's not the villain... okay, are there two villains??" and the kinds of random thoughts you go through as you read. I tell my students that it may seem silly, but it can be really helpful for the author to know what people are thinking as they read, like if they are trying to guess ahead on a story with a mystery revealed, like when do they start picking up the clues.
The second read is the red pen read. I think about how, now that I know the ending, how well that ending is reflected in the beginning (of the short story or novel chapter, if appropriate.) Now that I have a sense of who these characters are, I look at their dialogue and offer suggestions about whether or not there are ways in which that could be done more effectively to imply the personalities of those people. Like, you find out half way through someone is a doctor, maybe there's a way to signal that earlier with how they talk about certain things, etc.
I also require my students to write up a summary of their thoughts that follow a very specific structure: first impressions, strengths, weaknesses and a final impression. The idea here is that you have a summary! There's no way to waste your ten minutes (if you have to be on a strict schedule) floundering around trying to say something substantive.
The reason I have them start with strengths is for a reason, too. Part of learning to workshop is learning to hear what is wrong with what you've been trying to do, and I find that's impossible if you have no sense that you did ANYTHING right. If you start with the good stuff, "I loved that moment when Aunt May told Peter that she thought the secret in his closet was chiffon!" then when you inevitably have to say, "This is Spider-Man fan fic? It's never going to sell to Uncanny" that latter part lands more solidly in the author's head. Also, I think this structure helps delineate the space between unnecessarily cruel and brutally honest. If you've told someone that you really like the way they do dialogue, then it's a bit easier to have a frank discussion about that one moment of sexism?
I assign homework that teaches people questions they can ask themselves when critiquing for the first time. I always point them to this marvelous resource:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190820204915/http://www.crayne.com/howcrit.html
If I have not gone overtime in my class, I will sometimes just go through some of the questions on Victory's list to show people examples of the kinds of things they can ask themselves while doing that second read-through.
The last thing I want to say is that MY JOB AS WRITING INSTRUCTOR does NOT stop here. You do not then get to abdicate responsibility as the facilitator or instructor. I always set up the first critique session by saying "This is the only time I will go first. I have found that when an instructor leads critique, the critique that follows is often a lot of 'ditto' because people are afraid to express opinions that run counter to the instructor's and that's actually not useful? An author needs to honestly hear everyone's impression. BUT, I will lead the first time because students need to understand the level, tone, and rigor I expect." Then, even when I start go last, I have my finger over the mute button if I need to stop someone and yell, "Chad! Enough with the micro-aggressions. You have talked enough about how you think dim sum must be 'something Asian, maybe?' We will have a discussion at the top of the next class that explains why that's not okay. I'm sure you were just trying to find something to say in critique, but this is not actually helpful anymore. If you have something ELSE to say about the story structure or dialogue to Beth, please do. If you don't have anything more of substance to say, we are moving on to Carol..."
THAT'S MY DAMN JOB.
If you are a signing up to be a facilitator and not a teacher, it's STILL YOUR DAMN JOB.
It's really hard, but teaching, like critique, is something you have to learn to do well.
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