DeScribe

I've workshopped in half a dozen groups for various classes over the past four years, so I'm no guru. However, if you have limited experience in holding or attending workshops, here are some pointers that might help you out:

1. The perfect number of people for a good workshop group is about eight. Fewer than six and you won't have a broad range of opinion; more than ten and things take too long.

2. If everyone gets, say, Bird Flu before a particular meeting, don’t be afraid to cancel it. Or, the two or three survivors could meet for a drink and discuss books and writing (code phrase for bitching about uni) instead. Exams and holidays are other bad times to hold meetings.

3. Decide how many stories you’re willing to workshop in a meeting. If you have six members, it’ll take 20 – 30 minutes a story; if you have ten members, it’ll be closer to 45 minutes a story. Four stories is a good target.

4. Set a deadline. Our group’s stories have to be submitted one week before the workshop, to give everyone enough time to critique.

5. Set clear limits for length: if you don’t, people will submit 10,000 word ‘short’ stories. And genre: if seven of you are poets and the eighth writes Pokemon slash fanfic, you may encounter some difficulties.

6. It's a good idea to hold the first few meetings at Deakin until you're sure your group is free of weirdoes and spree killers, unless you're into that sort of thing.

7. You need somewhere quiet for your workshop. Einstein's is probably not a good idea - you don't want friends of friends interrupting every thirty seconds. Try that cafe on the ground floor of Building hd, near the gym.

8. You need to build trust between everyone in the group. That's when you have the best workshops.

9. You do this by respecting the honest opinions of everyone in the group, even if you don't agree with them. Remember, you are the author of the story and you get the final say as to how it is written.

10. But that's not an excuse for putting up with tools. If someone is repeatedly rude without excuse, lazy or disruptive, take a group vote & kick them to the curb.

11. Don't be afraid to be honest. But be diplomatic. Offer your opinion and give reasons why you have that opinion. ‘It was good,’ or ‘Nah, I didn’t like it,’ is not feedback until you give some reasons: ‘The story caught me emotionally, and I liked your theme of...’ or ‘I thought the protagonist was clichéd because...’

12. Put effort into your workshopping. I read each story three times – the first for an emotional (reader’s) response, the second for specific writing mechanics like characterisation, and the third for grammar, punctuation and spelling. If you’re just scanning something once and giving a couple of ticks here and there and a ‘well done’, why should people bother taking time with your story?

13. Be fair to yourself as well. Each story should take around 60 – 90 minutes to workshop. If someone hands in half a novel to a short story group, why should you spend a whole day workshopping it in detail?

14. You have to grow a thick skin. The other members aren't criticising you, they're criticising your work.

15. Fight the urge to debate each point. In fact, in one of the groups I have, the writer being workshopped has no right of reply. You just have to sit there and accept what’s being said, even if you think it’s wrong. When your work is published, you won’t be able to lean over each reader’s shoulder and point out what they are missing.

16. Good criticism will make you think, ‘Oh, yeah...that’s a really great point.’

17. However, a good rule of thumb: if more than two-thirds of your workshop group point out the same problem in a piece of writing, then it is a problem, no matter how clever you think you are.

18. Don’t monopolise the group. Guaranteed, in every group, there’s at least one person in love with the sound of their own voice (like me). Try to keep responses to under five minutes. When our group sits around a table, we like to begin the feedback from the person to the left of the particular writer and go clockwise, so the same person isn’t always starting the feedback.

19. If you are towards the end of the feedback conga line, don’t be afraid to say, ‘Hey, everyone’s pretty much covered what I had to say already’, if that’s the case.

20. Have fun! You should look forward to the workshop process. A good workshop group will only improve your writing.