"You can give perfectly honest, useful critique that isn't brutal." Totally agree. It doesn't take much effort to make sure things are being done with respect! Thank you for bringing this up <3
For people who don’t have workshops available through formal education— I have had some good luck finding workshops integrated into writing courses with standalone organizations. I took a couple of courses on Zoom with Gotham Writers workshop and had a great experience. Both courses had groups form from the participants that still meet after the course is over. There are other sources like Grub Street, etc. I have personal experience with both, and they’ve been great. Both also offer asynchronous courses that have workshop components. These can be pricey, but I’ve found them to be worth it, and the group I still meet with via Zoom is now free of course since we’re doing our own thing. Thanks for all the amazing content, Shaelin.
SHAELIN!! I JUST WANT U TO KNOW I HEARD BACK FROM A LIT MAG YESTERDAY AND I’M GETTING MY FIRST POEM PUBLISHED IN TWO WEEKSSS
Perfectly helpful! I'm organising a writing club/workshop in a school I work at, so it's for teens-tweens (12-17), and everything has to be thought through carefully, and arranged nicely to create safe, comfortable, creative atmosphere. There's a lot to think about!
Workshop is about improving everyone's understanding of the craft, and we do that by looking at one story at a time. Each writer's voice will contribute, so long as they are honest and caring. Not about handing in/editting something into the perfect piece. It's a place to fail safely and learn from those failures with people who care about you and believe in your work. Super cool time!!
This was helpful. Particularly the protocol for who has the floor during a given round of the workshop. And your anecdote at the end, the thing your classmate said ..... good god, I felt my sphincter tighten like Fort Knox. And then the mirth inside me rumbled. Even by the standards of a college campus, that was quite the take.
I'm loving writing and my workshop is my absolute favorite part.
The ending of this video is a must see. Love it.
Now I want the mortal enemy stories.
Students feeling safe and respected is the ground on which any workshop must rest, as you say. Adrienne Miller (*In the Land of Men*) said she tended to reject Esquire story submissions which had a too workshoppy feel. She published Elizabeth McCracken and had a close editorial relationship with David Foster Wallace. You favour diversity, heterodoxy, risk and the dangerous edge so your workshop would be like that too, Shaelin.
On the Author talking during the workshop, what worked best for me was once everyone had their say they would end by going quickly once more through the group and ask any questions they had, then the author got the opportunity to respond to those questions as well as any feedback they felt they needed to respond to. Yeah every once in a while you get someone who feels the need to defend themselves rather than engage with the criticism and ask questions of their own, but a quick mention of 'hey dude I think you were engaging with the criticism from a defensive point' at the end after adjourning enough that they could come to the next session from a better place
As an incoming Creative Writing student, my most anticipated part of my program are the Workshop classes (but we don’t get them until second year where I’m from ☹️)
Thank you for this video Shaelin, that was helpful
Hi Shaelin, I know you have written several stories at a younger age silver bird etc. , I was wondering if maybe you could do another video (like the one you did a few years ago) but reading parts of them, passages from them. I think it would be great to know how an amazing writer like you started out, because me (and most of us when starting out) face issues with confidence and I have read some of your stories I adore them, I’d like to have an idea of where you started. It’s up to you whether you want too, but I just thought it might be fun to see, and for you to just cringe and laugh at your past projects for a little while.
There is probably a discussion & future follow up video about the utility of Zoom/Slack/Discord in workshopping StoryCraft development. As someone lacking experience and gifted with no expectations I imagine the platform can hinder & sing to people depending on their needs & time commitments.
Heavily agree on disliking the work “networking”
"He's gay... and he has cancer..." 😱
Thanks for the great content. I wanted to ask if you do copyediting for authors and if you do, how should I contact you for more details?
I seriously love your videos. A small request, can you please make a video on how to read books which are difficult to understand and contains difficult words. I am not a really experienced reader so I need some help.
@ShaelinWrites