This was one of the most successful workshop experiences I have ever had. In past classes in high school it was usually one on one, which didn’t provide a lot of feedback because it was based off of one opinion. Also, in previous college writing courses I have put my piece of writing up for everyone in the class to critique. This can be helpful but also rather nerve racking. I enjoyed the way our class workshops because it is in a small group- but having the group allows for more feedback than just one on one. I found a lot of helpful critiques as well as saw my story from a different perspective with all the different ways it was interpreted. I also found in the workshops that by reading and evaluating other group members stories I found places in my own writing that could be fixed. Overall, I think the biggest problem I faced with my writing was that I “told” everything and did not “show” it. I needed to describe what my main character was feeling/seeing more than I was. Also, many of the readers found the introduction to be a bit cliché which I agreed with after re-reading it out loud. One major issue I faced was because I decided to take part of this story from true life I found myself holding back significant details. The other group members overall made me feel more confident about my writing but gave me some important advice when I am going back over what I originally wrote.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
workshops
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Writing from real life really is so hard, because those weird little details are both so important to your own experience (thus so personal), but also so important to your reader's experience!
One suggestion I could give you might be to mix up the different real-life sources of the details, so that the overall effect feels less like something too real and personal to share. Eg, if you don't want to tell us about your own boyfriend's actual cute little habits, you could instead describe those of some other boy you once had a crush on . . . or if you don't want to describe your own wonderful first date, you could describe your best girl friend's . . . see what I mean? You can pick and choose what's real and what you make up--take out this and that true thing, add a true scene to a fictional story or vice versa--so that it doesn't feel too much to you like you're telling tales out of school.
Of course, another option is just not to admit to it when you're writing nonfiction. "That? No, that never really happened to me. I definitely made that up."
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