I have a penchant for bettering myself, even if I haven’t always known it as such. While I’m sure a capitalistic societal mindset that encourages us to ‘produce’ all the time has something to do with it, that’s not the entire story. My parents, eye doctors, had to do a certain number of hours per year to maintain their licenses. So I grew up with the expectation that there is always something you can do to advance your own knowledge and skills.
Other than that, when I was a junior in college, I took a French seminar about the Enlightenment. It included the time frame in French history including the Wars of Religion through Louis XIV and the creation of Versailles. Basically, the 200 hundred years up until the revolution in 1789.1
As part of my coursework, I had to give a presentation on one of the ‘High Ladies,’ so to speak, of French culture at the time. Meaning: mistresses of Kings, salon owners, writers of the time period, etc. While I can’t remember fully, I’m pretty sure I picked Mlle de Lespinasse,2 but what I do recall was that she ran a salon and was very well respected.
Learning Mlle De Lespinasse’s backstory, I remember this: that this woman, who had no access to formal education (beyond a convent), made it a point to educate herself. She read constantly, talked with different politicians and influential thinkers, and hosted one of the most well regarded salons in Paris at the time, partially because she was so well rounded that she was able to encourage discussion and debate without them turning violent.3
That certainly left an impression on me. This idea that even without resources that I was now currently enjoying, (i.e., access to higher education), this woman still made an effort to broaden her own education through any means possible. A quote from primary sources about de Lespinasse’s salon was such:
Every one agrees that though the name of M. d'Alembert4 may have drawn them hither, it was she alone who kept them there.5
So the idea of continuing education has been in my life, and a part of it, for almost as long as I can remember. I ask a question along those lines in my Artist Interviews, and I’m a big proponent of lifelong learning. And while one could theoretically say reading is a form of continuing education in general, I have made it a point to read books specifically about writing craft and writing workshops to make myself both a better writer and teacher.
Enter: Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses.
Before we dive into why this book, and what its in conversation with, I have to give you some background. While I know many readers here are writers, I have to assume most of your are not, and have therefore never participated in a writing workshop. Most writing workshops are conducted as follows:
the writer being workshopped submits 10-20 pages (or whatever number of pages) of writing to the group ahead of time.
the group then workshops the writer, giving feedback.
the writer herself is banished to the ‘Cone of Silence,’ as in, she cannot talk as she listens to her peers/classmates/fellow students and instructors critique her work.
at the very end of the workshop, the writer is allowed to speak again.
Now, if you’re reading this saying, ‘This is bs,” then congrats! You are not alone. This model was developed back in the 40s as part of the Iowa Writers Workshop, which is today considered one of, if not the, best MFA program in the country. It also primarily focuses on literary fiction, which we’ll get back to in a minute.
This model is not only outdated, but also potentially harmful, especially to students of color. Books like Craft in the Real World and The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop dismantle why this is a bad model of workshopping, and how to improve upon it.
I myself have not had the best experience with the cone of silence, and I’m a very privileged white lady comparatively. First of all, I think it ludicrous that as part of a room that you are PAYING TO BE IN, you cannot participate in the critique of your own work. Second of all, my first semester in my MFA program, I was subjected to the Cone of Silence. 10 minutes into my 60 minute critique, a friend asked a question about my work, and I was not allowed to answer. So I had to sit, for another 50 minutes, until I was allowed to speak, to clarify what she meant. Did she mean something about my worldbuilding in particular? Or about the text in and of itself? For 50 minutes, I sat, trying to not only take in others’ words, but also trying to remember my damn question. Given that my enduring memory of this workshop is anger and frustration, I would say that it was not a success.
This is the part where I do give the caveat that as a writer, there is benefit in listening to reader feedback and not automatically defending your text. After all, how often are you going to be in a room with people who are as invested in books and the craft of writing as you are? However, this can be incorporated in ways that aren’t so damaging and absurd.
As part of a course I took at GrubStreet years ago (which led to me meeting Emilie, she of London trip fame), I was introduced by our instructor Stephanie Brownell to what’s called the Critical Response Process, as developed by Liz Lerman. Now, Liz Lerman is a dancer and choreographer, so some parts of this process have to be modified so that it works for writing, and I was taught the modified version of this process as follows:
the author reads aloud a part of their work, and then clearly defines the questions/topics they want the group to discuss.
for the next 10-15 minutes, the writer cannot talk, and will listen to her classmates’ feedback. But, as she has already stated the parameters of the feedback she wishes to hear, her peers’s feedback will center on that and actually be of use to her.
once the allotted time has passed, the author is then allowed to ask clarifying questions.
the other writers in the workshop are then allowed to ask questions of the work, which the author in question can decide to respond to or not.
This, to me, feels like a much more equitable and enjoyable process, and having been through both, I can confirm that is. One thing that Salesses gets into, in addition to talking about the Critical Response Process, is that the Cone of Silence automatically upends the power distribution in a workshop. Instead of workshop empowering the writer, she is now automatically put on the defensive about her work. The writer is listening to her peers critique her work, and can say nothing about it, leading to the belief that she is writing to please the other people in her workshop and not necessarily what is best for the story. This is also a huge problem for Writers of Color, who have found that their peers will often misunderstand (willfully or unintentionally) some of the cultural context of their work, and spend the entire workshop talking about that instead of the text. If you’re interested in learning more, in addition to Craft in the Real World, I’d suggest The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, another great book that covers how to make the writing workshop more equitable.
This is much of what Salesses spends Craft in the Real World talking about. Salesses himself is a writer, and has published five books of both fiction and non-fiction. He holds both a MFA and PhD, and currently teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University. He is also Korean-American, and includes in the book examples of microaggressions and other unacceptable behavior that he has been subjected to in writing workshops. So, he knows what he’s talking about.
I read this because I have been teaching more writing workshops as of late, and as always, I want to be better at what I do. I willingly put together an evaluation for my library classes, because if there’s something I can be doing to be more welcoming and supportive, than I want to know!
Craft in the Real World is divided into two parts. The first part is about Fiction in the Real World, and the second part is about Workshops in the Real World. The book can either be read straight through (as I did) or it can be read piecemeal. Each of the individual chapters is written as a standalone essay, so it can be used as a reference book. There is also an entire appendix of revision exercises that I myself will try out on my own work.
I particularly enjoyed the new glossary that Salesses includes, which is a reframing of traditional craft terms like ‘setting,’ ‘tone,’ ‘point of view,’ and so on. Salesses doesn’t seek to remove these terms from the writing lexicon entirely, he seeks to give writers new background and understanding how these terms actually work in fiction, and how we can better address issues that come up when our work is being workshopped. Salesses also provides a multitude of other models to use besides the original ‘Cone of Silence’ model. In addition to the Critical Review Process, there are about 10 others that he mentions and has used in his own teaching work.
Salesses admits up front that he writes and teaches literary fiction, and that’s what most of his advice and instruction is geared towards. Some of the examples and discourse in this book would not work exactly with genre fiction (i.e, horror, romance, science fiction, fantasy, etc.) I appreciated the call out early on, and read under the auspices of, ‘Not everything in this book will be for me and that’s ok.’ Why is that? So glad you asked.
Literary Fiction is also known as mimetic literary fiction (fiction imitating real life), and as one of my professors in my MFA put it: “While it seems to be the most popular type of writing, it is just a genre like anything else.” Literary fiction often is what wins the big book prizes, and oftentimes ‘genre’ fiction is looked down upon. And more so than literary fiction, genre fiction has its own tropes and rules and logic that need to be followed. I’m speaking from my own experience here, but some of the advice in this book would just straight up not work with science fiction or fantasy. And that’s ok! There are SFF craft books for this reason. But like anything, it’s taking what works for you and leaving the rest. It’s also why the original model of workshop that I mentioned earlier does not serve most writers - most of us aren’t writing literary fiction. It’d be like asking all track athletes to be judged on the same criteria - there’s running and throwing and jumping and they all need their own events to be judged individually. They’re all still Track, but what works for one group is not going to work with the other. The same goes for writers. While all types of writing might have point of view and setting, that is going to mean very different things in A Little Life versus The Hunger Games.6
So, what will I be taking and incorporating into my own workshops? Like I mentioned previously, I will definitely be trying out some of the revision exercises. I also liked some of the syllabus language that Salesses included, and may incorporate some of it in the future.
I’d like to try some of the alternative workshop methods in the future, but I think many of them are best served with an extended period of time - i.e., a semester. Most of the workshops I teach right now are for adults, and are usually between 3-5 weeks. I am going to be leading a Short Story group soon, (through LitArtsRI) so I’ll see what the consensus is about workshopping and how we want to proceed.
While this book definitely gave me areas I could improve in, it also was a relief to realize a lot of what I’m already doing is best practice. If anything, that’s what a good craft book should do, and Salesses succeeds here.
Fun fact if you want one: the French don’t call July 14th Bastille Day. That’s an American thing. The French call it ‘le quatorze juillet’ (July 14th) or ‘La fête nationale’ (the National Holiday.)
My college computer is long dead folks, and I do not feel like putting in the effort to resuscitate it just to verify this.
Yes, yes, Wikipedia is terrible, but this page has a list of some of the many French salon owners.
This is Jean le Rond d’Alembert, the famous mathematician.
From the Memoirs of M. Baron de Grimm. (what a name.)
This is just an example - I have no particular hatred or affinity for either of these books. (Though I will go on record to state that The Hunger Games has one of the better book-to-movie adaptations, at least for the first two books.)