What if everyone in your creative writing workshop agrees, more or less, that a certain change is necessary in one of your works? I would write that suggestion down in large letters with multiple asterisks, and I’d underline it. I would think very long and hard before I ignored any advice with that strong a consensus behind it. The chances are good that advice that arrives in that form is worth taking, though you usually have to bend it and massage it a little so it makes sense on your own terms.
But it can happen at moments that workshops will take on a wolf-pack mentality, and everyone will jump on a certain little thing in a poem or a prose work and critique it en masse. This is generally a sign for you, the writer, that you need to pay extremely serious attention to this comment. But—on occasion—it can be a sign that you are on to something exciting, and that all your critics are completely wrong. If the work that provokes this wolf attack is edgy, scary, and your peers and even your instructors all jump on it exactly because it is some of the bravest work you’ve ever done, maybe they are just not ready to hear it yet.
So how do you know if a consensus is really a wolf pack? If you look and listen, you can feel the difference. What are the tones of voices? Are the other writers in your workshop trying with gentle humor and support to help you with your blind spot? Or are they showing their own blind spots in their panicky, nervous, or hostile reactions? There is a difference between a grandma and a wolf—look for the big teeth.
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
