Craft Talk: Workshop Your Writing

Here’s a method that really works

If your goal is to publish, you want reader feedback. In the publishing world, these readers are called “beta readers.” My readers include my sister (always) and a few writing friends.

writing and rewriting…

When in Minnesota for my MFA residency, I participated in a workshop every morning. I was sweating from nerves, but it was amazing, and SO beneficial for every writer who participated.

Here’s a workshop method (online or in person) that can really make your manuscript better:

1. Everyone submits some writing. For instance, one picture book manuscript or up to 15 pages of a novel (the group sets the parameters).

2. Before meeting, everyone needs to read the piece being “workshopped.”

3. Each manuscript gets workshopped for one hour (or 30 min - you decide!)

4. I suggest you have a workshop leader to keep the group on track. The leader can be a different person each time.

5. If you’re online, the writer being workshopped turns off their camera (optional, but it’s nice to be receiving feedback without everyone seeing your facial expressions). If you are in person, the writer sits quietly and only listens.

6. First 20 min: everyone says what they like about the piece.

7. Second 15-20 min: everyone says what they “have questions about,” and/or “any areas of improvement.”

8. Third 15-20 min: The author may now speak! A time for the author to ask clarifying questions or explain what they’re trying to say/do.

9. The author can ask for “prescriptive” feedback (how should they fix the problem?) or not.

10. Last 5 min: everyone says their favorite line from the piece. Everyone loves this part!

The End

This method is wonderfully gentle, provides needed feedback, and ends on a super positive note - with everyone saying that one great line that they loved. Bravo!

Back in the day, the “Iowa Method” (from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop) was notoriously brutal, where you ripped apart the manuscript and the author limped away, shredded to the core¹…this is NOT THAT METHOD.

When is it time to share something? Erin Entrada Kelly has some great advice HERE about knowing “when you’re done”, including:

Are you improving the manuscript or changing it? Are you making it better or just making it different?

I like to: “Write With the Door Closed, Edit With the Door Open.”

Stephen King’s wife, Tabitha, is always his first and last reader. My beta reader(s) is not my husband; it just doesn’t work for us (we’ve tried!) and that’s okay.

Any agent and editor will tell you to have other people (the right people) read your work. From personal experience, they are right. We are too close to our work. Readers will see things we can’t, offer questions and suggestions we need to hear, and maybe even have solutions to a plot point or character arc.

And hey, it’s your manuscript. You only have to change what you want.

Do you have beta readers? Have you ever “workshopped?”

Amy 💕

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the last part

Happy: national book lover’s day! Hal likes Harold (and I like Hal AND Harold); Hal is currently in the stage where every bookshelf is his playground.

School Visits: I’m booking for the school year and would love to visit your school or library. We can talk books, reading, and how to write your own stories…get in touch!

I had an awesome time at a Nashua school last week for a summer reading celebration. Every child got to take home two new books and a backpack!

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read with me:

The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖

Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽

The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!

1. This might be hyperbole, but I heard it was brutal and mostly male