The Creators’ Conscience

Writing Workshop

I was first introduced to the writer’s workshop last year in my creative writing class. I cannot believe that I was not exposed to this sooner. When my professor initially described the concept to our class, I was less than thrilled. I don’t know why I had reservations about sharing my work with my fellow classmates when I am eager to eventually share my work with the entire world.

I suppose the reasons for my negative feelings had to do with previous encounters with sharing my work in class. Often, classmates do not really care about your work and do not offer constructive advice. Many people are afraid to say anything negative about other people’s work so they lie and praise errors which makes the process useless.

However, last year I was lucky to be put in a group of people who were equally serious about their writing  and the experience was eye opening. Our process was that we would bring our first draft to the group, another member would read it aloud and discuss its positive and negative points with the group while the author remained silent. Then the author had a chance to make explanations, ask questions, and leave with plenty of productive feedback to further perfect the piece.

I feel that this type of collaboration is extremely beneficial to the writing process and should be utilized whenever writer’s have the chance.