No Good Workshop Goes Unpunished

By Vivian Gonzalez on May 30, 2013

Let’s talk about the college student/writer’s perpetual, and often exhausting, quest to find decent writing workshops.  Indeed, it is by far one of the most time-consuming and ultimately least satisfying ventures of the college experience.  But why is it so difficult to get into good workshops?  Shouldn’t they be readily available? After all, they are what the whole of our college careers as writers are built off of and an ultimate tool in improving our writing, if not altogether teach us to write. And yet… They too often fall short.

How disappointing is this downward spiral into the dark abyss when the student sitting next to you reads an “original” story lacking plot/ character development, substance but even, you guessed it, creativity.

Oh so that’s why the workshops suck? No.  They suck because of the more than traumatizing manner in which professors or TAs and even fellow students sit behind their desks and blatantly LIE!  That girl’s story, about how she met the love of her life at a grocery store but never saw him again until he coincidentally moved next door to her a few years down the road and then they miraculously and unexpectedly got engaged… Was NOT good.  So why pretend it was? But they do pretend; everyone claps when she finishes reading it and praise her stylistic choices along with her extraordinary character development and bold lexicon.  This is not okay people!  There is no need to be rude, hurtful, or cruel when critiquing a piece of writing but there should be a certain level of understanding (on behalf of both the criticizer and the criticized) that lying leaves little to no room for improvement.  I’ve been in countless workshops where I am fully aware of my crappy and unsophisticated writing.  Yet, I’ve received marvelous feedback…

 

What’s that face people make nowadays to represent skepticism?  oh yeah, -_-  Give me truth or give me death.

 

No really, I’d rather not go the rest of my life believing that I’m the next best thing when, realistically, I should consider a different career path. As a matter of fact, I spent the first two years of college believing that I was a sophisticated, mature, intellectual, philosophical prodigy with a pen.  It was not until my junior year that I had the fortune of getting into an excellent workshop with an excellent professor that I realized: I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE!  still have miles to go before I can even begin to consider myself a competent writer.  I had been living under the pretense that my work was magazine worthy, precisely because no one took the time to tell me otherwise.  What’s worse, I never realized it on my own because everyone else’s writing was either on my terrible level or beneath it ! Which brings me to the next point:  Why do most professors let just anybody in to their workshops?  Honest to providence, I would rather have saved myself the embarrassment of sitting through a terrible workshop!  Here’s an idea: workshop admittance should be based on personal essay or short story sample submissions.  Seriously, I was not ready for half the workshops I was admitted into on the mere premise that it was a first come, first serve basis.  First of all, writers are perpetual procrastinators, cut us some slack, and second, why let in completely talentless newbies (such as myself) into senior level workshops?  I was lucky enough (though three years in) to be surrounded by amazing, talented, and most importantly honest individuals that helped me improve my art, but not very many students are as fortunate as I.  Unfairly so, if one really considered it, and not on the mere premise that everyone should have an opportunity to truly know how they are writing but also because college classes are not free.  Which brings me to yet another point: We pay hundred, even thousands of dollars for classes that are simply not up to par!  I don’t want to be anxiously anticipating who will text me next, I want to be dynamically involved, really, just DYNAMITE.  Especially for all the money I’m paying.  And yet, it is so easy to wander…  


Anyways, fellow writers and loyal readers, the best advice I can foster is to be proactive.  Get to know the professors you want to take classes with before actually signing up for the workshops.  read their articles, essays, books, ask fellow students about their personal experiences, in short… be involved.  

Till next week all!   
The face of boredom- Me at a workshop last semester.

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