Writers -- very important question, how to you reclaim your story from being... hijacked by a workshop?

How do you free yourself from other people's opinions about your writing?





I'm interested b/c I'm in a writing workshop, and I feel like it's bogging down the book and forcing it to become... like high literature or something. It's a doctoral course/workshop (I'm not a doctoral student, I'm in a teaching certification program and had instructor permission), and we're reading masterpieces from nobel winners, camus, coetzee, sebald, classics like niche, etc. etc. but I feel like these books are too sophisticated and metaphysical for, like, a science-fiction adventure following the deeds of heroic skateboarders! I also wonder if they're just not the right audience, or something...





The professor loves some of my latest modifications that have kinda hopped aboard the metaphysical train, but my favorite audience that I *love* reading to -- my girl friend and family -- just don't think its the same story, and it really makes me feel bad...





Any opinions or similar experiences?

Writers -- very important question, how to you reclaim your story from being... hijacked by a workshop?
Sorry to say but there are few, and arguably none, of the courses in a liberal arts college that will teach you how to write a story. Instead, after the 1960s, schools moved from the extrinsic of teaching stories to the intrinsic. For example, the quest and story arch used to be taught but now literary analysis such as gender identity and author intent, and as you discovered, the metaphysical, has replaced the craft of storytelling. In my opinion, shared with many others, the schools have it backwards and should first concentrate on teaching how to simply tell a story before moving to the intrinsic of storytelling. There is plenty of material to teach about that.





These creative writing workshops are useful, though, if you need discipline to write. Otherwise, you are correct: you are wasting your time.





You might want to find a new writer's group and also devote yourself to self-studying the craft of storytelling. If there's only one book I'd recommend, it's "Story" by Robert McKee. In fact, that book is used as a text book in film schools where storytelling is still taught. Get your hands on that at Amazon.





Then, join writers groups online or offline as well as visit other websites where the craft of storytelling still lives.





Good luck!
Reply:I don't have a lot of experience and I'm new to the whole writing world - (I've just recently begun to get serious about it) but something in my text book stands out to me as I read your dilemma. That is the line "Know your Audience." You say that you've made modifications your professor loves, but that you love reading to your friends and family. Who is the audience that you are writing for? Are they more like your friends and family or are they more like your professor? Once you've decided that, I'd ask if maybe you have two books in you with a similar story? Maybe one reaches one audience and the one reaches another. In this day of computer writing, it should be pretty easy to save the draft of your original writing until after you finish the workshop. If you want to go back to the original after you've seen what comes of it through the workshop, it shouldn't be that hard. Use the workshop as an experiment in possibilities.





Good Luck.





I have to defend a little of what I wrote. Bardsand, below me, obviously has greater credentials than I do, but I don't think what I said was wrong - though perhaps a little misunderstood. Obviously she is right about your family loving whatever you do - most likely. When I read my college sons' papers, I'm brutally honest with them, so it is not always true that familial feedback is tainted. However, what I meant was that the professor of a doctoral workshop may be thinking on a higher educational plane for your work. His ideas may be removing the things that make it appeal to the regular joe. Maybe, your family represents that audience a little better, and whether or not you can fully accept their feedback may remain to be seen. So, when I said you should save "as is" and then make the changes for the workshop - what I'm really saying is, once you've learned what you can from your professor, look back at the original and decide what you like best.





In an article I read recently (sorry, can't recall the source) the author said that you have to shop for publishers as well. While one may rip it to shreds and want to change it totally, another might think it's perfect as is. I believe it was a transcript from Stephenie Meyer, where she advised, you have to be willing to fight for you characters and your story. Only you know what it is you want them to say.





Again I say, Good Luck!
Reply:Understand this, your girlfriend and family are not actually your target market. Your family and friends ALWAYS love what you write. Every time a writer tells me how much their mom, dad, sister, cousin, etc loves something, I cringe. Because these people are pre-disposed to like your work. And even if they didn't, they wouldn't say otherwise.





Your goal is not to please your girlfriend with your book (unless you are writing love poems). Your goal is to expand your abilities as a writer. The thing about writing workshops is that you don't HAVE to take the suggestions of the professor or your peers. The idea is to listen to the suggestions, and determine what works and what doesn't.





You may be setting the bar "too low" for yourself. There is nothing that says your sci-fi adventure can't also appeal to a more literary audience. It may be you drawing that distinction, not your professor. "Literary" has a lot of meanings. "Dracula" is literary fiction, but it's also one of the greatest vampire novels of all time.





Yo may be feeling overly protective. I suspect you've written mostly in the vacuum of your circle of friends and family, and heard very little objective criticism of your work. Now all of the sudden you are being given a lot of criticism you never heard (because your family and friends would never think to) and now you feel defensive. The reality is, people don't bother critiquing something they feel has no value. I suspect your professor sees how good your story CAN be, and is going to drag you kicking and screaming to make it the best.





I went through this recently with one of my authors. There were a few holes in the novel that needed clarification, but he did TOO much patching, so to speak, and we had to edit out some stuff. He got very upset at first because he felt I was destroying his work. But after we went over the final proof, he saw how much better the overall story was.





Remember, it isn't about YOU. It's about the story.
Reply:Maybe you are wasting their time.
Reply:Honestly? If you're that protective over your story then you shouldn't be workshopping it. Workshopping is for writing that has stalled out or that you're fundamentally unsure of, not for something that just needs polishing.





Your professor has his or her own opinions about what makes a good story, but that doesn't mean they're the right ones. There is no right and wrong in writing, as I'm sure you know, and - in my opinion anyway - there is no 'formula' to a good story. Some of my favourite novels of all time would make a writing teacher scream and tear out their hair with their meandering plots and lack of real structure, but that doesn't make them any less great.





If you're starting to feel like your story is being taking away from where you want it to go then it means you have confidence in it again and need to go away and work on it by yourself. Conversely, if you feel like your teacher's ideas are good and that it would benefit your story in the long run to move in another direction, then it's time to leave the comfortable, non-critical audience that is your family and friends and take the other route.





At the end of the day, if you're as serious about this writing lark as I am (!) you're in this to improve and to create better and better writing. You need to listen to someone whose opinion you trust.