Workshops - the variety of author and critic expectations

There are many styles of critiques, even at workshops. Some have names (Narratology, Deconstructionism, etc), some are tendencies (character-based, language-based, publishing-oriented etc).

There many types of critic. Some have one style of critiquing (whether or not they can relate to the main character, for example - a Goodreads favourite), some have a preferred style, some try to choose a commenting style most applicable to the work, or mix styles.

There are many types of stories and poems. Sometimes the type is obvious (a story may be for little children, for example) and people find it easy enough to provide appropriately styled comments. Sometimes though the type isn't obvious (or commenters don't know about it) and the story/poem might look more like a poor example of a known type rather than a good example of a new type. As an analogy, consider someone who's only ever seen old still-life paintings of fruit. If they see a Cezanne they might consider the blotchy apples as bad realism. If they see a Cubist piece they might be perplexed, but at least they'd understand that it's not trying to be realistic.

To confuse the issue even further, some pieces (Modernist ones in particular) switch between types. If transitions happen at the ends of chapters (e.g. Joyce's "Ulysses"), inexperienced readers might cope. Problems arise with something like Eliot's "The Waste Land" where the mode might change line-by-line without warning.

All this can make workshop meetings confusing, especially to newcomers. It's like the blind men and the elephant, only worse. It's nice to have a mix of comment styles at meetings so that the text is looked at from various viewpoints. Alas, the approaches clash.

• A publishing-oriented critic (n.b. Angela Carter thought a story was unfinished until it was published) may say that a story is not worth working on because the plot's too common ("No Covid stories", I've heard publishers say. "Please, no more dementia stories" I've seen guidelines say) while the prime reaction of those who empathise with the characters may be that the piece is very moving, and the first commenter is insensitive
• An Identity Politics critic may be outraged that a white straight man is writing a first-person story about a persecuted afro-american gay, whereas a New Criticism commenter will deliberately ignore what they know about the author.
• A person who mostly reads whodunnits might judge stories by their plots, thinking that something is defective in a vignette, mood piece, or a story by Beckett.
• A person who wants to see interiority may not be impressed by a story in the style of Robbe-Grillet.
• A story where the main character has extremely racist opinions may be praised by some for its realism, but found offensive by others (especially if the character doesn't get their comeuppance!)
• Readers impressed by florid imagery may highlight for praise the very sentences that other readers condemn as purple prose.
• Confessionalist poets and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets might not see eye to eye.

As in the still-life analogy, problems arise when the genres are close or overlap. Critics are often advised to determine whether a piece is "good of its type", but if they don't know the type, such an evaluation is difficult. That said, it's far from always necessary to identify the genre in order to make worthwhile comments, and especially in a workshop, genre shouldn't an excuse to get away with anything (extreme pornography, say). Even when the type is recognised, there can still be problems - discussion might be more about the validity of the genre than the piece itself (e.g. the use of an unreliabile narrator upsets some people).

Just as texts can belong to genres, so can comments, and similar evaluation difficulties apply. A critic may disagree with another's comments because they've not recognised the style of the comments.

On top of all that there are personality differences between members in a group.

• A strident Identity Politics person can use their moral compass to censor stories.
• A listener can feel they should interrupt a reader to ask why there hadn't been a trigger warning (sometimes with good reason, though as Clare Shaw in "Poetry projects to make and do" pointed out, for some people "poetry around abuse and assault could leave them feeling validated and heard, whereas poetry around happy, carefree childhoods could trigger feelings of grief and isolation")
• Some authors write primarily for themselves. They enjoy writing and reading out. They won't take their stories beyond the group. Others are trying to have their work accepted elsewhere, using the group as alpha or beta readers. The last thing they want is flattery (one of them said that instead of the "say 3 positive things for each negative one" rule, the rule should be "say a negative thing for each 3 positive ones")

There aren't easy solutions to all this.

• A strict format to the meeting/comments can help.
• A very hands-on focaliser can be useful.
• Groups that are big enough are sometimes carefully split into two to reduce the friction.
• It's all very well suggesting that commenters be tolerant of other types of stories and critiques, but what if they think that Cezanne's apples are Vermeer's on a bad day?
• What if an author wants feedback that others might think unconstructive - should it be supplied by mail after the meeting?
• What if an author brings a piece in that they know to be bad in order to assess the usefulness of the group?

I've seen things like the following happen when there's been intervention -

• A person who thought that a piece was poorly written - fragmented etc - was told that it's Modernism. The person said that they knew a bad story when they read one (though they said they'd not read any Modernism before, and don't intend to read any in the future).
• After receiving some suggestions for tweaks from various people, a person was told that their story wasn't worth working on - flogging a dead horse. At the end of the meeting, once the final critic had left, the author was apologised to on behalf of the critic but the author wanted just that type of helpful comment - they'd tried something in a style new to them and knew that the critic was familiar with the style.
• A poet was praised for their ironic use of cliché. They hadn't been aware that they'd been using clichés.

I think writers groups are likely to have more problems than many other types of groups -

• There are more neurodiverents than average
• The "support group" and "how to write better" models can clash. Some writers (especially when they pay for sessions) expect to be told what's wrong with their work. Others need their self-confidence boosted before they can write - one piece of negative criticism is enough to stall them. In "How to be a poet" poet and editor Jane Commane wrote "I was unfortunate several years ago to be in receipt of some bad advice about my writing ... For more than three years I wrote little poetry, and lost faith in almost everything I had ever written ... I'd been reading and editing manuscripts for several years by this time, as well as teaching workshops and mentoring poets"
• There are many more genres/types to flick between, many language games to negotiate, and texts have levels that readers can travel through, up and down. A person who's adept when at (say) committee meetings at work may not have the agility to notice (or keep up with) all the sudden, unsignposted context switches when visiting a writers group (especially a poetry group). Orwell's advice was that prose style should be transparent, that you shouldn't be distracted by the language, but apparently he was in favour of The Waste Land (in principle anyway) and was obsessed for a while with Ulysses, more upset by its lack of political awareness than by its obscurity. I think that many prose pieces can still be read (by non-deconstructionists) as if language were like clear glass. However, I think much modern poetry (and especially discussion about poetry) requires an acceptance of the "play" (looseness) of language and context, of the (possibly) uncertain context affecting the meaning of words, of the context being retrospectively changed.