How to Run a Successful
Writing Workshop
I have recently been asked to run a few workshops and I have
been very happy to do so. In my efforts to organise stimulating and interesting
sessions, I did some research about how to run a workshop and tried to think
back to ones I’ve attended myself in my past.
Having worked in the council, I have attended many workshops
– indeed, in order to access a good buffet, the trade-off was the workshop. I
learned how to mediate, manage my time, work safely and countless other
pointless things that I forgot the finer detail of as soon as I devoured the
vegetable and cheese bites. I couldn’t think of any that I wanted to organise
my own workshops around.
I then tried to recall the writing workshops I’d attended to see if I could get inspiration /
completely copy. It was then that I started to shudder …
The first one I went to was very nearly the last. It was
held in the arse end of a damp skittle alley attached to a failing pub. The first
session was about characterisation and it could have been OK, had it not been
for the woman who was treating the whole day as a therapy session. “Write down
your most embarrassing moment,” called out the tutor and everyone scribbled
away (I could only bring myself to write my fifth most embarrassing moment and that
was written in code). We then discussed in length the therapy patient’s most
embarrassing moment (which was really really embarrassing and I had to stop
myself staring at her with my mouth open).
Then we
had to write our most joyous, and again we discussed this woman’s most joyous.
Then the session ended and I never got to understand what the point of it was
supposed to have been.
The
next session was split into two and we had to choose which one to attend. I was
intending to make my choice purely on which one the embarrassing woman wasn’t in: luckily she went Performing
Poetry which left me in Writing Erotica – might
be interesting, I smiled smuttily …
The
tutor for my erotica workshop was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, when I had
expected at least a whore in a basque. She welcomed us all – seven women and
one man – into a damp side room and spread two rolls of wallpaper out on the
table: one had a drawing of a naked woman on, the other a naked man.
Our tutorial
exercise was to think of all the names that we could call the private parts on
the drawings and we started very politely suggesting bottom or foo foo and the
woman in the sweatshirt would write them down with her marker pen in the appropriate
place. It didn’t take long for me to get bored and start shouting out NORKS! or
RINGPIECE! Then the only man in the group started getting a bit over-excited
and left for the toilet. I shouted COCK as he left and then the session shut
down as we all decided it was all a bit uncomfortable and that we should call
it a day.
By the
time the bloke returned, we were chatting about the weather like the erotica
writers we were. Twat.
But now to some serious points about writing workshops – through
extensive experience, research and feedback, I have found out the following:
1.
People actually don’t want to do much work. They
say they do, but they don’t. They don’t want to write things of no value in ten
minutes and then discuss the work of the noisiest person in the group.
2.
If you are going to have a discussion, chair it
like a demon. Don’t let it be a conversation between the host and the noisy
person.
3.
Teach – asking everyone’s opinion all the time
is a cop out: they’re there to learn from the tutor, otherwise they would just
ask their mates. People’s experience is good to hear, but that can’t be the
main content of your session.
4.
I ask people to write their names on a folded piece
of paper in front of them, so that I can use their names and make sure that I’m
including every person, rather than just asking an open question that the noisy
one answers every time.
5.
Make sure you speak to every person as they
arrive / leave and thank them for coming. Be in charge, even if you feel a bit
of a fraud for being so – attendees are expecting you to be in charge, so
pretend that you are!
6.
Don’t base your whole workshop on naming rude
parts. NOB!
7.
Demonstrate points through popular fiction: most
people at a writing workshop will probably be well-read, and a good way to
illustrate your points are through well-known texts.
8.
I try and break a workshop down into chunks so
that themes and the tempo changes. After a dry old lecturing bit, I give people
an exercise to do – finding common mistakes (that I’ve just discussed) in a
piece of text. We can then discuss the mistakes in the text – rather than discussing
one person’s work, thus there is common ground and everyone can join in without
feeling shy / embarrassed / fed up with the noisy one.
9.
We have a tea break and I use this to make sure
I’m on track time wise – if I’m ahead of time, I drag out the tea-break. If I’m
behind, I get them to bring their cuppas back to the table.
10.
After a bit more talking, I get them to do a fun
task – like a haiku or something they can do in five minutes. Then more
talking, then the haiku’s get read out and judged, splitting up the talking
again.
11.
Finally, a question and answer session allows
the workshop to finish on time – as it can be two minutes or an hour, depending
on how badly the tutor has kept time!
I hope that the above is useful. But if it’s made you
realise that you can’t run a workshop, and would be far better to pay someone experienced
and lovely like me to do it, please let me know. I promise not to do anything on wallpaper.
WILLY!