On Being ‘Workshopped’

I’m reviewing feedback I received on a short story that was ‘workshopped’ during the residency portion of my MFA program. For my non-writer friends, ‘to workshop’ is when a group of writers get together and critique each other’s work. I guess it sounds more literary to take a noun and turn it into a verb rather than just use a word, like ‘critique’, that means essentially the same thing. (It’s similar to saying ‘utilize’ when a simple ‘use’ will do.)

At any rate, the workshop group was diverse in terms of age, gender, and level of writing experience. It struck me how different people interpreted the story. The main character is an elderly woman confined to a nursing home. In the first scene, she’s in the bathroom by herself grateful for the grab bar by the toilet. One of the younger writers appeared not to know what a grab bar was. Nor did she understand that the character was elderly. I chalk that up to being young and maybe not exposed much to elderly folks.

Another writer, an older gentleman, didn’t like that I had the main character snort in derision a couple of times. He felt it was unseemly. Others in the group didn’t make the connection between the character shoving her medications down the drain when left alone or spitting them into a tissue with the character’s desire to die.

One of the workshop participants, a friend who is currently dealing with elderly parents not being able to live on their own anymore, got the point of the story. I regretted bringing that story to workshop until my friend told me that it helped her understand the situation from her parents’ point of view. And that’s exactly how I wanted the story to touch the reader.