Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping

by Matthew Salesses

you have been taught a style popularized by Ernest Hemingway and later by Raymond Carver, sometimes described as “invisible,” that is committed to limiting the use of modifiers and metaphors, to the concrete over the abstract, to individual agency and action, and to avoiding overt politics (other than the politics of white masculinity). Instead of a political argument, a character might angrily eat a potato. This is supposed to leave conclusions up to readers, though what it really means is that the ideology of craft is to hide its ideology. Bennett, like Kim, wants to know, what is the meaning of that? Why did this craft model that emphasizes restrained formal techniques become so dominant? The answer Bennett comes to is that limits and formal concerns are easy to regulate and reproduce. If the Workshop is supposed to spread American values without looking like it is spreading American values, what better craft for the job than the craft of hiding meaning behind style?

There is no universal standard of craft—this can’t be emphasized enough—but this in no way means that fiction can be separated into on the one hand Western realism and on the other hand various exceptions to it (genre or foreign or experimental or so on). Instead, we must view other standards as exactly that—not as exceptions but as norms. Diversity, in the parlance of our times, should not be tokenism.

Craft is not about cultural exceptions, but about cultural expectations—which means we need to understand traditions, not individual books. We need to learn both the conventions of a tradition and the experiments and exceptions and other genres that have influenced, resisted, and changed it. The tradition of stories within stories, looping or intersection or nesting or framing or so forth, in which we could include contemporary novels like the American middle-grade novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, and the Chinese literary novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, by Mo Yan, is a tradition that goes back at least to the Thousand and One Nights. A better understanding of this tradition would, for example, have allowed critics to see recent novels like Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life or David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas as Western adaptations of long-held Eastern storytelling practices rather than as products of brilliant innovation. How can a writer know the many possibilities of what they can do without knowing many different ways that things have been done before and where their possibilities have come from?

but to want to write toward other rules that better represent one’s reality (for example) is another. The American writer of color who wants to break free of the white literary tradition might unsurprisingly think her only option is experimentalism. To experiment against a white literary tradition, however, is not to free oneself from white tradition but to face the whiteness of the American avant-garde. (For people who ask why more writers of color do not write “experimental fiction,” this may get at why.) Experimentalism is experimental with regard to a specific tradition. Asian American fiction, for example, has its own tradition and experiments, into which an Asian American writer enters—if she is able to see that tradition as a possibility. If only one tradition is taught, some writers will always find more possibilities than others.

Chinese Theories of Fiction, by Ming Dong Gu, which is the rare book that attempts a systematic classification of Chinese narrative theory—in English, by a scholar of Chinese descent. Most of the field of Chinese narrative theory is written by white scholars. Scholars of the Chinese diaspora have tended to focus on historical perspectives and/or studies of individual classic works. Gu himself is forced to spend chunks of his book pointing out this lack. In order to move his field forward, he first has to take it apart by showing that many leading white scholars have misunderstood, or even ignored, Chinese narratological tradition. He quotes Western scholars’ claims that Chinese fiction includes an “undefinable inadequacy” and is “vaguely wanting.” Gu argues that what Western scholars see as idiosyncrasies are not inadequacies; rather, “they are characteristic features that grew out of the philosophical, social, cultural, and aesthetic conditions” of a distinctly Chinese narratological tradition.

He lists ten ways in which Chinese tradition is different from Western tradition: (1) Chinese fiction comes from street talk and gossip, not the epic or the romance; (2) the main narrative might be accompanied by commentary from another fictional character included or not in the story; (3) the narrator or author can interrupt at any time and point out the fictionality of the work (as in metafiction); (4) the author and reader may show up within the story as themselves (sometimes associated with postmodernism); (5) the inclusion of multiple unreliable narrators; (6) the fantastic is a part of the everyday world (as in magical realism); (7) intertextuality, especially the inclusion of poems and songs; (8) multiple conflicting points of view; (9) episodic structure; and (10) a mix of formal language with vernacular or even vulgar language.

Chinese fiction has always existed in opposition to historical narrative. History recorded the official versions; fiction, when it was recorded, were the stories common folk told each other, the unofficial versions, and reflect this in their craft. In this context, for example, it makes sense for Chinese fiction to insist that any narrative has a teller and that the teller may or may not be reliable—and to include multiple tellers. The vulgarity and vernacular may also be meant to disrupt official storytelling.

The Asian American classic No-No Boy is about a man who said no to the two “loyalty questions” that prisoners were given (one whether they would give up Japanese citizenship—though it was illegal for Japanese immigrants, mostly parents, to become American citizens—and the other whether they would fight in the War, on the American side of course). In No-No Boy, Ichiro has just gotten out of prison after the War and has returned to Seattle, where he is mostly treated terribly. The novel often goes from third person to first person, as he argues with himself. In addition, there is the perspective of his friend Kenji, who fought in the War and was injured—fatally, it turns out. Ichiro and Kenji seem to function as two sides of the same person, as is often pointed out by literary critics. Like traditional Chinese fiction, the novel is criticized for its “flat” characters and for its mix of more formal language with the vernacular. (It is also praised for these things, depending on the critic.)

Asian American writer wanted to counter the stories told about her, about her identity, about her parents’ identities, about her place in historical narrative. This is where my interest lies. When in the Western canon we encounter strategies like the interrupting author or commentary from other characters, it’s often as part of the postmodernist project of finally challenging the earlier (perceived) authority and authenticity of the author. These models are not the best for an Asian American writer. In fiction like that by David Foster Wallace or Paul Auster, political critique is hidden in intellectual critique, consideration of privilege is rare, race is mostly ignored. In the tradition of Asian American literature, resistance is a part of the canon (to the point that fiction that less models resistance may be too easily dismissed), and novels like The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, or No-No Boy, or Dogeaters, by Jessica Hagedorn, regularly explore the question of what is “real” vs. “what is the movies”;

disrupt authorial authenticity and/or presence; include other narrators with conflicting points of view; make the fantastic part of the everyday world; contain intertextuality; offer unofficial stories as primary sources of information; distrust official narrative; etc. To know the history is to know one’s experience of being and speaking in the world is not alone. It is to know what conversations are open to you and your work. It is to know a certain audience.

For Asian American writers, here are some other things one might find useful in the model of traditional Chinese fiction: Telling has priority over showing. The plot structure follows kishotenketsu, which does not require conflict and is a four-act structure rather than a three-act (or five-act) structure. Instead of beginning, middle, and ending (a beginning in which conflict is introduced, a middle in which conflict is faced, an ending in which conflict is resolved), ki is introduction, sho is development, ten is twist, and ketsu is reconciliation. Conflict is not necessary. Poetry has a large influence on fiction, and some stories follow the structure of what Gu calls the “poetic sandwich,” which means the story begins and ends with a poem. Chinese fiction is not afraid of intense emotion. Rather than “showing” the emotion, such as through what T. S. Eliot called the “objective correlative” (for example: pouring water into a cup until it overflows to show sadness or an angel statue with its wings cut off to show the feeling of being trapped), melodrama (see: Asian dramas in which a situation is manufactured to make viewers feel something, such as sudden cancer or memory loss)...

workshop model relies on two premises: (1) that the real author is partly in the dark with regard to her work—or at least with regard to her subconscious intentions and their meaning—and (2) that the workshop can offer an interpretation of the work that will help the author to see either what she is already doing or what she might do instead.

Here are some examples I gave them: Why does the backstory on page 3 come so early? How would the story change if it came later? Why does this story progress in achronological order? What would the story be like if it didn’t? Why does the mother suddenly slap her son? What would the story be like if she hugged him? How does the son know that the father is going to leave the family? What if it was a surprise? Their questions were supposed to be: questions the workshopper did not already know the answer to—i.e., not evaluative statements in the form of questions; not simply matters of information (such as “How old is the narrator?”); and designed to get the author to think rather than to share the thoughts of the workshopper.

Workshop’s greatest pedagogical value is in its ability to help writers clarify their own aesthetics (often referred to as “finding their voice”). But this work does not happen in silence. You clarify your aesthetics by talking and writing about how you believe fiction should work and what you believe fiction should do (that is, by actively engaging with the cultural expectations you have learned and are learning). When the author is allowed to speak, and can steer the conversation, the workshop dynamic does change—getting rid of the gag rule can help set parameters on feedback and make that feedback more helpful—but the way we talk about craft can still feel more like a press conference than a process.

usual power dynamics in the usual workshop (white, straight, cis, able, male, middle-class, etc.)—I’ll come back to this.

being a student in a novel workshop that seemed to change every manuscript for the worse, because the writers listened too much to too many suggestions,

writing is about an audience, and you’re never closer to an audience than when the workshop tells you exactly what it wants. I had tried to satisfy the desires of people who were actually working out for themselves their own desires, and therefore had taken on the concerns of other novels as my own.

In the novel workshop I mentioned, I learned a lot about how a certain kind of novel works and that my idea of a novel was very different from that convention. That was an important lesson. It’s just that my own particular work in progress suffered, because it was decentered by the nature of the workshop. It took me many years to find the center again.

the benefits of critiquing someone else’s story: If we in fact critique other people’s writing through our own writing perspective, that critique helps us to understand ourselves. Since the weaknesses we perceive in a manuscript are weaknesses we perceive, our solutions might be most helpful to the problems we face in our own work. But one writer’s treasure is another writer’s trash. In the two years I spent writing myself out of my novel, I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. I could tell I was getting good advice—I couldn’t tell that it was good advice for someone else.

When I asked my class to workshop the author solely via questions, it was my intent to move the center of the workshop from the workshoppers back to the author. My students seemed ready to embrace this shift wholeheartedly—I think that they wanted to—but in practice I encountered a lot of resistance. They found it difficult to center the author, to ask questions about the story rather than make assumptions, to ask what the author thought about potential issues rather than suggest how to “fix” those issues. I had to stop the workshop several times and redirect our efforts.

for the more talkative members of the workshop, they found it hard to decenter themselves as workshoppers. They were used to feeling ownership over the author’s process. Even the authors felt this way—they were used to workshop taking the work out of their own hands. One student said it made her very uncomfortable to have to answer questions about her own story, rather than sit back and listen. But more than that, I think, they all had gone through many years of school where literature is discussed via interpretation: not by asking questions of the author, but by using the text to answer questions of our own.

I wonder whether my students’ attachment to the cone-of-silence model was precisely because it mimics the real-world power situation. In the world, the majority holds power and we are expected to know its norms. I wonder, too, whether the cone of silence actually encourages writers to think that this is the way life should be—that the person who should benefit most from speaking is the person who has the most power to speak. I wonder, in other words, whether we shortchange our students in terms of their real lives to run a workshop that decenters the lone voice and instead centers the majority.

It is difficult to give up power. Students have been taught to give up their power when they sit in the author’s seat, so they are willing to do that. They haven’t been taught to give up the power of the majority. I have done better since at preparing my students to engage with different expectations—it can be done.

1. Critical Response Process Critical Response Process was developed by artist Liz Lerman and is mostly used for performance and theater arts. But it works for any creative art and is gaining popularity in creative writing workshops. The process consists of four steps: Observations (what Lerman calls “Statements of Meaning”) designed for the author to hear how the workshop reacted to the work. Questions from the artist to the workshop. Questions from the workshop to the artist—these are supposed to be “neutral,” by which Lerman means, without opinion. Suggestions (what Lerman calls “Opinion Time”)—if the artist gives permission.

Modified CRP I often use a modified version of CRP as a starting point, from which the workshop may diverge according to the particular needs of the author and manuscript. The basic steps are below. I will go into more detail at the end of this chapter, especially regarding what students do with the workshop manuscripts before workshop even starts. Of note is that about half of the workshops in any course I teach end up doing something other than this modified CRP. If you are interested in how I pick different approaches for different stories, some of the individual options are listed later in this chapter as “Author-Choice Workshops.” Here are the basic steps of modified CRP: The author submits the workshop manuscript with “Writing Notes” that describe her process, her intended audience, and any craft decisions she made while writing and revising the manuscript. The workshop describes what they have read (such as: the audience and how the author addresses that audience, what kind of story the story is, its shape or tone or so forth, what the story is “about,” genres and craft traditions within which the story is working, etc.). This is not summary or criticism but transparency about the ways the workshop has already constructed the story in its imagination. The author responds to the description and poses a question or multiple questions that frame the discussion that follows. Discussion includes questions from both the author and the workshop. This is a conversation—read...

Partner-Led Workshops In this model writers are paired up for the course according to aesthetic similarities or differences and are in constant communication with each other about their manuscripts. Before workshop, they should meet and discuss particular concerns, fears, desires, etc. for workshop and come up with a plan for how best to approach the story. (A lot of instructor-work is necessary to prepare the workshop for this task—when I lead workshops this way, I check in with each pair every week and sometimes before workshop to discuss the approach ...

Only Questions from the Workshop The workshop asks questions of the author, and nothing else, which the author may choose to answer or simply note. Questions in this kind of workshop require a lot of preparation, so that workshoppers understand and believe in the kind of questions that do not couch opinion. Sometimes, as in Jesse Ball’s model, The Asking, which is based on a Quaker tradition, partners may be used to moderate, which again seems to work best when the partners meet before the workshop and discuss in depth the author’s concerns both about the workshop and about the story. If not the author’s partner, the instructor should meet with the author beforehand and moderate the workshop.

Only Questions from the Author In this model, the workshop sends the marked-up manuscripts and their feedback letters to the author before the workshop begins—at least a couple of days before, but earlier might be preferable. The author reads everything and formulates questions about topics to expand on, ways to approach revision, readerly reactions, etc. In workshop, the author leads the discussion by asking questions that the workshop answers. In my experience, students are eager to try this method, but it works better for advanced students who are more equipped to answer follow-up questions to their critiques. Instructor help is needed to keep this kind of workshop in conversation, rather than in multiple one-on-one interactions between the author and specific peers. Encourage the author to think beyond simply getting clarification. Instead, it should be a way for the author to open doors that they now know exist but do not know where they lead.

Only Suggestions from the Author As in the previous model, the author reviews all feedback days before workshop. She then generates a list of “suggestions,” which consists of changes, additions, and cuts she might make. This list should be possible but not definite—in other words, the suggestions may be things the author has only vaguely thought about or things the author has thought a lot about, but shouldn’t be things the author will definitely do with revision. (It helps to encourage the author to go big, to write down things she might never otherwise attempt, to encourage her to think of the workshop as a way to test out wild ideas.) Ideally, this is a model in which the author imagines the possible versions of the story and the workshop discusses them. Workshop consists of talking through the author’s list. This is meant to prepare the author for revision. It’s also a good way to build confidence and get writers excited about going back to work on their manuscripts.

9. Author-Choice Workshops Each author chooses the parameters of her own workshop—what is permissible and not permissible, what kind of feedback to give, the order of events, the setup of the classroom, etc. The instructor should provide options such as the ones on this list and also open the floor to any additional options that might come up. (I have also chosen these options for students who might be better served by one of these models than by the modified CRP we start with.) Once, a friend told me that when she let her students decide how their workshops would go, one student wanted everyone to lie on the floor, so that no one could see anyone else. This model can also be modified to fall within certain options or guidelines, or to determine specific parts of workshop, such as feedback letters or how to begin the workshop. In partner workshops, the author’s partner might make interesting choices, especially for partners who work well together. Possible choices for individual workshops: Scissors and Tape: Cut up the manuscript and tape it to the wall. There are various ways to approach this. The manuscript might be cut up to separate scene from summary, to separate present story from backstory, to cut up main plot from subplots, to follow certain characters, to follow certain themes, etc. Helpful at first is to tape up the manuscript as it currently stands, simply cut into the separate sections, and arrange it with each page as a column. Then move the pieces around, but...

13. Elements of Fiction This model is particularly useful in beginner workshops. From a list of various elements of fiction that the workshop has already discussed and/or is familiar with (plot, scene, structure, setting, characterization, etc.), writers randomly select one element to talk about. (Perhaps they draw from a hat.) The selection may be done on the spot (which means workshoppers should be familiar with any and all terms) or before the workshop (which allows workshoppers to prepare their remarks). Workshop covers these various elements in the particular workshop manuscript, each element led by a single participant. Alternatively, this model can be done in subgroups, wherein each group workshops a different element (or elements) in the story and then summarizes their conversation in the larger workshop. However, this cuts off some of the author’s access to the particularities of each discussion (for good or ill). 14. Workshop the Workshop After workshopping a manuscript, the workshop workshops the workshop. That is, they discuss what seemed to go well or poorly in the workshop, how they could do better, etc. This model contributes to improved workshops as a course goes on.

1. Writing Notes Each student will write detailed Writing Notes. In these Notes you should reflect on your writing decisions. The Notes should describe your thinking as you apply the exercises and as you consider the readings, discussions, and lessons. For your workshop manuscript, you should describe your process, your intentions, the difficulties you faced, your audience, etc. Basically, you should reflect on your aesthetics as a writer, what you want to do with your writing and how and why. Updated Writing Notes should be dated and turned in weekly via the course page. You will be graded on completion and thoroughness. These notes are for your own use, so they don’t need to be grammatically correct or so forth; they should help you understand what kind of writer you are and want to be/become, by examining where you added writing or deleted writing and why, why a character does one thing and not another and what that means, what your evolving idea of your story and audience is, what you think are your strengths and weaknesses, etc. BE AS SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE.

Do the macro work in the letter and the micro work in the margins.

what-ifs (e.g. what if this evil character had a really nice friend?)

Never skimp on the questions in favor of suggestions. Making observations and asking questions are more about the author; suggestions are more about the workshopper.