Why It’s Helpful to Take a Creative Writing Workshop

Confession: when I signed up for my first novel writing workshop, I didn’t think it would be that helpful. Really, I signed up as a last resort.

When I hit a roadblock trying to turn Hyggely Ever After from a rom-com into women’s fiction, my confidence crumbled. I doubted myself as a writer, and I doubted I could make my story into the version I knew it could be. 

As you all remember, I threw in the towel and decided to shelve the manuscript. I moved on to writing Novel #4 and was determined not to look back. 

A few weeks later, an email from The Writers Circle serendipitously found its way into my inbox. Still grumbling over my shattered dreams, I clicked it open and bitterly browsed the course options for the upcoming Fall 2022 semester.

That’s when a workshop about “revising a manuscript” caught my eye. 

I pitched the idea of taking the writing workshop to my husband over dinner later that night. “I just want to give Hygge with a Husband [that was the rom-com working title back then] one more shot,” I cried. “If it doesn’t work, I really will put this story aside.”

As always, Mr Tart was fully supportive of my writing, and he encouraged me to pursue this last-ditch effort to save Novel #3. I applied for The Novel Continuum writing workshop the next day. 

BEST. DECISION. EVER.

Why I signed up for a creative writing workshop

I signed up for a writing workshop to get “professional help.” Help with figuring out where I’d gotten “stuck” in revising my manuscript, and help with figuring out why I kept getting stuck every time I tried to rewrite the story. 

My writing has always been better when I receive encouragement and constructive criticism. In high school, this came from my (amazing, wonderful) English teachers. As an adult, I’ve struggled to find that same kind of professional creative guidance. I’d been attempting to revise Hyggely Ever After myself and with help from my ever-patient, long-suffering critique partner, Kait. But, both our best editorial efforts weren’t enough to break through whatever was holding me back.

It was time to bring in the big guns: a published author. Someone who knows how to write a story and has the publication credentials to back it up.

The instructor I selected (there was a choice of three) was Caitlin (Katie) Barasch, author of A Novel Obsession, which was fresh, clever, and excellently written. I loved Katie’s story and just knew that she would be a huge help in revising my manuscript. We didn’t write in the same genre, and her style of writing is very different from mine, but good writing is good writing. 

The night before my first creative writing workshop

Despite my excitement to be working with a published author, I was still apprehensive about taking a writing workshop. I’m not fond of sharing my work with others until (I feel) it’s as perfect as can be, and the whole point of a workshop is to share your messy, unperfect drafts with the instructor and — gulp — other writers in your class. 

Also? I’m totally embarrassed to admit this now, but I wasn’t looking forward to working with said “other writers.” I didn’t think I would get anything out of working with anyone who also needed to take a workshop.

Was this incredibly awful of me? Yes. Totally. But, that’s how I felt at the time. I didn’t want to read anyone else’s work; I just wanted an instructor to critique my manuscript and help me make it better. Me, me, me. (Can you tell I’m an only child?) That kind of one-on-one instruction is hard to find, though — at least, for a reasonable price. A writing workshop held with other writers seemed to be my only option. 

For the record, I was totally wrong (and an asshole) for thinking that working with other writers wouldn’t be helpful. But, we’ll talk more about that later. 

What happens in a creative writing workshop?

Every instructor conducts their writing workshop differently, but here’s basically what happened with mine.

General Information:

• The workshop semester ran from September – December 2022, and we met every Thursday evening.
• This workshop was virtual and took place entirely over Zoom.
• This workshop was by application/invite only — each writer had to submit a writing sample for consideration and possible acceptance into the program.
• This workshop required you to already have a fully completed first draft manuscript before beginning the semester. 
• This workshop had four writers in it, including me. 

The specifics:

The first class was an introductory meeting to get to know the instructor and our fellow writers. We each read aloud the first five pages from our manuscripts in order to get a feel for each other’s stories and writing styles.

After that, each week pretty much went like this:

• Monday: submit our pages for the upcoming Thursday’s class. This was also the time for each writer to submit specific questions about their pages (ex: does this ending work? did you find this character believable in this scene? am I using too much dialogue or not enough?)
• Tuesday – Thursday morning: Katie and writers read all submitted pages and prep notes to bring to Thursday’s class.
• Thursday evening: time for class! We’d log onto Zoom at 7pm sharp, and Katie would kick off the class by giving us her impressions and critiques of our pages. After that, she’d open up the discussion to our fellow writers for their feedback. Since it was a 2-hour class and there were four writers in the workshop, each writer received about 30 minutes of feedback, which was usually enough for the chapter we were discussing that day. We workshopped a chapter per week, per writer. 
• Friday – Sunday: this time was spent revising our next chapters, which would then be submitted for review the following Monday. Repeat process for 10 weeks! 

Was the writing workshop difficult?

Participating in the writing workshop was one of the most difficult things I’ve done. As an unpublished, un-agented writer, I’ve had the luxury of drafting and revising four novels on my own timeline. Since the workshop encouraged us to submit a new (or revised) chapter each week, I was working on a deadline for the first time. 

Writing on a deadline is intense. Each weekend between class and our next submission due date just flew by, and it wasn’t long before I understood why we needed a completed first draft in order to participate in the workshop. Revising chapters was time-consuming enough; drafting a new manuscript in this time period would have been difficult. 

I decided to tackle the deadline issue by blocking off every weekend in Fall 2022 to revise my manuscript. As someone with a traditional 9-5 weekday job and no children, this become-a-hermit method worked really well for me. It’s not sustainable in the long-run for future writing deadlines, but it got the job done at the time.

How the creative writing instructor helped me

As I expected, working with a creative writing instructor who’s also a published author was incredibly helpful. Good writers aren’t always great editors, but Katie happens to be both. Her exceptional writing skills and knowledge combined with her publishing experience provided the best constructive criticism I could have gotten. 

Katie had a wonderful way of starting each class with what she loved about our pages to build up our confidence, and then moving to the more problematic elements of our works. She also addressed any questions we raised when we submitted our pages. More often than not, we writers found a way to fix our problem areas, enhance our writing, and create better and better chapters each week. 

Over the course of 10 weeks, I slowly but steadily revised Hyggely Ever After. Fresh insight into my story helped me fix problematic chapters, and the constant ricocheting of new ideas helped me create brand-new chapters. I slowly and carefully moved the focus of the story from my main character finding a husband (rom-com) to the MC finding herself (women’s fiction). In the end, I created the story I knew had been inside me all along. 

About those other writers in my workshop…

Yeah… let’s circle back to how I felt about other writers being in my workshop. I’m cringing right now because I know how incredibly conceited and snobbish I sound. I know, okay? I’m only admitting that I thought these things because it’s important for you to understand how incredibly wrong I was. 

Just as important as Katie’s feedback was that of my fellow writers. Even though none of us wrote in the same genres, everyone was able to provide constructive criticism on everyone’s pieces. Instead of seeing our stories through one extra set of eyes, we had four. That means four chances for positive feedback and four chances to make changes. Even better, each writer had her own unique style of writing, which pushed all of us to experiment with different writing styles in our own works. 

By the time the last few classes rolled around, I cared deeply about each and every one of their stories. There was a cozy and intriguing mystery, a brilliant psychological thriller, and a swoony and dramatic romance — and all of them were fantastic. I was totally invested in how these writers wanted to revise their manuscripts, and I was just as dedicated to helping them as they were to helping me. Working with other writers made me better editor, which in turn made me a better writer.

I also like to think it made me a better person. One who’s not an asshole about teamwork and new experiences. 

How much did I love my creative writing workshop?

I ended up loving my writing workshop so much that I signed up for a second semester. With the same instructor and, as luck would have it, the same classmates, plus one.

At the end of 2022, most of us were halfway through our manuscript revisions. And, we’d all gotten to know each other’s stories so well that we wanted to keep on working with Katie and each other. So, we all signed up for another 10 weeks of writing workshop for the Winter 2023 semester. Most, if not all of us finished revising our manuscripts by the end of the second semester.

Should you take a creative writing workshop?

I absolutely recommend taking a creative writing workshop if you’re looking to improve your writing, or even if you’re just looking to find a writing community. There are so many types of workshops available out there: ones for revising manuscripts and ones for drafting your first novel. Workshops for writing fiction and for writing non-fiction, like memoirs. Workshops for adults, for teens, and even for kids. The opportunities are endless. 

If you’d like to take the same writing workshop I took, you’re in luck: Katie will be virtually teaching a new semester of The Novel Continuum with The Writing Circle this October. You can apply for the workshop using this link. 

I encourage you to browse The Writing Circle‘s wide selection of virtual and in-person classes. [Note: this is not a paid advertisement; I just really, really like TWC.]

What about you?

What about you, my fellow writers? Have you ever taken a writing workshop? Or, are you thinking of taking a workshop but are maybe nervous about it? I hope this (super long) post has been helpful and informative, and I hope you’ll share your writing workshop experiences with us in the comments below!