Fiction 143 [M] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] - Classroom A - Classroom B - Classroom CLesson 4: Critique WeekThis week it's important to review the workshop guidelines and read the work of your classmates carefully. Our goal is to help others shape and clarify their stories. When analyzing other's stories, you'll find your ability to look at your own stories critically will improve. Although we have guidelines and may understand the elements of fiction, a good story often goes beyond the conventional. We should be honest with ourselves about our work; it is very easy to cop out and call a story "experimental" or some other name that is often synonymous with laziness. (I've pulled this one myself more than once in college workshops.) We can tell where our work stands by looking at the elements and conventions as benchmarks. If we are writing unconventional stories, the diversion from convention should be guided by purpose and strategy. We don't necessarily know what our purpose or strategy is until after the first draft, which is really the act of discovery. Often, in a first draft, readers will notice the real story before the author does. So look carefully for the real story when reading other's works.
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