Dreamweb

“And one of the things they’ll try to do is they’ll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.

“And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.

“New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they’re really good at doing a bad thing, and they’re doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story.”

Then, last fall, my very last semester of college, I took a class with a professor who told us that we were not going to use the classic workshop format. Instead of writing down everything that we thought our classmates should do, we were assigned to ask them questions. And as writers, we were assigned not to sit passively while feedback was fired at us, but to ask questions, to explain what we had been going for and ask if it worked, and if not to brainstorm together how we might make it work.

It was miraculous. Instead of shutting my mind down, this workshop process blew it wide open. Instead of going home after class dispirited, never wanting to touch my story again, I went home inspired, with a hundred new ideas.

Here is how I taught feedback, in case there are any other creative writing teachers on tumblr who want to use this model. Please feel free to replicate this in your own classrooms. (Long post, so it’s under a read-more)

I love second-person because it’s a conversation. Does “you” mean a broad, indefinite “you”? Does “you” really mean “I” but with plausible deniability? Does “you” mean one specific person? Can they hear the narrator? Do they know the narrator? What is the relationship here? Who’s talking? Who’s listening?

I love third-person limited because it’s focused and intimate. What does the world look like from inside this character’s head? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? It doesn’t grant them the privacy that first-person does; the narrative isn’t something they’ve chosen, it’s invisible and inescapable. As a reader you’re not watching so much as astral projecting.

(I love singular point of view because of how much it leans into that limitation. You’re not getting the whole story; you’re not seeing anything unless this character sees it. How do you embrace that? What do you do with the gaps around the edges? How does that define–or warp–the events that they’re experiencing?

I love multiple points of view because of how it broadens your understanding of the story and the world. If two point-of-view characters react in opposite ways to the same thing, what does that tell you about them? About the world? How does it feel to spend time inside a character’s head and then see them from someone’s else’s point of view? How do all of these viewpoints work together?) 

I love third-person omniscient because the narrative is a character. It’s great for stories that know they’re stories! It allows for a camaraderie between the narrator and the reader! It allows for wider and more cinematic descriptions because you’re not limited to what a specific person can see! It lets you look at the characters from outside while still giving you the option to delve into their heads because you have full control over what you’re focusing on!

And I love authors who can combine viewpoints in ways you wouldn’t think would work but manage to pull it off! Stories with multiple point-of-view characters where one is first-person and the others are third! Stories that combine first- and second-person! Stories where the omniscient narrator suddenly refers to themself in the first person! Stories where you realize halfway through that you were wrong about who was narrating it!

my best guess would be something like doing really short stories that focus on sth the writer wants to explore, like a genre/character/dialogue? but I feel like the benefit of a study is referencing a photo or real life in order to make your art more convincing, whereas there isn’t exactly a ‘realistic’ standard for writing so you wouldn’t be able to evaluate your writing to it

So the experience you're looking for is basically "a college intro creative writing class" which is not very helpful, if you have limited resources and/or a horrible experience with college creative writing classes.

However. You can easily replicate this experience for yourself (or in a small group) by getting together and thinking about what kind of writing you would do in this sort of class. A rough summary of would cover:

Poetry - writing some poetry (even if you think it's terrible!) can help you narrow your focus on what words work best in a limited setting.

Fictional short stories with various POVs - 1st person, 3rd person, and even 2nd person short stories can help you flex your ability to tell a story from a different perspective.

Non-fictional short story - I won a small college award for writing about how much I hated working at McDonalds, lmao. Non-fiction might be hard if you've never tried it before, but it can really help you gain perspective on how to project your personal experiences into a work of fiction later.

You don't have to stick to what you think a college professor would like - you can also branch into fanfiction and drabbles, video game scripts, journaling and comics. There's plenty of 'writing class' books you can find second-hand store, online prompt generators, and free classes on YouTube such as Brandon Sanderson's lectures.

The most important thing when practicing your writing is scheduling time to review, especially if you're doing it on your own without feedback. Not only do you want to write things down, you want to take time to read back and reflect. What did you like about the last piece you wrote, and what did you not? Where would you like your skills to grow in (dialogue, description, themes) that you can work into your next project?

Adding my two cents worth of elaboration: I've always done two things, vignettes and writing challenges.

For the first, vignettes: my working understanding of a vignette is as a focused piece of writing, highlighting a specific principle, description, or literary something or other. It's not necessarily a short story. It's not necessarily structured. The closest thing I know of in ficdom are drabbles. But. The main point is that it's focused.

This is your sketching, as a writer.

You do it over and over again, fiddling with the sound, the shape, whatever. You describe a dog as if you were a pirate. As if you were a cat. As if you were a second, larger dog. You play. And maybe your vignette is a paragraph. Maybe it's a page. Maybe it's a scene. Maybe it's just two characters arguing via dialogue only until one wins. The point is you're doing something On Purpose and repeatedly in order to refine it.

There is also a GREAT DEAL to be said about writing warm-ups, that help get your brain into the flow state when you're sitting down. That's what vignettes are for, too. You can hit two birds with one stone if you start writing with a vignette and then hop to a longer project with a warmed-up brain.

And as for ideas on what to sketch, there are a great many excellent writing prompt books out there. Or prompt blogs. Or prompt tarot decks/games/etc.

And, of course, that leads very naturally into writing challenges, where you either join them or set them for yourself. Things like whumptober and kinktober, for fandom, but they certainly don't have to be fandom related, or even specifically prompt-focused. You join stuff like GYWO (Get Your Words Out) or Nanowrimo or 750words or 4theWords or decide you're writing a short story every week for the entire year or something else that fits your process better. (And the best ones, for you, are the ones that ARE challenges, where you will have to push to complete them, that the only way to complete them is to make it a priority to. (Though, with that said, it also does not matter if you complete them or not. The point is that you're writing. It's the principle of 'A Million Words To Mastery.'))

If you want to focus on one aspect of a thing (say you keep getting critique about stilted dialogue, etc.), then find or set yourself a challenge revolving around that specifically.

For example, I gave myself a NSFW challenge a few years back, in which I required myself to figure out how to appropriately mesh NSFW elements into my usual writing style. A 'short story a week' challenge to myself broke me of my discomfort with including the elements I wanted to include, showed me where my weaknesses were in actually writing those elements, and revealed where I was simply regurgitating what I had read before and not writing authentically to my own style and preference. Mission accomplished! Of course, all of those short stories were legitimately terrible as short stories, but their purpose wasn't to be good, it was to be focused on this one thing I was trying to explore and develop.

I think, however, regarding the latter half of the original ask, that...the point of vignettes, writing challenges, focusing on one element (just like art studies), and any of the other things from either my reblog or the original answer is not to read your own stuff and ask 'is this good?' or 'is this realistic?' but instead 'does this work?'

wishing you a very happy “i accidentally wrote 2k words today”