Thoughts on Writing & Memory

While digging into my current WIP I found myself harking back to some of the questions I asked in the course of writing this post from a few years ago regarding the human memory and the writer's attempts to play with memory over the course of a narrative. Worth diving into again, and I stand by the recommendations below. Happy Valentine's Day to all who observe it!

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Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

                 

                                      — Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Orator

My brother-in-law has a saying: "With family, it is best to have a short memory." 

I was thinking about this quote during a recent conversation I had with my wife. She showed me a photo of something and I asked her what it was. She said to me, "I showed you this thing just the other day."

I responded with an intelligent, "You did?"

And, in that patient tone she tends to employ with me when I'm being especially dense (it happens a lot), she said, "Yes, and you said at the time, 'Looks exactly like I pictured it.'”

I have no memory of this conversation. Or had no memory of it, until my wife reminded me of what I had said.  And I think this is an interesting illustration of how tricky human memory can be.

And what’s even trickier is trying to write human memory in all of its forms: straight remembering; having some thing tickle at the back of your skull, but you can’t quite put your finger on it; not remembering at all, etc.

Luckily we're not talking about THIS kind of "Memory."

One of the things that I have always prided myself on throughout my life, is my memory. Now deep in the midst of my late 50s, I find certain names dates, etc., elude me and I have to reach for them. 

I have also noticed, as illustrated in the instance related above, that my mind is pretty efficient about discarding memory that is trivial or completely unimportant to my long-term goals, to my long-term interests, or to anything other than being in the moment. 

And yet other such memories, the feeling of hiking the Virgin River in Zion National Park, for example, could be a cursory memory that some people wouldn’t remember. And yet I do, and I don’t just remember the hiking. I also remember the sun filtering off the canyon walls, the smell of the river, as I waded through it, the sound of people murmuring to each other as they hiked up the river, and so on and so forth.

Like I said, memory is a tricky thing. 

And it's even more dicey to effectively to write about it. 

Some examples that spring to mind (Warning: there are a few SPOILERS looming ahead)

In his novel Inferno Dan Brown has his protagonist Robert Langdon awaken in an Italian hospital with no memory of the past several days, and he spends the lion's share of of the rest of the book trying to put together some fragmented images and some sentence fragments, especially the repeated phrase “very sorry,” repeated over and over again. Turns out he was thinking of the Italian artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari.

For my money, Brown draws this out quite a bit longer than necessary, and this eventual "revelation" is expected to carry far too much of the load as a plot transition point. This is no criticism of Dan Brown. Far from it. I'll be the first to say that his experiment with the vagaries of a fragmented memory and their collective effect on the narrative, especially when the point-of-view character is the one struggling with their memory, is one worth taking. And it's definitely a larger risk than I have taken in my own fiction writing.

This trope has been around for a while. Memory loss has frequently been used as a crutch tossed into any number of formulaic novels/films/TV shows over the years, with mixed results. Thinking especially of some good examples (The Prisoner, starring the inimitable Patrick McGoohan, and the ambitious World War II psychological thriller 36 Hours–a film featuring superb performances by James Garner, Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor–both come to mind) and some hokey ones (Pretty much anything produced by 60s/70s Hollywood TV heavyweight Quinn Martin, with the exception of two stand-out series (The Fugitive and The Streets of San Francisco).

And there are, of course, many other relatively recent novels/films that have played around with sketchy memory: not least the Guy Pearce vehicle Memento, which turns on the point of view character having brain damage that has affected his ability to process short-term memory into long-term memory, and Dennis Lehane's terrific novel (and the Martin Scorsese-helmed film of the same name adapted from it) Shutter Island–a master class in the use of an unreliable narrator.

Other successful novels (and films adapted from them) in the unreliable narrator vein include such bestsellers as The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window, neither of which I have read–Or maybe I actually have, and just don't remember? (*rimshot*)–and both of which I am given to understand make use of questionable memory on the part of the main character (at least in part alcohol-induced). 

There have been so many films of this variety, that the whole subgenre even has its own excellent parody: the 2022 Netflix miniseries The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. It's worth your time. Kristen Bell alone as the main character is worth the price of admission.

For me, though, no one has ever done the "shattered memory holding back the main character, who must race against time to put the pieces together" thing quite so well as thriller master Robert Ludlum.

I'm talking, of course, about Ludlum's masterwork, The Bourne Identity. And yes, I am well aware that Ludlum's novel has long since been adapted into a rightly well-regarded series of thriller films starring Matt Damon and Brian Cox. If you haven't seen these films, I urge you to do so. They are incredibly well-done.

And yet, if you haven't read the source material, Ludlum's original novel...even if you have seen the movies based on it, I strongly urge you to give the book a chance. There are so many differences between book and movies, and I don't want to spoil them, so I'll just close with a phrase that Ludlum used (to vastly greater effect) as his own earlier version of Brown's "very sorry":

"Cain is for Carlos, and Delta is for Cain."

How about you? Favorite works of fiction that play around with memory? Challenges you have faced trying to play around with memory in your own work? Let us hear from you in the comments section!

See you in two weeks!

The Lost World

If you subscribe to the New Yorker – as indeed you should, in these scoundrelly times, because it provides clarity and purpose, and restores some small threshold of grace to our debased coinage – you happen on unexpected rewards.  This year just past was their 100^th anniversary, and their archive yields some hauntingly authentic stuff, not least their portraits of a vanished history, a history which was everyday back then, but which can seem to us almost an archeology.  They ran one a couple of weeks ago, S.N. Behrman’s profile of the prewar art dealer Joseph Duveen, a genteel hustler with an appetite for grand gestures.

Duveen was himself a fascinating character, and he cultivated a celebrated circle of clients and contacts, John D. Rockefeller, the Armenian oil baron Calouste Gulbenkian, the émigré Russian prince Felix Youssoupoff – one of the conspirators who murdered Rasputin.  My initial interest, though, was less about the specifics, and more about the atmosphere, the climate of the rich and entitled. 

I’ve written a number of period mystery stories set in New York in the late 1940’s, featuring a leg-breaker for the Irish mob named Mickey Counihan.  (A recent Mickey story, “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” appeared in the SleuthSayers anthology Murder, Neat.)  I thought maybe art fraud, as the hook for a story – shades of Lovejoy – or hovering in the background, the cultural pretensions of American robber barons, used as leverage, in some way.  I don’t mean, by the by, that Duveen was a swindler; he had a sharp eye for art, and his taste ran ahead of his buyers, his skill was knowing how to put the right piece of art in the sight line of a guy like Rockefeller, and make it necessary for John D. to own.  In the context of a Mickey story, I was thinking more along the lines of how you might probe the weakness in a Rockefeller, would vanity get the better of him?  Could you set somebody like that up, if you put them in competition with another tycoon like J.P. Morgan, or Frick, or Mellon?  Suppose they were in a bidding war for a Fabergé egg, or a Gainsborough oil.

In other words, I didn’t know.  I had no idea how to use this, it was just floating around in the zeitgeist.  In the meantime, though, reading about Duveen, his lifestyle, his tastes, his indulgences, you get a terrific sense of this lost world, up where the steaks are thick and the air is thin.  These are not people who drink jug wine.  At the same time, for all their self-confidence, they harbor doubts, the Dürer, the Gainsborough, not so much that they might be cheated, but that they might be buying in when the fashion has already passed them by. 

This is a very interesting kind of one-upsmanship, or fear of missing out, or cultural insecurity.  You know you could do something with it.  Henry James, eat your heart out. 

As so often, it isn’t the thing itself.  It isn’t the missing drug money, or the Fabergé egg, or the fact that Rasputin just won’t stay dead, no matter the poison, or the bullet wounds, or sewing him into a bag full of rocks and dumping him in the frozen Neva.  It’s whether Prince Youssoupoff is going to keep his wits about him, or come unglued.  In other words, as Hitchcock says, the object isn’t interesting; what’s compelling is that everybody’s so invested in the object. 

I can’t tell you how this story comes out.  I can’t even tell you how it begins.  It’s no more than a whisper.  I’ll let you know when it comes in earshot.

Genius

 

Today’s blog may end up sounding like a graduation speech. Blame the research. As frequently happens, while looking for something else, I ran across a fact that distracted me. The result of this detour was that…

We can all lay claim to genius.

The word “genius” has its roots in ancient Latin. The Romans believed that a deity or spirit watched over each person. Sometimes a spirit also protected a particular place, usually the family residence. In my mind, I picture a beneficent Dobby the house elf. I think it’s more accurate to the word origins, however, to equate the deity with what many refer to as their guardian angel. Because the connection between spirit and individual began at a person’s birth, it was called a “genius,” from the Latin verb gignere, meaning ‘to give birth or bring forth’. We more commonly see this Latin root of beginning in words like “genesis” and “genetic”.

The “genius” guided individuals to live into their destiny, be that common or exalted. Of course, we mostly have references to those who were led to greatness.

In the 18th Century, the word "genius" took on its contemporary meaning. Genius, with its divine element, got conflated with ingenium, a related Latin word for innate talent. A natural, god-given talent became our word, genius.

With the publication of The Devil’s Kitchen and The Hidden River last year, book clubs occasionally invite me to come talk to them. Invariably, there are questions from readers about how to write a book. Never forget you’re a genius, I tell them. It’s a line that plays well with listeners. I then explain the classical roots. The etymology suggests that we all have a unique nature. I encourage them to tell their story, tapping into that perspective. They don’t need to set a book in a national park; that’s where my Dobby led me. Instead, they should go to that place where they are guided.

I hope the advice lands; it has personal resonance. A decade ago, I wrote a historical mystery. It was good enough to procure an agent, but it never found a home. While the book was being shopped, my agent recommended that I write another book. This is, I believe, the agent’s answer to all life’s problems—write another book. The one she proposed had several market-driven elements. I wrote it, but I don’t know that my heart was ever in it. Perhaps that was reflected in the prose. To paraphrase David Hume, it fell dead-born, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur…”

In the interim between submission and ultimate surrender, I wrote the draft of a book that eventually became The Devil’s Kitchen. It was a story I wanted to tell, possibly felt destined to write. The writing was more fun and the results more satisfying. Me and my genius and I got the job done.

The satisfying feeling of writing the story you want to tell suggests another derivation from that old Latin root. ‘Genial’, the word meaning friendly or cheerful, arises from that innate or inborn sense of genius.

If  you’ve set a writing goal as a New Year’s resolution, I hope you’re still working toward it. Remember you’re a genius. Go toward that innate destiny, and may it make you cheerful.

Until next time.

Everyday people.

I was watching a Brit Box police procedural, one of my favorite pastimes, when something jolted me.  One of the characters was the manager on a construction site, and he was portrayed as sort of dimwitted and comically inept.  I still liked the show, and hope they renew it in the future, but the moment reminded me of my strong bias against stereotypes, which I think can be a form of pernicious, soft bigotry.

            Some of my best friends have been construction managers, and let me assure you, they are anything but dimwitted.  It’s impossible; the job is much too demanding and complex.  But scriptwriters often believe everyone shares their casual prejudices, most obviously toward so-called working-class people, or anyone who wears a company uniform or lives outside an urban zip code.  This predisposition isn’t just about lower social status.  As soon as a wealthy businessperson shows up on the scene, you know he or she is a villain.  That’s their theatrical responsibility. I’ve known a lot of these people as well, and I’d only call a few avaricious sociopaths (names withheld to protect the innocent, namely me.)

                Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy for writers to be trapped by stereotypes.  It’s partly a matter of efficiency – to telegraph the nature of a particular character without a lot of description, tapping into preconceptions.  But it’s also human nature to let lazy assumptions slip out of our jumbled unconscious and creep into the work.  

                There’s a creative consultant in the advertising world named Tom Monahan who has a simple solution.  He would advise us to sketch out a character as they first present themselves, then turn the dial 180 degrees.  I loved that idea, and quite intentionally applied it in fiction.

 

            It led me to make the most benign ensemble player in one of my series an old-money billionaire.  One of my librarians was a card-counting kleptomaniac.  A CPA was a handsome playboy.  And naturally, my protagonist is a cabinetmaker.  In an earlier iteration, he was a corporate executive, and before that a championship boxer.  If anyone asked if that was realistic, I’d say I once knew one.  My grandfather.

            I’m not the only one who likes to do this.  In fact, I feel that mystery and thriller writers tend to upend stereotypes as a matter of course.  It’s another way to inject surprise and uncertainty into the narrative.  It’s part of our unifying philosophy that nothing is ever quite what it seems.  And what’s better than sliding in a little social commentary under the radar?

            To be fair to the arts, we’ve come a long way from when representations were all color coded, so to speak, and we're better for it.  One of the last to fall has been portrayals of the disabled.  When a character shows up in a wheelchair (my mother used one of those), I’m always tense until, at the end, they’re just another player in the drama who happens to be paralyzed from the waist down.  Characters with autism (a condition shared by one of my grand children - I have a family full of steroetypes) are starting to demonstrate that a different sort of brain can actually confer special abilities. 

              I appreciate another Brit Box show, Code of Silence, where the deaf protagonist’s skill as a lip reader is the central superpower underlying the concept.  Though aside from that, she’s just a regular young woman trying to fumble her way through life’s indiscriminate abuses like the rest of us. 

            In the aforementioned British show with the foolish construction manager, one of his crew, a seemingly loutish lad, turns out to be the evil genius behind the crime.  For me, all was redeemed, though on further thought, was the boss a fool because he was in construction, or because he was a manager? 

Crime Scene Comix Case 2026-02-037, Man's Best Friend

Once again we highlight our criminally favorite cartoonist, Future Thought channel of YouTube. We love the sausage-shaped Shifty, a Minion gone bad.

Yikes! In this Crime Time episode, only one outcome is possible.

 

 

 

 

© www.FutureThought.tv

 

That’s today’s crime cinema. Hope you enjoyed the show. Be sure to visit Future Thought YouTube channel.

The Long Walk

 

I like Stephen King. I've read all his writings--novels, novellas, short stories, even the essays and other nonfiction--and I think I have every piece of fiction he's written, right here on the shelves of my home office, except for a couple of special collectors' editions that would probably cost as much as my house. Admittedly, there are a few of his novels--Rose Madder, Cell, Dreamcatcher, etc.--that didn't exactly blow up my skirt, but overall I like just about everything he's had published. My favorite novels are probably The Stand, It, 11/22/63, The Dead Zone, The Green Mile, and Misery; favorite novellas are The Body, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Riding the Bullet, and The Mist; and favorite shorts are "The Last Rung on the Ladder," "The Raft," "The Night Flier," and "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut." 

What I didn't enjoy much were some of the movie and TV adaptations of Stephen King's work. The best ones, to me, were those made from his novellas, like Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Mist--but some of the movies, especially the ones done long ago, didn't work well for me. 

Because I did like some of the more recent adaptations, I found myself looking forward to the fairly-new film version of The Long Walk, from the novel of the same name that was originally published as part of a four-novel collection called The Bachman Books. I bought it in hardcover when it was first released, and before it was officially revealed that Richard Bachman was actually Stephen King. My point is, I enjoyed the novel and I hoped the screen version would be as good.

It was. I wound up watching it last week, on DVD. The ending was a little different from the novel's, but the rest was pretty faithful to the original, and boy was it entertaining. I should mention here, though, that this movie isn't for everyone--it's not only ultra-depressing, it's ultra-violent. But, like the Hunger Games trilogy and other dystopian movies, it's supposed to be violent. In fact, it bears a close resemblance to The Hunger Games for another reason: it's about kids competing to the death in pursuit of vast fame and riches. 

The plot, in a nutshell, is that once a year, fifty teenaged boys--one from each state in the U.S.--are selected to walk together, in a group, under the watchful eye of armed overseers, until only one boy is left standing. If any walker's speed falls below three miles per hour, anytime and for any reason, that person is given three warnings and then executed, on the spot. Contestants are also executed if they stray off the surface of the road. So it's "walk or die," and the competition goes on as long as the boys can last; there is no time limit and no finish line. The winner, who is then given a cash prize and granted any wish he cares to make, succeeds only because he's the last one left alive.

It's an interesting--and terrifying--idea, and one of the points the movie tries to make is that there's always the possibility that the world we currently live in could one day devolve into one that allows this kind of thing.

What really makes this film work, I think (besides the great premise), is the relationship that develops between some of the fifty boys. And that works because of the people they cast in those roles. To me, these kids were completely believable, and I wound up so involved in the story that I caught myself nodding in rhythm to their walking pace during almost the whole thing. Adding to the fascination was a piece of inside info: In order to film the movie, the crew had to stay constantly on the move for the entire shoot. There was no "one" location--they had to physically change all the camera setups every few minutes and every couple of miles. It must've been a herculean effort; I think it's probably the only movie I've ever seen that was filmed this way.

Two things about the casting deserve special mention. One was that the main character was portrayed by Cooper Hoffman, the son of the late great actor Philip Seymour Hoffman--and the son was fantastic in this movie. (It's spooky how much he looks like his dad.) The second thing is that the role of the main overseer, a cruel commander only referred to as The Major, went to--of all people--Mark Hamill. It felt a bit strange to see superhero Luke Skywalker as the sole villain. But it worked.

So that's my take, on this. Have any of you seen this movie? Have you read the novel, probably long ago? If so, what are your thoughts? What did you like about the movie, or not like? Should I end my newly-found career as film critic? How about Stephen King adaptations? Did you like most of them?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Zen Master, Barroom Bouncer… Workshop Leader

There aren't many topics as divisive in the writing world as writers groups. Self-publishing, maybe. Submission fees. Maybe the Oxford comma. But really, many writers feel very strongly about writing groups, and I'm one of them. I hate them.

Well, except for the one I lead each week.

Which is to say of course there are good - and great - writers groups out there, but they're thin on the ground. Since most writers are not highly remunerated (at least not for their writing), many groups are "all-peer, no-pay." That means there's no leader getting paid, and no one shells out a dime unless it's their turn to pick up doughnuts and coffee. 

In theory, that's great. In practice, not so much. Leaderless workshops can be meandering and without direction, becoming gripe sessions about the vagaries of the profession rather than focused on craft. But directed workshops can be pretty lame, too.  Not every writer can teach, not every writer can edit, and certainly not every writer can embody the combination of average joe, zen master, and barroom bouncer necessary to successfully lead a group discussion. I work with adult poets and writers in a variety of contexts, and it's distressing to me how often my clients - many of whom are rather accomplished professionals, currently publishing - tell me the horrid edits they've made to their work were based upon the input of writing group peers. I've had writers cry telling me how everyone in a group piled on to repeat a single picayune criticism. And more often, I've had writers complain that everyone in their writing group loves their work, yet editors seem not to. That should be a red flag to a thinking person, but we writers are long on imagination and have a terrific ability to kid ourselves, present company included.

Writing is a solitary endeavor (sorry, TV-writing brethren; it is, for most of us). The best thing most people - even fellow writers - can offer the nascent scribe is encouragement, and perhaps a bit of camaraderie over a cup of coffee or a wee flacon of wine. So why join a group?

Writers join groups for a handful of reasons: to get feedback from others in their field, to talk craft, to have a social experience in a very solitary occupation, to connect with someone who might - please, dear God - provide an introduction to an agent, and so on. And also, I'm sorry to say, to engage in a writing-adjacent activity that allows one to feel as though he or she is officially A Writer, Writing, without actually having to put in a lot of fingers-to-keyboard time. 

As Epictetus advised us, if you want to be a writer, write. If you haven't averaged four hours a day at the keyboard all week (two, if you have a full-time day job), could be you've got no business showing up for coffee and pastries at the Saturday workshop. Your time is limited - everyone's is – and you ought to spend that afternoon at your desk, doing what writers do. You know. Writing.

But time management is the least of my quibbles with the typical group. If it were just a matter of frittering away the day without getting words on paper, we all can (and do) find plenty of ways to do that: nine-to-five jobs, significant others, children who need their dinner, dogs that need walking, gas tanks that need filling, bills, emails, e-vites, ad infinitum. Right? So the biggest problem with writing groups isn't that they glom up time that would be better spent writing. The real problem is that many - dare I say most - groups are not only not constructive, they are actively destructive. Yeah, I said it. Here's why.

Most fiction writers groups - knowingly or not - follow some variation of the MFA workshop format. Everyone emails around a few pages that the others are supposed to have read before the meeting. Then each writer reads his or her own work aloud as the others nod, or gasp, or whistle admiringly under their breath. Then they go around in a circle and each person shares his or her ideas about the piece – what's great, what needs work, and so on. (Poetry workshops are conducted similarly.) 

The writer whose work is being discussed doesn't respond to any of the comments, not even with a lifted eyebrow or a strategic harumph. They just listen. Some writers groups do allow a bit of leeway - for example, the writer may humbly and succinctly advise the group at the end of the discussion that it really was a "bridle shower" and not a misspelled "bridal shower," or that they confused Jim Higgins the parole officer with Tim Wiggins the police officer and thus completely misunderstood the story's denouement. Other groups hold so strictly to the rules that they forbid what is annoyingly referred to as "crosstalk," which is something normal people refer to as "conversation." That is, if Maria says she thinks Bob's use of metaphors is over-done and heavy-handed, Louanne cannot jump in and say that she admires Bob's abstractions and thinks the piece could use even more of them. 

A lot of idiosyncrasies of the typical MFA workshop model made sense originally. Having the writer read aloud is a CYA move for those who didn't pre-read the story, and it also tells the listener how particular bits of dialogue and oddly punctuated passages are supposed to be heard. Consider, for example, this tidbit:

John picked up the gun and moved it to the shelf. "This is dangerous," he said, smiling.

Now, at some point, either before or after this passage, the author is going to have to tell us what's happening here. Many questions could be answered if she inserted the word "angrily" or "kindly" or "sarcastically" or "firmly" after the "he said." Many more, if we knew how John is smiling: Sinisterly? Dismissively? With amusement, or perhaps with disapprobation? When the author reads aloud, the listener gets clues that may not be in the text about what the author intends, and in theory, can then provide suggestions: "I wasn't sure John was actually threatening his landlady until I heard the scary way you read that line," and so on. In theory, this tells the writer that something is missing from the words that are on the page, because after all, the author will not be there to whisper the text into most readers' ears. 

In actual practice, what tends to happen is that what is read by the eye and heard by the ear get conflated, so the writer ends up not being told that the line needs clarification. Instead, she gets positive reinforcement for what's wrong with the bit: "I got chills when you read the part where John picks up the gun. Terrifying!" Are the words actually terrifying? Not at all. But the author's intonation told us they should be. We think we read what we actually only heard. We praise the writer for what she meant, not for what she wrote.

Another problem with leaderless workshops is that honest, constructive criticism – and especially back-and-forth discussion – is often perceived as the dread "crosstalk," especially by those with MFAs. Yet another issue is that writers don't always use good judgment about which points to dwell on and which to let go. I have been in writing groups where every single participant (of eight or ten) mentioned the same misspelling or punctuation error. And I've been in groups where every single participant offered insipid comments like, "I love your writing. This is so good." 

Compliments like that have absolutely no value. They mean nothing. Okay, they do mean something. They mean "I like you and I don't want to hurt your feelings." But compliments that have actual constructive value are specific. For example, "I like the way you made us think Erin was the thief, until she threw open the door and we saw Carmen standing there with the gold dust,"  or "I never heard the word enormity used that way, so I looked it up and saw that you are right. Very interesting, thanks!"

Of course the same is true of criticisms - they are of value only when they are specific. In writers groups, criticisms are often couched as questions or as personal failings of the reader: "I wonder why the flautist was at the ballpark at 11:10, but was also at the police station across town at 11:08. I'm probably missing something!" 

That's okay – it's great to point out a plot hole or solecism, and helpful for the writer – but the fact is that writers should listen to criticism only from those who clearly like their work. Hang on, there, before you argue that you're tough enough to take it. This is not because writers are fragile hothouse flowers who should cancel people who don't appreciate their stuff. Not at all. It's because years of teaching creative writing have shown me that when someone doesn't like a piece, and the writer is in the room, the critic will struggle to find a reason to give, a suggestion for improvement, that may actually have nothing at all to do with whatever is wrong with the piece (if anything). The reader dislikes the piece at a gut level, but feels pressured to verbalize a reason, something that can be "fixed." Too often, they just pull stuff out of thin air. "It takes too long to get to the murder," or "I wanted the dog to live at the end, instead of drowning," or "something about that rainy cafe scene just seems off," are criticisms that people may come up with when they don't like a story and don't know why. And the writer gets back to work trying to please a critic who is probably not ever going to be pleased by that particular piece. My suggestion is, if you don't like the story, don't offer any feedback. If you do like it for the most part, but see something wrong, hallelujah! By all means let the writer know. 

Think of it as the old "prom dress rule" your parents probably taught you. If your best friend asks if she looks good in her prom dress, and she just doesn't, whether you answer truthfully depends on whether it's four hours till prom, or four months. Offer criticism only when it's sincere, justified, and is something that can be fixed. If you just despise stories that include friendly clowns and madcap capers, when Lamont reads his, smile cryptically and keep your mouth shut. If, however, you really like clowns, capers, and Lamont's writing style, but notice the clown sits down to lunch right after dinner on page eight, or that his dialogue bits are so long they qualify as dramatic monologues, by all means, speak up.

The biggest problem with all-peer writing groups is that everyone is equal. I know, I know, we are all equal and everyone's opinion is of of identical value, blah blah blah. Except, no. Not here. A workshop needs a leader, a person who knows more than the others about many or most of the topics that will arise in discussion, and who is able to direct the flow when necessary. If you have ever sat through a ten-minute monologue in which the "critiquer" mumbled, hemmed and hawed, repeated himself, apologized, belabored inconsequential points, and repeated what other participants had already covered in detail, you know what I mean. As a workshop leader, I sometimes have to cut people off – and I'm not afraid to do so – when they talk too long ("I know I'm running way over, but I just want to add…") or make inappropriate comments ("I love the sex scene – is that move something you yourself enjoy?") or expect everyone to wait around while they figure out something to say, rather than succinctly delivering thoughtful, pre-written notes. But the most common and egregious of all errors is that a critiquer will turn the conversation to himself: "I like your story, Glenda! It reminds me of my own story, Murder Under the  Christmas Wreath, published in 1991, in which I blah blah blah bladdedty blah…"  I will give a critiquer one gentle reminder - "Hey, Lenny, sorry to interrupt, but let's focus on Glenda's work here." And if he slides back into it, he gets ruthlessly cut off. Sorry, again, Len.

One element of the typical MFA-style workshop that can be tough to accept is the idea that writers shouldn't respond to comments about their work during or after the critiques. This means that they can only listen, allowing them – forcing them! – to hear how their work strikes the reader without their mind racing ahead, trying to gather evidence to use on the defensive cross ("I did explain that Miss Pettiwad is a bookkeeper – you just didn't get to that part yet!"). I find this stipulation tough to follow and tough to enforce, but worth the trouble, both in fiction and in poetry workshops. We're writers – we've got a lot to say. Sometimes it's really helpful to be forced to just listen.

Other rules seem simply intended to pander to the ultra-sensitive sensibility that sometimes dominates conversations about art. Trigger warnings are a nice idea, but have been taken to ridiculous extremes. I think it's acceptable – even commendable – for a workshop author to note at the beginning of a written piece, and before reading it aloud, that it contains lengthy passages of graphic violence, or a great deal of foul or offensive language, or some other truly objectionable element. That allows those who do not want to read or hear to bow out.

But to announce ahead of time that piece briefly references something appalling undermines the elements of the work that should be revealed with reading. There is a very real difference between one sentence reading, "Carolyn slid the knife neatly between Mr. Andrews's ribs, careful to keep blood from staining her pinafore," and a two-page depiction of the full, grisly details of the violent crime. The latter might justify a trigger warning, I think, but not the former. (But the latter would probably also have a gross-out factor far outweighing any literary merit.)

I've been in workshops where writers included trigger warnings for guns, knives, a bottle of pills on the counter, overeating, childbirth, a construction worker wolf-whistling, drunks talking in a bar, dog poop on the sidewalk, raw beef, and…allergies. Yes. Allergies. Like, hay fever. This is where the wise workshop leader steps in and inquires gently, "Are you out of your freaking mind?"

So, back to crosstalk and constructive criticism. If it would thoroughly crush Michaela's spirit to be told that Amani disagrees with her, Michaela may need therapy more than she needs to participate in a writing group. This is not to say that courtesy and respect for others should not be paramount in every group; of course they should. You may find Rick to be a blithering idiot, and his work best used to line the recycling bin, but there's no law that you have to say so. So don't. You can always (yes, I will die on that hill – always) find something good to say about someone's work. But the fact is, you won't normally need to. No one will mind if you just hush up and let the others talk. Most people have lots to say and really like to hear themselves say it.

So what about the good workshops out there? What sets them apart? 

The very first thing a workshop leader should do is establish ground rules. I'd suggest the basics: a sincere compliment should precede every criticism (including those couched as questions or personal failures). That might go like this: "Audrey, your story made me laugh out loud, first at the part where Doug fell off the bridge, and then again when his wife asked why he was all wet. There is something I noticed, though. When Audrey and Doug speak, they never use contractions, so the dialogue seems a bit stiff and unnatural." Note that it is not necessary to then cite every instance of stiff dialogue. The writer can consider your note later, in private, and decide whether it has value to him or her.

But hang on. What if you have a really, really great criticism but just cannot think of a single compliment to precede it? Scroll up. If you didn't like the story enough to single out something great about it, don't offer any comment at all. Really. Just zip it. Not kidding.

A second rule might be no seconding and thirding the comments of others rather than to say, "I agree with Dylan about the tone." (Do not then proceed to repeat everything Dylan said.) Be aware that each person in a workshop will not get equal time to speak about every story. That would not make sense, because by the time you get to the eighth or ninth person, almost everything has already been said. Therefore, the workshop leader should choose a different writer to start the comments each go-round.

Third, the workshop leader should let everyone know that commenting on a comment or disagreeing with a comment are perfectly acceptable – if the remarks are made with courtesy and respect. "Sorry, Bob, I don't agree with you about the dog breeds in Jane's story. Lots of people have pit bulls that are friendly," or "Tammy, it's possible that your character should say uninterested, not disinterested." However, rude or hurtful remarks will result in immediate shut down (or mic-muting, if on zoom). The leader should be willing and able to say firmly, "Doris, I'm cutting you off right there, sorry. Let's discuss it later."

One of the best workshops I've attended was a one-off led by a fairly well-known writer who announced at the start, "I'm very direct. If I offend you, sorry – if you just slip out during the break, I'll understand." He was direct, and some people did take umbrage and leave, but for those of us who stayed, wow – great learning experience in how to give and receive constructive criticism. Unfortunately, too many groups are led by writers who are too damned nice to stop the train by interrupting a speaker or turning off a mic. (I've been accused of a lot, but being too nice is apparently not one of my flaws.)

This is why I often advise clients, students, and colleagues against joining all-peer, no-pay groups. If you're considering a directed, pay-to-play group, ask to sit in on a session before you commit. I've just had too many writers receive bad advice, or get piled on by the crowd about something inconsequential, or get pumped up about something that really wasn't great, in these groups. But I'd love to be mistaken. If you belong to a fantastic writing group that has helped you become a better writer, please share details in the comments. And of course horror stories will be devoured with relish!

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Anna Scotti's most recent release, It's Not Even Past, went out of print with the recent closure of Down&Out Books.  It will be available from a new publisher soon – but if you can't wait, contact the author via her website. She has a few copies available.

Anna's latest story for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, "Season of Giving", appears in the January/February issue of the magazine.