Craft in the Real World

I loved this book! The author is a writing teacher and this book is his philosophy of what a meaningful writing workshop could be for writers who fall outside of the Hemingway demographic (white, straight, male, cis, affluent, able, etc.)

He articulates why I have typically found traditional workshopping a less than helpful experience and I want to be part of these new workshop structures! The book seems like its primary audience is writing teachers who lead craft workshops, but it has a broader appeal for anyone who writes and has questioned the "traditional" writing workshop structure.

Salesses explains in clear terms why the "traditional" structure works well for straight, white, cis, affluent, able, male (etc.) writers but often doesn't provide meaningful writing development opportunities for writers who fall outside that narrow "Hemingway"-esque demographic. Really upliftng and validating to read and realize that past workshop experiences which felt unhelpful at best (bullying at worst) might be chalked up to the structure of the workshop itself as being a space not created for me.

I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

An essential text for all writers and instructors. Though the subtitle specifies this book is meant for fiction, I found it useful even as a nonfiction writer. I wish I'd had it years ago, when I started writing and workshopping.

I've long heard my favorite critics discuss evaluating a book according to its own goals and terms, but never quite understood what that meant. Salesses beautifully demystifies this question by pointing over and over again (without being redundant or pedantic) to the centrality of the INTENDED audience (vs. workshop audience). According to him, every craft decision comes down to this element, which makes so much sense that I'm shocked it's not more widely known and discussed. I also really appreciated his thoughtful discussion of what workshop should and can do, and what it absolutely shouldn't. I will be thinking about his advice in every workshop I'm in going forward.

Written in clear and accessible language, supplemented with loads of practical examples and exercises. Highly recommend.

An utterly brilliant book that I am recommending to anyone who writes or teaches writing. Salesses unpacks the white, male history of the writing workshop and writing criticism, and uncovers how what is taught as "good writing" is just something that ticks the boxes these writers have made. By encouraging the use of different forms and approaches to writing, and with suggestions for changing the oppressive value structure present in writing and writing evaluation, he asks us all to rethink how we write and teach writing.

Excellent and highly important. A recommened first purchase for nonfiction collections where craft and education books are popular and for high school professional collections.

This really is like a workshop in a book, not only on writing but looking at craft as a big picture. Salesses included some ideas that stripped away what I thought I knew about writing fiction and I have so many highlights and notes from reading this book. It will probably be one that I reference many times in my writing practice. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Two key pieces of advice stand out. The first is to push back, not simply against the standards but against the context that created them: “Workshop has created many axioms: ‘show, don’t tell,’ ‘write what you know,’ ‘kill your darlings,’ etc. Writers have pushed back against those axioms, but we must also push back against the context that creates them, that nurtures them and passes them on.” Such pushback is possible only if we first work toward a deeper and wider knowledge of different ways of telling stories. This entails not only understanding the conventions of various literary traditions but also which exceptions and experiments might have influenced or changed them.

The second piece of advice is about determining the readership we’re writing for. Here, Salesses introduces his critical concept of two kinds of readers and two kinds of writers. First, there’s the reader-self that knows the fiction they’re reading is made up, not real. Then, there’s the implied reader: the self that experiences fictional characters as real people which is the one a writer is generally writing for. There’s also the author who creates and the implied author as imagined from the text by the reader. The author’s craft choices are not only negotiations with the cultural expectations of the implied reader, but they also determine the worldview or orientation of the implied author, the one the real reader gets to know through the text.

(please see the review link for the full text)

Although this book is quite dense, there is so much thought-provoking material provided that it is worth the effort. The conversation about the expectations of craft from a cultural perspective has made me rethink the way I approach any story, but especially stories written from the perspective of cultures other than mine. The author provides numerous examples both from a theoretical and practical approach to how discussions of craft are experienced by workshop attendees and taught by instructors. A great book for expanding your thoughts about craft and storytelling to be more culturally aware.