Critiquing is the way to learn to write ↦

Cory Doctorow on what builds a writer: The point of a writing workshop isn’t merely to make your stories better – it’s to make you better at writing stories. That’s where critiquing other writers’ stories comes in. The process of reading and re-reading someone else’s imperfect work and devoting real mental energy to figuring out what’s not working in it and how to fix it is how you develop the creative instincts that allow you to automatically and unconsciously avoid pitfalls and make breakthroughs in your own work. Even if none of the feedback you offer is ever incorporated into the story you’re critiquing, the act of preparing and delivering that critique is the most reliable fast-track to becoming a better writer yourself. There’s something very valuable in the combination of thinking critically, being exposed to other workshop members’ ideas about the story under discussion, and working with source material that you can look at with more objectivity because it didn’t come out of your own head. Doctorow’s piece was written in the context of reports that people are using AI to critique their writing. The point is, that’s not what makes you better. Turning the tables and thinking critically about someone else’s work is what builds skill. I minored in writing in college and took a creative writing class run by a cranky German writer named Reinhard Lettau in which we were graded not on our writing but on our critiques. What a learning moment that was. (Apologies to my classmates, because Lettau once concluded a critique of mine by saying, “Now that Jason has put down his surgical tools…”) I flashed back to that classroom in San Diego when reading Doctorow today. It’s just so true. Engaging your brain is how you learn. If your goal is to make your brain work less, you are moving in the wrong direction.