Better feedback makes better workshops.
Many writers have had strange, vague, or damaging workshop experiences. The Talty Literary Feedback Primer is a simple standard for giving critique that helps the writer see the work more clearly without taking over the work.
For Readers Giving Feedback
- Describe what the draft is doing before judging whether it works.
- Be specific. Point to scenes, sentences, patterns, turns, gaps, and pressures.
- Separate taste from craft. “I prefer” is not the same as “the piece needs.”
- Do not rewrite the writer’s work into your own voice.
- Name what is alive in the draft, not only what is missing.
- Ask questions that open revision, not questions that trap the writer.
For Writers Receiving Feedback
- Listen for patterns across readers.
- Do not try to solve every note immediately.
- Sort feedback into clarity, structure, character, pressure, point of view, setting, theme, and sentence-level concerns.
- Protect the part of the draft that made you write it in the first place.
- Leave with revision priorities, not a pile of panic.
Talty Literary Workshop Standard
Workshops should help writers understand the next useful move. Feedback should be serious, human, specific, and respectful of the writer’s ownership of the work.