My Weirdest Day in Writing Workshop, or I Take a Styrofoam Cup to the Head

So I was in this writing workshop once, with about twelve people and an instructor who’d published one or two novels. He’d been in the military and all his comments had that clipped brevity that sounds harsh. Starting off a round of feedback on someone’s manuscript, he’d say, “Not believable. I didn’t buy it. Anyone else?” Going around the room, each person had to say three good things and three bad things. Throughout this barrage, the author was not permitted to speak. There could be no rebuttal, no defense, no explanation.

That day, I was the first up to be critiqued and the group immediately went on the attack. They’d read a section of my novel where the main character, wrongfully convicted of murder and treason, waits in prison to be executed. They said I’d turned my character into a monster. He was miserable and mean; they used to like him but couldn’t stand him now. I couldn’t write it that way. It had to be changed. He would never be like that. He was a jerk. And on and on.

I protested, “But he’s going to be executed, that’s why he’s--”
The instructor barked a warning that sounded like, “Hup!”
But they needed to get it. “You’d be mean too if you were stuck in prison.”
“Shut it! I won’t warn you again.”
“I thought this wasn’t believable either,” the next person was saying, “You can’t have a nice guy turn bad so fast. That’s not good character development.”
Slouched in my chair, scowling, I thought: This bitch who’s writing a tedious mystery about two kids and a haunted house is going to tell me about character development? I would show her, not with irrational protests but through articulate argument. “He didn’t turn bad fast. In the last section--”

Something white hit my forehead with a thwick! and bounced on the table in front of me. I had just been struck in the head with a Styrofoam cup. Aghast, I looked at the instructor to see if he’d noticed that somebody was throwing cups. Then realized he’d thrown it.
“I said, enough from over there!” he said.
Wadding up the waxed paper from my bagel, I winged it at his head. He laughed and swatted it away, saying, “Now who’s next?”
My fellow writers gaped at me, no doubt thinking that this deranged instructor and I had something going on, a secret code that involved pitching garbage at each other. To their credit, they moved right on while I fumed for the rest of the session. My beloved character had been torn to pieces and I’d had trash thrown at me, by the instructor no less.

At any rate, I survived to write another day. And I can’t help feeling that that instructor was conferring special favor on me; I’m sure he didn’t throw his trash at just anybody. In fact, taking a cup to the head has made me stronger. If I can handle projectile garbage, I can handle anything. To my future critics and reviewers, I say, fire away!