Novelist Cory Doctorow argues that the most valuable part of a writing workshop is not receiving criticism but hunting for what is broken in other people's stories.
Doctorow has written novels for three decades, and he says his writing improved most not when others marked up his drafts but when he marked up those of writers at his own stage, reading twice, taking notes, then saying out loud what was broken and how to fix it.
Some beginners now use a chatbot as a free editor, and he thinks that misses the point: what you lack is not advice on fixing this story but the ability to write the next one.
The line that stings is that most of what a beginner writes is beyond saving anyway.
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