Editing the Workshop: How the Inclusion of Developmental Editing Skills in Creative Writing Pedagogy can Enhance the Workshop

The limitations of the traditional workshop format in creative writing pedagogy has long been a point of academic discourse. This workshop is built on the concept of tutors and peers critiquing a single student, who is ordered to stay silent and not refute or reply to changes. Yet, drafting and redrafting work to develop both the writer and their writing for publication is a key component of creative writing, an aspect that the traditional workshop fails to recognise or address. There is an array of scholarship exploring what kind of feedback is valuable to writers, much of which aligns with the practice of developmental editing. This paper will make the case that introducing publishing skills, specifically developmental editing skills, into creative writing pedagogy can create a new format for the creative writing workshop that uses an editorial framework foregrounding process over perfection, and equipping students with the critical analysis skills and terminology to provide more effective feedback. As well as enhancing critical and writing capabilities, including developmental editing techniques in creative writing workshops would make for a more industry-reflective practice that would better serve creative writing graduates in careers in writing, editing and publishing. The clear, reasoned critical arguments of developmental editing could also help to minimise any existing hierarchical imbalances and stereotypes in the writing and editing process, and promote greater understanding and acceptance of diversity in the classroom, the book industry and its literary output. This article will also include a suggestion of how these skills might be implemented into creative writing workshops.