* The subject of each session must not speak during the critiques, except to answer direct questions that are not related to the writing itself (e.g., "I couldn't figure out what word this was supposed to be - can you clarify?"). The subject can speak after all the other writers have spoken.

* Each person in the critiquing circle speaks once, in turn, without being interrupted. No cross-talk allowed. It is useful to set a time-limit for critiques.

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* Every writer should submit regularly to the workshop. There is a serious risk that attending a workshop can become a substitute for actually writing. It is no kindness to your workshopmates to let them stay in the circle if it leads them to stop writing.

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If you have nothing to add when your turn comes about, it's fine to pass.

Those are pretty much universal characteristics of a peer workshop. Here are some variations that I am dogmatically committed to, but which other workshoppers might disagree with:

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Each writer briefly expresses their views about the story under consideration, focusing on those thematic and structural notes on what worked and didn't work in the story, with suggestions for improving the latter. You don't need to point out every typo - they're noted on the manuscript. Critiquers don't need to repeat one another. If another workshop member says the thing you were planning to say, you can just say "Ditto what so-and-so said about whatever."

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There's a ton of variability in how these are conducted, but the basic shape of them is that in advance of each session, one or more writers submits a finished work to the other writers, who then read through the manuscript at least twice, making notes that include both minor copyedits and broader, thematic notes. They may write a brief editorial response as well, ranging from a paragraph to a couple of pages.

Then the workshop convenes.

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But even if that's the case, I *still* want you to know that whatever you're getting out of the chatbot is fundamentally different, and (I believe) much less useful than participating in a peer workshop.

That's what I wanted to say today, but I predict that an appreciable number of readers are about to email me to ask how these "peer workshops" work.

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So if you value editorial feedback from a chatbot (ideally, a local one running on your computer and not one of the "foundation models" that are torching the planet and elevating the worst people on earth to positions of political, technical and commercial prominence), that's fine, you do you.

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I've taught a lot of writers over the years and I've had many discussions with my peers about their writing process, and I'm here to tell you that pretty much every writer finds every other writer's process *baffling*. We each of us invent an idiosyncratic process for ourselves that will never fully work for anyone else.

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If you're a dancer, you've *definitely* danced with other dancers.

But writers get precious little exposure to other writers' process. At best we might look at each other's drafts. A musician can listen to every note another musician produces while riffing or composing a new work or interpreting a work. Writers don't get to watch words emerge from each other's fingertips. Being observed that closely while you write would be ghastly and paralyzingly invasive.

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