Genuine feedback, sensitively delivered

Writing Room is all about providing a supportive space for you to make progress on your individual writing journey, alongside other writers who are doing the same. We are all at different stages with our writing, which means we’re all able to learn from and support each other. An important aspect of developing writing craft is sharing work, and giving and receiving useful feedback. If you're new to feedback in general, or Writing Room’s way of feeding back in particular, don’t worry - our five-point feedback commitment below is designed to put your feet on firm ground.

WHAT IS FEEDBACK FOR?

• Feedback helps us understand how our work is received by readers.
  
  
• Understanding the difference between the impact we intend and the impact we actually make is a key part of our writing development.
  
  
• Giving feedback isn’t about telling someone whether or not you endorse their work. It’s about reflecting your experience of reading it and the degree to which you have become involved in what the writing is communicating.
  
  
• Then, it’s about offering constructive thoughts based on what you have learned about the options and tools creative writers have at their disposal.

THE WRITING ROOM FIVE-POINT FEEDBACK COMMITMENT

Whenever you come to any of our courses, workshops or drop-ins, please keep in mind each of the following points:

1. Give feedback genuinely but sensitively
Writing Room is committed to being ‘a welcoming online home for all creative writers’ and is known for its combination of genuine feedback, sensitively delivered, whether written or spoken. Writers come to our courses knowing they can share unpolished work in progress in a warm and friendly atmosphere and that it will be responded to in a helpful and supportive way.

2. Keep it between us
Work must never be shared with anyone outside the course. We aim to create an atmosphere of trust where all writers and their work are respected. Nothing anyone has written or circulated is shared by Writing Room tutors or team outside the session, and we don’t record classes.

3. Help the writer write what they want to write
Feedback is about helping the writer create the effect they're trying to achieve. We’re not re-writing someone’s work or trying to turn it into something we might have written ourselves.

4. Work through tricky or complex territory together
If discussions are ever uncomfortable, the group commits to trying to assess what's happening kindly. We will try to work out how we can understand the different perspectives in play, staying open to new ideas and moving our writing forwards accordingly.

5. No AI. Trust yourself and be open to learning
You must never use AI to generate any piece of creative writing and never feed fellow writers’ work through an AI chatbot to generate feedback or for any other reason. Outsourcing creativity and thinking defeats the object of joining the Writing Room community in the first place!

Thank you.

If you have any individual issues or concerns, please feel free to let your tutor know before the course begins.

If you have any questions or issues to raise while the course is running, please contact your tutor or our Programme Director Kate Pemberton kate@writingroom.org.uk

After the course, you'll be contacted for feedback which helps us develop our programme, and we very much appreciate your thoughts.