As writers, we have probably been a member in a writing workshop at some time or another. Some of us probably have consistent writing groups that read all of our work. Some of us receive our writing workshop experience from the university setting. Workshopping our writing has become a major part of creative writing and can be very important to the fiction writer. Most workshops consist of a group of writers that have the goal in common to write a good piece of fiction, poetry, or whatever.
Writers hand out drafts of their work in advance to other members of the group.
The group then meets again to discuss whatever they had to read. Depending on the group criteria, the writer is to remain silent and take notes until the group is finished and then they may ask any questions that they still have concerning the piece. There are many problems and pluses that I have found in workshops being conducted in this way. Most of the workshops I have participated in are too gentle with the writer. I will submit a piece, knowing that it has many problems that I have yet to fix, but the group does nothing but talk about the good things in the piece.