Author Reads The Work

... the reviewers have read the work (ReadingJustBeforeReviewing) and now the review process begins. It's important to get to know the author a bit, to make them feel like a person, not an object being reviewed. To that end, we start with AuthorReadsTheWork.

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It is difficult to know what's going on inside authors' heads unless they are given an opportunity to speak.

The goal of a writer's workshop is to improve the work while preserving the author's dignity. To appreciate the need to be sensitive to the author and his or her feelings, we want to get to know them a bit.

But if authors speak when they most want to during the feedback, it stifles and throttles the feedback process.

And we foresee the pattern FlyOnTheWall that derives from this force.

An author brings a rich constellation of insights, experiences, and stories, some subset of which have been captured in pattern form, but many of which remain in the author's head.

Patterns attempt to capture that knowledge, so that the reader can re-create the experience of the expert that led him or her to appreciate the pattern.

If authors extemporates while reading their patterns, we gain additional insight.

People love to hear stories, and some people love to tell stories. Most authors can tell many stories that led them to recognize the pattern they describe, though the pattern itself doesn't capture most of that folklore (for sake of compression and conciseness).

But a pattern must stand on its own. One should be able to understand and use a pattern on its own merits, without the support of author interpretation.

Patterns form a broadly disseminated body of literature that helps readers develop some of the expert's insights, which relieves the expert from having to be everywhere at once. Readers shouldn't depend on first-hand interpretation from the author, because the author won't always be accessible to the reader.

By letting authors read a selection of their choice, the reviewers are afforded insight into the authors' priorities for what is important, for what is beautiful, for what they are proud of.

Therefore:

The author stands and reads a selection of his or her choice. The author may read only the material that is available, verbatim, to the reviewers.

By letting authors read their works we recognize their presence and welcome them to the forum.

Authors may read any selection they like. The section should be short enough to not bore the audience.

We can hear the voice that inside the author's head , the internal dialogue, behind the pattern.

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The goal is to convey what is important to and about the author; the reviewers have already read the pattern, so they know its content. If even the inflection of the author's voice conveys interpretation, the reviewers should be on guard that the pattern can be improved to capture the importance of such an inflection.

AuthorReadsTheWork also serves as a formal beginning to the session, to help the reviewers become mentally centered and fully present.

That the author stands here anticipates the balanced response of ThankTheAuthor.

NEXT: FlyOnTheWall

-- JimCoplien 1996/8/26

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