Writing Workshops + Google Wave = ?

[Yes, I do still have a blog. Must. Post. More.]

Having received a Google Wave invite (thank you, Robin!), and now having time to play with it, I'm of course looking for interesting ways to use it. Lifehacker posted a number of interesting potential uses for Wave, one of which seemed especially interesting for my current MFA pursuits.

Christopher is currently working on his MFA in Creative Writing. He wrote:

One of the largest problems we face during class occurs during large workshop groups, trying to take in all the various criticisms of a particular story or poem. The usual routine is giving everybody in the workshop a copy of your story, then they all write notes on their copies, give you comments orally (which you write down.) You're left with up to fifteen different copies of your story, with very different notes in all of them. I would like to use Google Wave to both write and workshop short fiction. Each student can comment anywhere in the text, other students can discuss the comments along with me. I can make changes in real time, while I'm also speaking to the class or listening to their criticism. This will allow me to accomplish everything I need to do to prepare a revised draft of a story during the time my story is being workshopped.

This seems like an intriguing idea, but I can foresee two issues.

• How would Wave deal with people making opposing suggestions for a piece? It's pretty rare, in my experience, for a workshop group to have uniform suggestions for how to improve a piece. While these disagreements cannot be avoided, having a record of them for all time, one that people can go back to, doesn't always strike me as as serving the greater social good. Put another way, I don't mind disagreeing with my MFA colleagues, but there's something useful about allowing these disagreements to disappear after workshop is over.

• On a similar note, what about after a workshop is over? As an author, it's my prerogative to use those workshop suggestions I find most valid and ignore the rest. Using Wave as the primary word processing tool, do I give away my biases as a writer in terms of what suggestions I agree with? Is it possible to remove people from a Wave after they've made their contribution?

Wave seems to have enormous potential, but as writing is ultimately solitary, I think navigating a proper path for how to use it as a writer will require plenty of experimentation. Thank goodness I finally have some time to play with it!

[Lifehacker]