Laura: The most common piece of writing advice—‘show, don’t tell’—is not just a helpful tip. It's a cultural weapon. And today, we're going to find out why. Sophia: A cultural weapon? Wow. That's a heavy charge for my high school English teacher! I feel like that was written on the wall of every classroom. Are you telling me it's not some universal truth of good writing? Laura: That's exactly what I'm telling you. This explosive idea comes from Matthew Salesses's book, Craft in the Real World. It fundamentally challenges almost everything we've been taught about how to write fiction. Sophia: And Salesses is the perfect person to write this, isn't he? I was reading up on him. He's a novelist, a professor, but also a Korean adoptee who grew up in the U.S. He's lived his life navigating different cultural expectations, which must give him this incredible insight into how hidden rules can shape our identity. Laura: Exactly. His personal experience is the lens for the entire book. And it's why it has resonated so deeply. The book was a national bestseller and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR. It’s really become a key text for anyone trying to make the literary world more inclusive and honest about its foundations. Sophia: Okay, so where do we even start? How is a simple, seemingly helpful rule like ‘show, don’t tell’ a ‘weapon’?

Laura: Salesses starts by dismantling this core myth that writing craft is a set of pure, neutral, or universal rules. He argues that what we call 'craft' is actually just a set of expectations. And those expectations are shaped by culture. Sophia: What do you mean by 'expectations'? Like what we expect from a story? Laura: Precisely. Take a simple example from the book: dialogue tags. We're taught to use 'he said' or 'she said' because they're supposedly 'invisible' to the reader. But Salesses asks a brilliant question: why are they invisible? Sophia: I guess because we've read them a million times? They just blend into the background. Laura: Right. They're invisible because we, in the English-speaking world, have been culturally conditioned to see them that way through repeated exposure. Salesses imagines a writer from a culture where the common dialogue tag is 'he queried' or 'she commented'. If that writer came to a U.S. workshop, they'd be told their tags are clunky and draw too much attention. They'd be told to 'know the rules before they break them.' Sophia: Whoa. So what we're really telling them is to adopt our cultural norm and pretend it's a universal rule of good writing. It's a form of colonization, just on the page. Laura: That's the core of his argument. And it gets even more pointed when you look at race. He shares this powerful personal story from his MFA program. He'd written a story where the characters were Asian American, but he deliberately didn't specify their race. Sophia: Okay, why did he do that? Laura: Because white writers in the workshop never specified the race of their white characters. Whiteness was the assumed default. So he was conducting an experiment. And the workshop's reaction was immediate and telling. Sophia: Oh no. Let me guess. They told him he had to say they were Asian. Laura: They insisted. They said 'the reader' would be confused. They said he needed to identify the characters of color. And in that moment, Salesses realized what was happening. The demand to only name non-white characters wasn't a neutral craft suggestion. It was a tool being used, unconsciously or not, to reinforce whiteness as the default, the norm. Sophia: That is chilling. So they were basically telling him his characters weren't 'normal' unless he put a label on them. And this idea of 'the reader' is a sham. When they say 'the reader,' they mean a specific reader, right? A white reader. Laura: Exactly. The 'implied reader' of the traditional workshop is assumed to be white, straight, cisgender, and able-bodied. And craft rules are designed to cater to that reader's expectations. Anything outside of that is seen as 'other' and needs to be explained or justified. Sophia: This feels so systemic. It's not just a few bad workshops. Where did this model even come from? Laura: Salesses traces it back to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which became the blueprint for MFA programs across the country. He points to its history, especially under director Paul Engle during the Cold War. Engle saw American literature, with its focus on individualism and psychological realism, as an ideological weapon against Communism. Sophia: You're kidding me. So the way we're taught to write stories today is partly a product of Cold War propaganda? Laura: In a way, yes. The values embedded in that style—restraint, individual agency, a certain kind of plot—were promoted as universally 'good craft,' masking their ideological origins. It was never neutral. It was designed to promote a specific American worldview. Sophia: My mind is officially blown. So every time a writer from a different background, who maybe wants to tell a collective story or use a different structure, enters one of these workshops, they're walking into a system that's already biased against them. Laura: They are. They're being asked to conform to a set of expectations that might be completely alien to their own experience and storytelling traditions. Salesses quotes the author Michelle Cliff, who grew up in Jamaica. She said the 'King's English' and the logical structures she was taught simply could not represent her fragmented, colonial experience. She had to break those rules, mix vernacular with formal English, and write in fragments to tell her truth. Sophia: She had to invent her own craft. Laura: She had to reclaim her own craft. Because 'pure craft' is a lie.

Sophia: Okay, my faith in the traditional workshop is officially shaken. It sounds like a minefield, especially for writers of color. So what's the alternative? How do we fix it? It's easy to tear things down, but what does Salesses want to build in its place? Laura: That's the second half of the book, and it's incredibly hopeful and practical. He starts by identifying the core problem of the traditional model, which often uses a 'cone of silence' or a 'gag rule.' The author submits their work and then has to sit in silence while a dozen people dissect it, often projecting their own desires onto the story. Sophia: Right, it's like an autopsy, and the author is the ghost in the room, unable to speak. I've heard it can be brutal. Laura: It can be. And Salesses argues it fundamentally decenters the most important person in the room: the author. The workshop becomes about the workshoppers and what they can learn, or about fixing the story to fit their expectations. The goal should be to help the author better understand their own story and intentions. Sophia: That makes so much sense. So how do you do that? How do you put the author back at the center? Laura: He proposes a whole suite of alternative workshop models. They're designed to be flexible, because every story and every writer is different. One of my favorites is the 'Only Questions' workshop. Sophia: How does that work? Laura: For the entire session, the workshop participants are only allowed to ask the author questions about the manuscript. No opinions, no suggestions, no 'I think you should…'. Just questions. 'Why did the character make this choice on page three?' 'What is the significance of the recurring image of the train?' 'What were you hoping the reader would feel in this scene?' Sophia: Oh, I love that. It forces the workshop to be curious instead of judgmental. And it puts the power back in the author's hands to think through their own choices. It's not about getting answers; it's about discovering better questions. Laura: Precisely. It helps the writer see and re-see for herself. Another powerful one is the 'Defense-Style' workshop. The author actually presents a defense of their craft decisions, explaining their intentions and reasoning. The workshop then asks questions to clarify that vision. Sophia: That sounds empowering! It treats the writer like an artist with a vision, not a student who made mistakes. It's about articulating intent. Laura: Exactly. It shifts the dynamic from judgment to inquiry. And this is especially important for early, incomplete drafts. He tells this wonderful story about a student who submitted just four very rough pages of a novel. Sophia: Oh, that's brave. In a traditional workshop, those four pages would be torn to shreds. Laura: Right. They'd say 'there's no plot, the characters are thin, we don't know the stakes.' It would be crushing. But Salesses did something different. He centered the workshop on her process. He asked her: What is your vision for this novel? What are you excited about? What challenges do you foresee? Sophia: So they workshopped the idea, not just the pages. Laura: They workshopped the potential. The class talked about the student's vision, they brainstormed possible structures, they discussed other novels she loved that could serve as models. At the end, the student said she expected her prose to be 'ripped apart,' but instead she left feeling inspired and motivated to write more. Sophia: That's the whole point, isn't it? A workshop should make you want to write, not make you want to quit. It should be a place of possibility. Laura: That's his ultimate goal. To transform the workshop from a place where we teach writers how to be seen by a dominant culture, into a place that helps a writer see for herself.

Sophia: This is all so powerful. It feels like required reading for anyone who writes, teaches, or even just loves to read. When we boil it all down, what is the single biggest takeaway from this book? What does it mean to practice 'craft in the real world'? Laura: I think it comes down to conscious choice. It's about recognizing that writing is not an abstract exercise happening in a vacuum. Every choice we make on the page—from the plot structure we use, to the point of view we select, to a single word—carries cultural weight and has real-world implications. Sophia: It's about understanding the power we wield as storytellers. Laura: Yes. And the goal isn't to throw out all the rules. It's not to say 'don't use "said"' or 'never write a linear plot.' The goal is to understand where those rules came from, who they were designed to serve, and what ideology they carry. Once you understand that, you have true power. You can choose to use a convention, or subvert it, or invent something entirely new. But you're doing it with intention. Sophia: You're no longer just unconsciously repeating the patterns you've been handed. You're making a deliberate choice about who your story is for, whose reality you're centering, and what kind of world you are trying to build on the page. Laura: That is it exactly. To become a better writer, Salesses says, is to make conscious what may start out as unconscious. It's about waking up to the reality that fiction is always, always in conversation with the world. Sophia: It makes you wonder, what invisible 'rules' are we following in our own lives, not just in our writing? What assumptions have we accepted as neutral truths? Laura: That's a powerful question to leave our listeners with. The book is a guide for writers, but it's also a tool for anyone who wants to think more critically about the stories that shape our world. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Join the conversation and let us know what resonated with you. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.