At the Indiana Writers Center, I've led a workshop group for the last ten years and we occasionally have a great discussion on the different approaches to "workshopping."
This particular workshop was founded ten years ago as an outreach for the IWC and is, first and foremost, open to anyone who is or becomes a member of the IWC. Thus, in a sense, we're a very open group as opposed to most ongoing groups that can be selective in who they allow at the table. At any rate, the IWC workshop operates on a single guiding principal: each of the writers participates with the goal of doing their very best to help the other writers make their work the best it can be, based on where that writer is in the process and what they've chosen to write. In return for those efforts, we receive from the others around the table their own best efforts to help improve our writing based on our specific goals and motivations and vision--not theirs.
Of course, this approach isn't the only way--nor maybe even the best in other circumstances--to operate a workshop. Keep in mind there are three (at least) approaches one might employ in commenting on another's writing: straight critiquing (our approach), editing, and reviewing, and each has a place and value. Just as with the three modes of prose writing--narrative summary, scene, and description--and the importance of the writer's awareness and control of which mode they're using--and when and how to mix them--it's crucial that members of any group remember those workshopping principals and understand where they might be stepping over the line into another mode.
