Last Friday, Keith Rawson asked about critique groups on his blog. I didn't leave a comment but I've been thinking about this one and decided I'd toss out a few of the things I've learned by participating in online critique groups then open the floor for anyone who'd like to throw in their two cents about critique groups, both pro and con.
First off, is actually finding a group that does the work. I went through about six groups before I found one that worked for me. Three groups put up prompts but no one wrote anything but me and only the person putting up the prompt offered a crit on occasion. Great for getting a story written but not for improving my writing. Another group thought every story should be a novel, the critiques were good, but being told shorts weren't worth writing tends to drive a short story writer crazy. You get the idea. You need to find a group that actually does the work, both posting stories and doing crits.
I was overjoyed when I finally found the FlashXer group. In this group the moderator posted three prompts a week. You had to write a story for at least one of the prompts a month and provide three crits a month. In other words, to participate, you had to do the work. And that's the key for any good crit group. You have to get involved and do the work.
Now, not all crits are created equal and you have to learn to sift through what you get to find what will work for your story. Some critters want everyone to write the same way they do and consider people who write differently stupid. Some will pick at every grammar and punctuation error, while others will just say, 'hey, that's great' or 'hey, that's awful' without telling you why.
Of course, there's the other side of this, too. Some writers can't take any kind of criticism of their work, which makes you wonder why they're in the group to begin with. Most of these writers will get in a snit, make a few nasty comments that make everyone feel uncomfortable and finally leave the group. Bottom line, you have put up with some crap to get the good out of a group.
So, how do you make the crits work for you? If everyone picks at one particular part of your story, it needs fixing. Grammar and punctuation help is always useful, unless they're trying to put perfect grammar in the mouth of a character who just wouldn't talk that way. You have to use your own instincts to know what will work and what won't in your story because it is your story, not theirs. The longer you write, the more you know what works and what doesn't. It's just a matter of trusting that nagging voice that tells you 'hey, that's not working.'
Where I live there are no real life crit groups close by. The closest one I came across was thirty miles away and had an essayist, a children's author, and literary novelist as members. I couldn't see how that would work for me. So, if anyone has experience within this type of group, please tell us about them and how they work or don't.
The floor is open.
4 comments:
While I'm not a big fan of critique groups, I know they can be beneficial to some writers. For example, I know a group of romance writers that, when they first began working together, had no members that had ever sold a romance novel. Now all of them have sold at least one and some of them have sold several.
I participated in a couple of critique groups early in my writing career, but the groups fell apart. While we all enjoyed each other's company, the types of writing we did was scattered all over the place and we were all at different levels of experience/success.
Based on my experience and what I learned from the success of the romance writers critique group I mentioned above, here are a few tips:
1) The group should focus on a single genre or type of writing.
2) The members should have similar levels of experience/success.
3) The group should focus on one primary goal and one or two secondary goals, though they may change over time. (For example: The primary goal might be "to get published" while the secondary goals might be "to improve dialog" and "to improve plotting skills.")
4) The members should be able to check their egos at the door.
Great points, Michael. I've always thought that people who critique other people should at least be writing the same kind of genre. All genres are NOT the same. And romance is definitely different than mystery.
The group that worked really well for me had a short story writer (dark but not crime)another short story writer (stories about immigrants) a playright and me. It worked really well because we all spent huge amounts of time on the critiques both written and in person. We were all getting published so that really helped. Unfortunately we had a falling out.
Checking your ego at the door is one of the hardest points for some writers. I've seen more than one egomaniac chase some very promising writers out of crit groups because they didn't bow down and worship their words of wisdom. It's very sad to see this sort of thing happen knowing there's not a lot you can do to stop it.
Post a Comment