Hello writers! SensibleShoes was last spotted over at the Startled Duck, downing chocolate grog while trying to keep all the guns on the wall from going off. So, I'm guest hosting for the online literati, for which I've decided the proper collective noun is a scribble of writers.
When writers get together and scribble, amazing things happen.
I've been participating in writers' groups for years. They can be difficult to organize and keep together; people keep moving away, having babies, and rearranging their priorities. (I'm pretty sure it's not just me that keeps driving them away. At least, I'm sure that the person having the baby wasn't my fault.) Craigslist and Meet-ups seem to be the easiest ways to start a group or access an existing one.
Some groups meet just to write together (especially during NaNoWriMo), and some do writing exercises like the ones we do here at Write On. I enjoyed those when I was writing mainly for fun. But when I started thinking about publication, it was time for the dreaded Critique Group.
It's intimidating at first, having other people look at your work and offering opinions. Finding the flaws in your work is essential to the editing process, but it's hard to hear, especially at first. The ideal critique group has a half-dozen or so core members who show up consistently, so you get to know each other's writing and editing styles.
Because Write On is a public forum, and the exercises are done on the spot, we tend to stick with mostly positive comments. In the more intimate setting of my critique group, handing over a chapter that I've been sweating over, I get more corrections and criticisms - but still in a respectful way, with the goal of improving the piece. If you ever find yourself in a group where one member (or worse, all of them) seems to genuinely enjoy tearing others down, my best advice is run. Fortunately, I've only had that happen once in more than a decade of writing groups.
I've done some critique groups where we read material aloud and then discuss. Some writers swear by that; my own preference is to send the work out before the meeting so that people have a chance to read it ahead of time and fill the margins with inscrutable comments.
The main advantages I've found for a critique group are:
Accountability. I know I have to have something written in time for group, or they'll all attack me with sharpened #2 pencils. OK, they probably won't, but they'll satirize me, which is worse.
Expertise. I'm good at some things, like dialogue; I have trouble with description. Each group member brings different strengths to the table. One person points out my habit of starting with dependent clauses, while another lets me know when I haven't adequately described the setting, and wouldn't it have been useful to know earlier that the characters are on a helicopter plummeting between the Andes?
Varied perspectives. If some of the group members love what I'm doing and some hate it, I'll go with my gut. If all of them hate it, they're probably seeing something that my gut's missing. And occasionally one of them will throw in a much-needed suggestion. "This line about your characters going bowling - wouldn't they go for something weirder, like, what's that sport where you push a rock across the ice?" This led to a curling-team subplot that I would never have thought of otherwise.
Developing your own editing skills. As you edit other people's work, you become better at turning an editor's eye on your own. And it becomes more about the work, not about you.
The Exercise:
Write a love scene for the Callow Youth (or some other character, if you prefer).
One person in your critique group insists that you engage at least 3 senses.
Another is incapable of reading more than 150 words.
Another wants you to have no adverbs and no more than three adjectives.
And the other group member (the one everybody hates) insists that it contain a reference to bowling.
However, since you can't please everyone, you may choose one of the above requirements to disregard.
The Write On! timeslot has changed to Thurs 7 pm ET (4 pm Pacific) for the winter.
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write and/or Writer Beware.