Oct 18 2009
Writing Groups
I get a lot of questions about writing groups and how to know if they are any good. Here are the criteria I measure a writing group by:
1. 1. Are you comfortable with the people in the group? Believe it or not, this is the most important. If you’re not comfortable with the people in the group, you are less likely to bring your materials to be critiqued. It is also practically guaranteed you will not respect the critiques they give you.
2. 2. Are they open to your type of material? Some groups specifically avoid certain genres, or do not tolerate profanity of any type. If you feel you will need to censor your material before you present it to the group or it is of the wrong genre, you are not in the right group.
3. 3. Does the group bring anything to improve your material? Do you find the critiques valuable? Do the suggestions make your work better, or is it a lot of hot air that doesn’t help? Some critiques will be an attempt to rewrite your work the way the person critiquing would write it; that isn’t a critique that is valuable, unless you specifically ask how that person would write it. Grammar corrections, people pointing out common mistakes like repeating words too often, plot points that don’t make sense, things one of your characters does that seems out of character – those are valuable critiques.
4. 4. Respect. Do the writers respect each other and take turns? When you have a dominant bore in charge of the group, who belligerently takes over every discussion, either talk with the organizer privately about it (unless the bore IS the organizer), or simply find another group. If the group doesn’t respect each other as people, they won’t respect your writing efforts either. I have heard a horror story about a group that held a writing contest for which everyone had to pay an entry fee - the organizer pocketed the entry fee and, unsurprisingly, his entry won the contest. The group was little more than an ego boost for him; it did very little for anyone else attending.
5. 5. Do they have written guidelines? The more organized groups have guidelines that detail how long meetings will be, how the reading and critiquing will take place, how many copies of your work to bring to the meeting, etc. When things are outlined, you know what to expect and aren’t surprised by demands that were never presented to you in the first place.
I’ve actually only been with two writing groups. The first one was fantastic and would probably still be fantastic if our meeting place hadn’t been changed due to business management changes (we had to go from a private room to being out in the public shopping area on couches.) It relocated to a library meeting room – that didn’t go too well due to the somewhat loud conversations about our materials (the subsequent relocation to a member’s private residence eventually disintegrated due to political discussions that dominated what was supposed to be a writing group.)
A third group I became involved with is strictly a screenwriting group. I have found the group more important for networking than actual critiquing of what we bring to the meetings. It has been good for me professionally, but hasn’t improved my writing much.
At this point, I feel I really have outgrown the writing group atmosphere as my writing has matured and met with favorable reviews from professional critiques at writing conventions (more on that in a later blog). I still attend the screenwriting group since I gain other valuable information there about screenwriting, even if there is no critiquing going on.
You can find writing groups meeting at book stores, like Barnes & Noble or Borders, or on web sites like Meetup.com, Facebook, or Myspace. Some also advertise in free publications like neighborhood newletters or on neighborhood bulletin boards. There are lots of writers in this world, and everyone needs a little critiquing help at the start.
Please feel free to leave me any questions you might have about writing groups. I am happy to help.
