How do you find the very best critique group for you?
Rebecca posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:
A couple months ago I celebrated my first official year as a “pre-published” writer who spent all her time learning the craft by writing and studying in isolation. Live and learn, I say, and then don’t do it again. The good news is I have recently changed all that by attending my first writing conference and by observing three writing critique groups. The conference was definitely something I will repeat time and time again. The writing groups were all exceptional and now I must pick one (or all) of these writing groups. My questions are: What advice to you have on finding the best writing critique groups? And, depending on how often it meets, would it be wise to join a couple?
Randy sez: It all depends on where you are on the road to publication. If you haven’t already read my article on this site, “Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Author!” you should probably read it right now to get yourself oriented.
If you’re a Freshman, then you need a critique group to help you figure out where you’re strong and where you’re weak. The horrifically scary thing here is that you’re probably weak in most things. That’s the nature of the beast. You don’t start out in med school being a great brain surgeon. You don’t start out in flying school being a great fighter pilot. You don’t start playing chess as a grandmaster. Writers who can’t deal with that never make it past the Freshman stage.
If you’re a Freshman, I’d recommend finding one critique group that is reasonably nurturing. You really don’t need a group that’s going to destroy your ego every month. However you also need a group that’s going to hold you accountable to writing on a schedule. You will never escape your Freshmanhood unless you get to the point where you’re writing several times per week.
If you’re a Sophomore, then you have figured out a lot of things. By now, you know if you’re plot-oriented, character-oriented, theme-oriented, or setting-oriented. You also have some sort of clue of how you work best: You know if you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer or a Snowflaker or something else.
If you’re a Sophomore, your biggest need is probably a constant reminder that you still have a long way to go and you really aren’t J.K. Rowling just yet. A little knowledge, as they say, is a dangerous thing. Sophomores need to bear this in mind. You need a group that can help you strengthen your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. You also need at least one published author who can give you a bit of guidance in your career development and your marketing.
If you’re a Junior, you desperately need a mentor who is going to help you polish your goods to greatness. These are hard to find. The kind of mentor you need doesn’t necessarily hang out in critique groups much. It’s possible you won’t be able to find a critique group that can fill this need and you may need a critique buddy who is at your level and really gets your writing or you may need someone you can pay to do a freelance edit.
If you’re a Junior, you may very well be the best writer in your critique group, and that means your group is not helping you all that much. That doesn’t mean you should abandon your group. It just means that most of what you learn in the group will be in those “Aha!” moments when you’re critiquing someone else and you suddenly have an insight that’s good for you. Do remember at this stage that even the lowliest writer in your group may well be a great reader who has a key insight on what’s missing in your writing. They most likely won’t have a key insight on how to fix it, unfortunately.
If you’re a Senior, much the same goes for you. Seniors these days generally have an agent, and your agent is going to play the same role that your critique group played when you were a Freshman.
Now Rebecca’s question was partly on how to find a critique group. I can’t answer that easily. There are a lot of places to look for critique groups, but you find them wherever you find them. If you belong to an online organization, it may have a bunch of online groups.
The organization I belong to, ACFW, just recently had a whole class on how to do critiques, and now it’s forming online critique groups. (My daughter Carolyn took the class and is now doing critiques. She’s not a fiction writer; she wants to be an editor someday.)
If you have a community college that has writing classes, you’ll probably find a bulletin board somewhere near the creative writing department that lists critique groups.
I found my first critique group after going to a writing conference that was put on by a regional writing guild in San Diego. The guild had a number of critique groups and I joined one. This group lasted for several years and took me from green Freshman to frustrated Junior. It couldn’t take me beyond that, because nobody in the group was published.
When I finally realized that, I started going to large national writing conferences. At one of those, I met John Olson, who has been my writing buddy ever since. At another, I met Meredith Efken, who has been my freelance editor ever since. At other conferences, I’ve met other key people in my life: Tracy Higley, Jeff Gerke, Jim Rubart, Tosca Lee, Mary DeMuth, and many others. I also met editors and agents who’ve been my guides along the way: Steve Laube, Chip MacGregor, Lee Hough, Wendy Lawton, and many others.
So the moral here is that a critique group will get you rolling, but eventually you’ll need more than that. You will meet many friends at writing conferences, but you only keep them by maintaining contact (usually by e-mail).
One last comment: One good critique group is better than two weak ones. You really want people who know you and understand what you’re writing. You get that by continuity. You should pick a group that meets as often as you need, but no oftener. For a freshman, once a month is probably fine. If you’re really intense, you may be able to meet every two weeks or even weekly, but that’s a tough pace. You have to have time to write.
If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.
Thanks for the great reply Randy. I’m definitely a Freshman who is well aware of the courage and stamina it is going to take to move to the next levels. Being published, of course, is my long-term goal. In the meantime, I’ve been writing every day (2-5 hours). Also, I’ve kept up with the same three writing groups. I feel that I must further explain in order to give my reasoning for possibly sticking with at least two of the three groups:
All of the groups came as a result of attending the writing workshop last May. One group is all fresh writers and we met for the first time last month. Another group includes seasoned writers (unpublished) that have been meeting for a couple years; I joined them for the first time last month. The last group is a paid critique group, held by a mentor (award-winning author and instructor for an MFA program). I’ve read my work for each group and have been very pleased with how much I have learned in such a short amount of time. And another note: the first two meet once a month while the last one meets every other week.
While the mentored group is by far the best (and worth every penny), I still feel like I need others to bounce ideas off of. The mentored group is simply critique paired with some great wisdom from the author mentor. In addition, the other members include three published authors. But I don’t get much chance to “discuss” or “ask questions” about the writing craft or ideas for my story, and the latter is a biggie for me at my current point in writing.
Thanks again for taking on all our questions. This blog is one of my favorite places to be each day.
The thing about critique groups and me is that I find it hard to trust people out there not to take my ideas and make them their own. Is this a common issue (people stealing ideas from critique groups)?
Randy sez: Most writers have way too many stories of their own to work on to be interested in stealing yours. Even if somebody did take an idea or two from you, they’d write it differently than you would. Remember that it’s usually not the idea that sells the book, it’s the way you express that idea. Plagiarism is about taking somebody’s words, not their ideas. So most writers don’t really worry about this.
I found a critique group through meetup.com. When it didn’t work out, I used meetup.com to start my own critique group and I’ve got a great group of people, in my genre, even. Good luck!
For a fiction writer trying to find a critique group, I’d suggest the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW.com). They have a number of larger and smaller online critique groups for a member to join. I think they also have regional chapters that meet physically. Even within the ACFW, you may have to try a few out to see which one is right for you. Through these groups, I’ve met online a number of friends whom I’ve never met in person. I hope to meet a few at the ACFW conference in September.
I have two people who get my work and are not afraid to tell me the truth, but in a nice way. If you don’t find a critique group, maybe you’ll find one or two people you can exchange work with and help each other. ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) has a lot of people and a great place to learn (www.acfw.com).
Seniors blessed with an agent may still need a crit group, pesky or otherwise, because no matter how purely amazing some of us decide we’ve become, we probably still need a sounding board of honest, seasoned, dedicated writers to keep us from staggering around in our heartbreaking genius and tripping over our delusions. But there’s no harm in trying to numb the bunch into a carb-induced stupor with fresh hot cinnamon rolls.
Randy sez: Camille, I’m glad you’re in my critique group and I know we’ll all be celebrating when you graduate. In fact, I expect all the regulars in our group to get published someday. I hope you’ll bring some of those famous cinnamon rolls to our group this month.
I wrote on finding a critique partner/group online yesterday: http://bit.ly/aaVbov
Today’s entry was on why you should be picky when you go to choose a critique partner (http://bit.ly/aSvEV3). Having had the misfortune to form a critique group (at SCBWI several years ago) with several people who were either just starting out or simply did not understand that -conflict- was a necessary ingredient to fiction, I’ve since learned to do some pre-screening.
When you consider what you’re asking of someone (in terms of time and energy) and what you’re offering, treating it like a job interview is a good approach.
Knowing where you fit in the class rankings you offer here is a great first step in that process.
I echo the sentiments about ACFW. I’m currently a member of the overall online crit group and have given and received crits.
Through that process, I connected with a smaller group of writers and have joined that sub-group.
Both are excellent groups with all levels of writers from rank amatuers to authors with several published books.
I found a writing partner. We are surfing the same learning curve and have exchanged all our writing for a couple of years. We take the same online classes or share what we learned from other sources.
That’s another option. It’s worked out better than critique groups for me.
I also attend “Shut up and Write” sessions in the East Bay to hang with other writers. (Check out Meetup.org for more info.)
Stonepile writers disbanded. Do you know of a critique group in N. GA?