I recently read an article by a writer who talked about how her critique group helped her to become published. When she was no longer able to attend, she became afraid to send out a work that they hadn’t critiqued, but finally did, and it sold. She believes a writer can become so dependent on a critique group she doesn’t realize she really doesn’t need it any more.
While certainly a time comes where every writer who’s been in a critique group no longer “needs” the group in the same way she or he once did, critique groups serve other functions for writers than simply pointing out ways to improve one’s work. After eighty some published books, not to mention a lot of novellas and short stories, I still miss a critique group. I’ve been in three very different ones and each provided me with so much more than improving my writing.
My first group came when I lived in San Diego. I was invited to join a critique group after I’d sold my first book and had been featured on local TV, as well as an article in the San Diego Union. I was thrilled and flattered to be asked to join. At this time RWA was a babe-in-arms and there were no chapters yet.
The group consisted of men and women who wrote in many genres. The only exception was-no poets. The man who started the group-our guru-felt that it was impossible for a non-poet to critique a poem, hence the rule. I learned early that a critique group needed rules to function well. One was that I couldn’t get away with saying, “Oh, I don’t read men’s action, so I can’t critique that.” I was told a writer knows good writing from bad writing, knows grammar rules, and whether a piece of writing is boring or interesting, so he or she can critique anything.
In this group we all read our own work. Only if you were too hoarse to read was anyone else permitted to read your work for you. In other words this was your baby and you were responsible for it. We made notes as people read so we could remember what we wanted to say when our turn came to critique. Everyone was expected to keep their critique to the point, and, if someone hogged the stage, our guru was sure to shut that person down by saying, “Moving right along… “ The reader was not allowed to say a word unless asked a direct question. Our notes were passed to each reader when the verbal critique was finished.
This may sound too rigid, but, in practice, it wasn’t. A big group, as this was, needs rules and needs them enforced, if anything is to get done. In time we all became friends. I made a best friend in this group, and I still correspond with the guru.
I moved to New York State. By then RWA had chapters and I, along with a woman I met in the town I moved to, decided to form one. But how to get members? Why not have a writing conference? So we did. It was a small one, held across the Hudson River in the Terrytown Library to make it easy for the editors we’d invited to attend. My friend and I provided a simple lunch. We attracted thirty some people, and enough joined our fledgling Hudson Valley Chapter to make it a go.
As a chapter, we were essentially a critique group at first-all romance writers and all women except for a token male. But some of the members had trouble mastering the art of critiquing a work read aloud, so we provided written copy as well. I made several life-long friends there and hated to leave them.
Then I moved to Nevada and joined the struggling Northern Nevada Chapter of RWA in Reno. At the first meeting I asked if anyone was interested in forming a critique group and took down the names and phone numbers of the six who were. As it turned out I was the only published author in the critique group we formed-a first for me. The other six were incredibly talented women, and my contribution was to speed up their road to publication, which would have eventually happened without me. What did they contribute? Hey, published authors make mistakes, too, and they caught them all. When the NNRWA group went down the tubes, this became a wonderful support group for some other writers as well. These six women are still my friends, and always will be.
So my point is that critique groups offer more than a chance to improve writing and learn about markets and agents. With all the Internet has to offer, and all the writing lists and online critiquing available today, one might think face-to-face critique groups serve no purpose. Wrong! Writing is such a lonely business that those of us who pursue the muse need the interaction of other writers, not only on the ‘Net, but off it, in real life situations when we come face to face with one another. Conferences help, but they’re sporadic and sometimes too large. A critique group forms a more intimate setting, where its members can get to know not only the way each person writes, but the kind of a person each one is.
In a critique group, we note strengths and weaknesses, like some people better than others, but eventually bond with every one who remains in the group. We become friends. After all, we’re in the same boat, and with everyone doing their share of bailing, it has a good chance of staying afloat.
Jane
