To Critique Group or Not To Critique Group

It's the age old question for every burgeoning writer. Should I join a critique group or should I not? The benefits are many fold, camaraderie, consistency, fresh eyes and possibly wine to boot.

But the downside of critique groups can also be challenging to new writers. Who's advise should you listen to, what if you have a bully in your group, what are the skill sets of the participants? Integrating yourself in an already existing group can be a daunting task.

So how do you find the right partners for you?

There are a number of options:

1) Start one with like minded friends

Groups don't have to be large. Sometimes it might just be two or three participants. The goal is to come together to support each other and push your writing forward. Sometimes knowing that you have to meet to read five pages the next week is enough to push you to continue to write.

2) Meetup.com

There are a number of groups that meet to write or critique in your local community and the best way to search them out is through Meetup.com. It can seem a bit daunting to put your writing out there to strangers but the benefit of this is consistency (there is usually a specific day each week that the group meets) and fresh eyes. Participants can also choose when they want to participate so if you can't make it one week, it's not going to hurt you the next.

3) Faculty Led Critique Groups

For those that have a little extra cash to spare, the are critique groups out there that are lead by seasoned writers and editors. I am currently participating in one and it is by far the best critique experience I've had to date. Not only do you get feedback from fellow writers but you also get the structure and technical input that you would not from a regular critique group. Organizations such as San Diego Writers Ink. offer these types of critique services.

The most important thing to remember is that everyone in the group is there to help. The goal is to push everyone's writing to make it better (in a constructive and mature manner). You don't have to take the feedback that individuals provide but if you're getting the same input from several writers, then you know, there's something in your writing that you need to revisit.

Happy Writing and Critiquing!

Common Critiques

Last week, a fellow writer in my writers workshop told me that they always paid a little extra attention to my critiques in class.  That comment meant a lot to me.  It meant that I was not only going through the exercise of "critiquing", I was providing value.

Having reviewed and provided notes on scripts and manuscripts, here are a few issues that seem to pop up often and with a few tweaks, they can be resolved quickly.

1) Who's POV is it?

Sometimes we forget who's POV we're writing from.  We'll be deep into our protagonist's head and all of a sudden a scene pops up from a secondary character's POV.  You may have several characters who's POV's you're writing from and that's ok. The key is to ask yourself who's scene does this belong to and does switching POVs take your readers out of the action. 

2) Too much exposition

We want our readers to get to know our characters and we may feel it's important to tell stories about their past, family or history.  But instead of increasing the emotional connection between our readers and the protagonist, we may actually be distancing them.  Providing too much backstory can actually be a disservice.  It changes the mood and pacing of the scene and takes us out of what's going on at that moment.  If information about the past is to be revealed, it has to be grounded in the present.

3) Dialogue Tags

He said, she said, they asked, he mumbled, she griped.  These are all dialogue tags and having too many of them can be a distraction for the reader.  A great exercise is to print off a few pages of your manuscript and circle all the tags.  If you're seeing a lot of circles per page, then perhaps it's time to eliminate some of them.  One possibility is to replace the tag with an action by the speaker.  For example, "This tastes delicious!" Gary took another bite of the apple. 

Are there any common criticisms that you've seen in your critique groups?  Feel free to share here!

How to Criticize Constructively

If you've ever been involved in a critique group, put your work up for public critique in a forum, or submitted to contests, you're probably familiar with the term "constructive criticism."

The definition of constructive criticism, from Dictionary.com: "criticism or advice that is useful and intended to help or improve something, often with an offer of possible solutions."

Raise your hand if you've experienced criticism that was not, ah, quite so constructive.

Yeah, I thought so.

If you're getting your work out there, bad critiques are unavoidable. But you can take steps to make sure your notes on others' work are as constructive as possible.

One method is the sandwich technique. This means to buffer each piece of negative feedback with two compliments.

Okay, maybe not quite like the graphic. But the sandwich method can be a way to soften the blow of relaying legitimate problems with the manuscript. If you don't tell the writer anything but the parts that weren't working, he or she will probably feel like you hated everything about the work, which usually isn't the case.

Another important point to remember when critiquing is to be specific. There's very little worse than getting notes back on your chapters or manuscript like "I just found the main character very unlikeable" or "the plot seemed unbelievable." 

Of course, it's great to give the writer your gut reactions, but then follow it up by pointing out specific parts in the manuscript that caused that reaction (e.g. "After he punched his grandmother in the face, I found that I didn't like him much anymore"). Rule of thumb: specific feedback gives the writer things to fix.

Be specific. Very specific.

And finally, be polite. Apply the golden rule and ask yourself honestly how you would react to notes like the ones you're about to send. Are they helpful? Do they mention what you liked as well as what you didn't? Are they specific?