September Open Mic

September 22, 2021 in Writing

September Open Mic

Once again, it is time to talk amongst yourselves while I deal with my current crop of household emergencies. (My water heater and a/c both sprang leaks in the same week…so it is a happy coincidence that this is Open Mic week! And yes, it will be an expensive pain to replace them, but at least it is only my stuff that is breaking, and not me myself.) Enjoy!

17 Comments

September 25, 2021 at 4:35 am

Paul Lamb

I wonder if perhaps you shouldn’t be looking for (or looking to start) a “writing group” at all. Maybe that’s too formal and even hierarchical. Perhaps you’d do better to cultivate three or four friends who will read your work and give you honest comments on it. As your friends, you can likely better indicate what feedback you want. Plus the informality will reduce some of the “performance” aspect that you might see in a dedicated writing group.

This is how I do it now. I have a small group of writer friends, and we share our work and thoughts. I had belonged to one or two formal groups before, and the experience was varied, as others have detailed.
1. September 26, 2021 at 3:25 am
  
  Alpakka
  
  Yeah, something informal would suit me. The problem is that I don’t have any writer friends.
  
  Experience shows that it’s quite difficult for me to get three or four friends to give feedback, much less detailed constructive criticism.
  
  Maybe I could try to exchange baked goods for criticism or something, but with non-writers it would be somehow asymmetric relationship in any case. Some friends also live far enough that it’s tricky to meet often in real life (even in normal world circumstances), and I’m not sure what virtual gift would be suitable. I don’t want to feel that I’m constantly asking for favors without giving something back.
  1. September 26, 2021 at 11:59 am
    
    Mary Catelli
    
    Some people have high success rate with friends who want to help.
    
    But besides the reciprocity question, there’s also the matter of whether they know enough about writing to help, whether their tastes match what you’re trying to do, and whether needing to tell you a story stinks would put a strain on the relationship (whether they manage it, or not).
  2. September 27, 2021 at 4:16 pm
    
    Marica
    
    So far, my writing is group is my family. Early drafts of paragraphs and chapters go to my girls who will criticize the beegeezus out of it on every thing from style to punctuation. We have a continual text thread where I’ll ask deep and serious questions such as “this word or that?” My husband and I read an early decent first draft, and later the penultimate, aloud together.
    
    On the one hand, this is an insulated group, not exactly representative of the population as a whole. On the other, they get my jokes. On the other other, no one worries about being crossed off a Christmas list.
    
    But I, too, wish I had at least someone else.
  3. September 29, 2021 at 8:04 am
    
    Nat
    
    “I don’t want to feel that I’m constantly asking for favors without giving something back.”
    
    Get to read a new book in exchange for keeping a list of any obvious typos or points that don’t flow well?
    
    It sounds like a fair trade to me, if the reader genuinely likes the the kind of book you write, and depending on what level of detail you are looking for. (Not volunteering, just saying that I think it could be a fair exchange for some people.)
September 24, 2021 at 2:17 am

Alpakka

Thanks everyone for comments and suggestions. Those suggested web sites sound promising, some sort of online thing would probably work for me at this point.

I expect that from those sites it would be possible to get more specific feedback than “there were some typos or strange sentence structures at some point, but I don’t remember what or where”. =)
September 23, 2021 at 5:43 pm

Bob Ortega

I used critcollective.com to find someone to exchange chapters with, and I’ve been fortunate in that she has provided really useful critiques. You can be as specific in your requests as you’d like, to make sure you find someone in the same genre, with a similar level of experience and commitment. Still a bit of a gamble, to be sure.
I do think that being in a group would be even more helpful. Since the one I was working with in person shut down because of the pandemic, I haven’t found a suitable replacement. But I’m still looking…
September 23, 2021 at 3:04 pm

Wolf Lahti

The first writing group I joined was great, all writers with very different approaches to their work, even different genres. Each brought a different focus and were often insightful. (Until this experience, I hadn’t understood how a collection of non-published writers could help each other, but secondary readers will see things you cannot, such as where you’ve been unclear or are bludgeoning the reader unnecessarily.)

The second group, not so much. I proposed the rules that had made the first group successful (author cannot comment until each member finished their critique, time limits, and such), but these folks didn’t want any structure at all. Worst of all, any sort of criticism was frowned upon; they just wanted to be a mutual-admiration society, which isn’t at all useful if you genuinely want to improve your craft.

The third group was on line, and it worked well until a period of time that the organizer/moderator (a well-known professional writer) was gone for a couple weeks. Someone had commented on their own manner of working, and some people became defensive, thinking that the commenter was claiming that their way of working was the only Right and True way to proceed (which to my perception wasn’t what had been said at all). Without the moderator to rein in the “discussion”, emotions flared and things got out of hand.

So… You need people willing to accept criticism and a strong hand on the reins. How you achieve this is left as an exercise for the reader. :/
September 23, 2021 at 6:21 am

Deep Lurker

As a side project, I’m thinking about writing a collection of holiday short stories, set in my alt-history 1950s. The holidays are *mostly* the same as in our 1950s, but Valentines day is a more important holiday there, and Columbus day is sort of split with half the population celebrating it as an American Indian Day – dressing up as Indians and otherwise doing an Indian analog of “Being Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.”

Now ‘all’ I need to do is come up with a set of half-a-dozen or more complete plot-skeletons, with beginnings, middles, *AND* endings.

And in the meantime, the slow grinding rolling rewrite of my WIP continues.
1. September 23, 2021 at 6:26 am
  
  Deep Lurker
  
  Speaking of holidays, whatever happened to Venturesome Sheep Day? That was (checks) LizV
  1. September 28, 2021 at 10:00 pm
    
    LizV
    
    *grin* Venturesome Sheep Day is still wandering the fields in search of a plot, I’m afraid.
2. September 23, 2021 at 6:36 pm
  
  Mary Catelli
  
  Some holidays are easier to write about than others.
September 22, 2021 at 8:42 pm

Rick Ellrod

On writing groups — I can recommend the online site Critique Circle (critiquecircle.com). A wide variety of writers and comments, a well-designed site. You can join for free, or pay for premium membership. I’ve been a member for at least eight years and have met a number of very helpful “critique buddies” there.

Rick
September 22, 2021 at 6:16 pm

Mary Catelli

I finished a draft of a story that is only waiting for my last pass (to make sure I didn’t have a character not know something in the scene after she knew it) for beta readers.

And immediately its sequel popped up for outlining while it cools off.
September 22, 2021 at 2:15 pm

Alpakka

I’ve read a lot of advice about the importance of writing groups for many writers, how it’s important to get the correct kind of feedback, etc.

How about advice on how to get started with forming such a group? What if you are a starting writer and don’t have any writer friends?

In my case I don’t know how serious I want to be about writing, but I did write a fantasy short story (after the traditional final battle between the Chosen One and the Dark Lord, who cleans up the mess?).

It would be great to get more feedback about what works and what doesn’t, but I’m not sure where and how to ask. I did get feedback from a few friends which was great, but more detailed criticism would be useful.
1. September 22, 2021 at 3:18 pm
  
  Kevin Wade Johnson
  
  I can’t help much, but I wanted to recommend that, whatever you’re looking for, make sure to say so up front. Before the pandemic, I was in a writing group, but it didn’t go the way I’d hoped. I wanted feedback on themes and imagery, that sort of thing, but what I got was “I wouldn’t use this word” over and over.
  
  Then lockdown hit, and no more meetings for me. Looking back, though, maybe if I’d said what I wanted, I wouldn’t have gotten feedback I didn’t want.
  
  (I wouldn’t have minded some encouraging words, either, but see our hostess’ last post for that topic!) 🙂
2. September 22, 2021 at 4:36 pm
  
  Eliza
  
  I joined SCBWI to find a critique group with other writers for younger age groups. I really like my group mates, but there’s definitely a big disparity in experience and intentions. Some are hobbyists on their first book, others are multiple books in and pursuing writing as a career. So joining a society or even a Facebook group could help you find people, but you don’t always know what you’re getting. And even with the group that I have, I still wish for more beta readers, as the time and length constraints on the group don’t always work for me. (I think that was just a long-winded way of saying “good question.”)