Critique Groups: The Good, the Bad, and Run-for-Your-Lives! 10 Kinds of Critique Groups that Can Drive you Batty

By Anne R. Allen

Critique groups are a great way to get feedback on your writing. But groups can fall into bad habits. I've been in dozens over the years and I've seen how one or two dominant members can change a group’s tone and direction.

Here are a few common deviations from the helpful critique group we're looking for. Some can be helpful in spite of flaws, but often you have to move on.

1) Enforcers

They’ve never met a writing rule they didn't love and enforce each one with zero tolerance. For them it's all about shaming rule-breakers, not improving a fellow writers' work.

They have a search-and-destroy policy for adverbs, and insist the word "was" is taboo. (For a rebuttal, see my post on the "was" police.) They allow no prologues, EVER.

Put up your deflector shields and let most of their “advice” bounce off.

2) Fact-Checkers

Some groups are dominated by detail-oriented people who want a novel to be as close to real life as possible.

Everything must be "realistic" down to knowing when and where your heroine relieves herself when she's running from mutant raccoons on Mars.

One will say your Regency duke would have terrible B.O. after fighting those ruffians, so the kiss the heroine has been anticipating would not be the glorious experience you describe.

Remember your genre’s norms and ignore the noise.

3) Group Therapy

The tendency to slip into psychotherapy is a common pitfall, especially in groups with memoirists writing about divorce, wartime, or health issues.

The line between creating and confessing can blur. Critiquers often give supportive, "attaboy" feedback out of compassion, no matter the quality of the writing.

When you come in with your breezy rom-com, you feel like you're crashing the pity party.

Plus these tender-hearted folks may try to stop your protagonist from making bad choices. She mustn’t dance with that judgmental aristocrat Darcy or accept that owl's invitation to wizard school.

Conflict-free stories are not what you’re aiming for.

4) Golden Girls

A group dominated by an older demographic can have memory issues. (Hey, age happens to us all, with any luck!)

Unfortunately, members often forget what they heard in the last installment, so they’ll ask you to repeat yourself. Often. Which can make for some unreadable prose.

Give them a separate recap before you read your chapter, and DON’T put it in your WIP.

5) Punctuation Police

This happens in online groups or in-person meetings where readers bring printed copies. Critiques can devolve into drawn-out arguments over use of the Oxford comma.

Groups that focus on grammar and spelling will do little to help with big-picture storytelling, but if you want to brush up on basic grammar or need a proofreader, they're fine.

6) Literary Salon

Usually dominated by readers and writers of literary fiction. They may write brilliantly and have a vast knowledge of literature, but their critiques can be…less than helpful.

They tend to be old school, so won't consider self-publishing. They may send out a few half-hearted queries comparing their work to Kerouac or Karl Ove Knausgaard, but probably don't attempt to get published outside of small literary journals.

They can have useful things to say about character and setting, and are fantastic at weeding out clichés. But on plot, structure, and pace, not so much.

7) Coffee Klatches

These groups never get around to more than a couple of critiques because so much time is spent chatting over the elaborate refreshments. Providing snacks can become a competitive sport. If the group meets in the evening there may be some lovely wine.

These groups can be a godsend to a writer who's been holed up in a writing cave and needs some human contact. And wine.

But feedback can be skimpy and useless to a writer on a path to publication.

8) The Literary Death Match

Whether or not the members are poets, meetings can be like a competitive poetry slam. The dominant member (s) want to perform, and tune out when others are reading.

Critiques careen from lavish praise to savage criticism. Somebody will probably order you to write an entirely new plot, which they’ll outline for you in detail. Their goal is to establish dominance, not improve your WIP.

These people can build you up one week and crush you the next—saying anything that comes into their heads.

Find another group. Narcissists are dangerous.

9) The Mutual Admiration Society

Like the Coffee Klatch, this group is all about schmoozing. Also bolstering flagging egos. To give them credit, they’re not focused on the ginger-pear Linzer torte and imported Gewürztraminer. They are actually interested in the work.

Unfortunately, everything brought for critique is always WONDERFUL and worthy of publication. They don't want you to change a thing.

You’re not going to grow much in this environment.

10) The Vicious Circle

This group is dominated by a handful of Dorothy Parker-wannabes just waiting to slip a verbal dagger into your heart.

They may have published a bit—which makes them "experts"—but it was some time ago. Maybe in college. When they got harsh feedback from the writer-in-residence, who used words like "puerile" and "derivative."

Since then, they've been honing their bitterness till it cuts like a samurai sword.

It only takes one or two of these—plus their devoted (and fearful) minions—to turn a critique group into one of the darker circles of hell.

A workshop like this at a well-known writers' conference was the inspiration for my comic mystery, Ghostwriters in the Sky. I got to kill off the workshop leader who created this Vicious Circle.

Run before you resort to real-life homicide.

~

Anne R. Allen is a multi-award winning blogger and the author of 13 published and forthcoming books, including the bestselling Camilla Randall Mysteries. She’s the author, with Amazon superstar Catherine Ryan Hyde, of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE. Her latest book is THE AUTHOR BLOG: EASY BLOGGING FOR BUSY AUTHORS. Her next Camilla mystery, GOOGLING OLD BOYFRIENDS will launch in December 2018 with Kotu Beach Press. You can find her, along with NYT million-seller Ruth Harris at Anne R. Allen’s Blog…with Ruth Harris.

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How to Beat Back Writer Insecurity

Ken Rahmoeller joins us today! The winner of the IWSG Show Us Your Writer Insecurity contest and IWSG blogging member (number eighteen on the list and still rising!), Ken agreed to tackle that very subject – insecurity. We all feel it – now, how do we deal with it?

Where do you hail from? How long have you been writing? What genre(s) do you write? Published work? What are your goals?

I’ve lived in the Midwest all my life, bouncing between Illinois and Missouri until I finally moved to Michigan after finishing my Ph.D. in chemistry. I’ve been writing fiction for about ten years, although the first couple of years were rather sporadic. My preferred genre is Fantasy, although I like to think of it as Science Fantasy. My pattern is to create a few fantastical elements for my story world and then let science fill out the resulting ramifications. It makes my worlds seem more real to me. I’m not published, probably because I haven’t finished a story yet. My goal is to finish a story, publish it, then start the process all over again (hopefully not taking ten years the next time around).

When you first began writing, was insecurity a problem?

No. My writing journey started when I began writing Harry Potter fan fiction, and back then I had no insecurities. I hadn’t heard of fan fiction sites and I don’t think Wattpad existed yet, so I never expected anyone to see my words. And even after I discovered I could upload my words to the internet, I didn’t know enough about writing to feel insecure. Who said ignorance can’t be a blessing? Fortunately, by the time I learned enough to be insecure, I was already hooked on this writing stuff, so I had no choice but to slog through it as best I could.

When did you really begin to question what you wrote? What happened to initiate that?

I was quite happy with my words for a while… until I compared them to the ones in my favorite author’s books. Especially Rowling’s books. It was clear my writing wasn’t anywhere near the level of those books, but I didn’t know enough yet to understand why. All I knew was my writing sounded amateurish next to them. So I pushed myself to understand what I was missing. I studied Rowling’s words. I read writing blogs and bought books on craft. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn’t know. Talk about insecurity! To be honest, if I hadn’t been hooked on writing by that point, I probably would have abandoned this whole writing business right then and there.

Before we knew the rules, we wrote uninhibited. But without those writing rules, our work sucks. What’s the balance between the two?

I’m a big proponent of “the rules are only guidelines” mindset. After studying the books of authors I respected, it was clear they didn’t always follow the rules either. Especially Rowling. I eventually concluded that much of an author’s voice depends on which writing rules they followed and which they chose to ignore. The hard part for us newer writers is deciding which rules your readers expect you to follow. Every book, every genre, every reader age group has a different expectation. Your job as an author is to figure out what that expectation is.

Back before I came to this conclusion, my mind was often paralyzed with indecision. I’d write a simple, straightforward sentence, then obsess for hours over whether it was telling or showing. I avoided finding a critique partner for years simply because I was afraid my chapters were so full of hidden telling that any critique partner worth their salt would drop me immediately. Turns out that most crit partners (and readers) aren’t nearly as worried about telling as some of the experts would have us believe. As authors, it’s our job to tell our story in a way that maximizes the entertainment value for the reader. And if that means more showing (or more telling), then so be it.

So how do we determine the appropriate amount of rule breaking? Get critique partners. Lots of them. Listen to what they have to say. Remember, the rules have reasons for existing, and you need to understand them before you break them.

How do critique partners or writer’s groups sometimes add to the insecurity? How do they take it away?

At the beginning, attending critique group meetings made my stomach hurt, because the other writers found so many problems in my submissions. I walked into these meetings thinking my words sucked, and they confirmed it. They tried to be encouraging, but I realized I had so much more to learn, it was hard not to be depressed. But somehow, despite all this negativity, I always came away from these meetings supercharged for more writing. I wanted to dive right in and fix the problems. I kept working on my craft, and as time passed my critique partners found less and less to complain about. So now my critique groups help banish my insecurities. The moral of the story? Don’t give up.

Why do we struggle with it? Why does fear and doubt mess with our creativity?

Because we have no standards against which to judge ourselves. There’s no metric that can tell us if our writing is book-worthy or not. Writing is too subjective. Our only option is to compare our words with those of other authors, and that usually just makes us feel worse. At least it does for me. The only way we’ll ever know if our stories are good is if people like the book when it’s finished. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do us any good when we’re in the middle of writing the darn thing, and that’s when our insecurities are at their highest.

What can we do to battle insecurity? Rituals, thought processes, activities, etc.?

I may not be the best person to answer this. I have loads of insecurities about my writing, but I have one superpower that helps protect me against them. An almost child-like ability to ignore reality. I’m serious. No matter how depressed I might become after a night of crappy writing, all I need is a good night’s sleep, and when I wake, the insecurities are gone. Like magic. I don’t know how it works, but it always does. If I could bottle it, I would.

My one suggestion for battling insecurity is to create a writing space that draws you so deeply into your story that insecurity can’t follow. Much of what I write involves magic and alchemy, so my office is decorated in the style of a potion’s master lab. When I’m surrounded by flasks and beakers and tomes on alchemy, I can’t help but feel excited about my stories.

Despite the insecurities, can you see your growth as a writer?

OMG, yes. Every once in a while, when I’m stuck on a particular scene, I look back at my early writing and am staggered by how much better my writing is now. I used to be so clueless about writing. Of course, this knowledge can be a double edged sword. If I could be so clueless about being clueless back then, how do I know I’m not still clueless now? I don’t know what I don’t know, and that scares me.

Any other advice for all the insecure writers out there?

1. Find critique partners you trust, as many as you can. Join online critique groups. Get your work in front of as many eyes as possible. Listen to their feedback, even if you don’t always agree with their comments. Not only will your writing improve, but their value as a support group cannot be overstated.

2. Accept that insecurity is an occupational hazard of being a writer, and that you will always suffer from it, no matter how many books you write. That’s just how it is. In fact, I believe that being insecure is a prerequisite for being a good writer. Insecurity forces you to push yourself into becoming a better writer. Insecurity keeps you from pushing out unpolished dreck. Yeah, having to deal with the negative consequences stinks, but your insecurity is one of the best tools you have in your writer’s toolbox. Embrace it. Nurture it. Because the instant your insecurity goes away, your writing will suffer.

Thanks, Ken!

Ken Rahmoeller:
I'm a chemist living in Michigan who wondered how J.K. Rowling might go about writing another series based on the Harry Potter universe - and then decided to find out for himself.
Find Ken at his blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook.