Writers' Groups: A Necessary Evil?

I have a lot of online writer friends. The people at SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), the people at the IAMTW (International Association of Media Tie-In Writers) and now all the people I met at Viable Paradise. It’s a virtual cornucopia of networking connection madness where people are willing to answer even some of the most foolish questions asked by newbie-writer. The subjects on which writers agree and disagree are absolutely amazing, and sometimes unpredictable.

Some time ago, I mentioned my local writing group in a conversation with several published and well-known authors. The response was across the board. Several people agreed that writers groups have their place while others said that writers groups can over-workshop a story to the point of not being a good story anymore.

I find this last view quite interesting. How much workshopping is enough? And how do you know if you’re getting good advice from your group?

Well, what do you want from your group?

When I lived in South Carolina, I found a writers group that met twice a month at a local bookstore, once a month for poetry and once a month for stories / novels. New to the area and looking for someone to encourage me with my writing, I instantly joined up. It took me about 3 months to realize the same people attended both groups. It took me about 6 months to realize the critiques were starting to sound the same. By month 9, I’d realized I hadn’t joined a writers group. I’d joined a Mutual Appreciation Society.

Critiques were based on punctuation and grammar, but everything else was "wonderful." I exaggerate a little, but rarely did I ever hear anything bad about my work. And much as I’d like to believe I am the best writer in the world, I happen to know better. So why weren’t these people giving me helpful comments about plot, structure, characters and such?

I never did find out. And I never did confront them about it (I probably should have). I just stopped going to the meetings. They were too depressing despite all the compliments. As I heard at least twice at VP,  "It’s okay to fire your writing group." A sound piece of advice. One that I did unintentionally at the time.

It’s easy to tell when a writing group doesn’t work for you if every time you attend, you go home in tears after every meeting or they tell you you’re the next best thing to sliced bread during every session. It’s not so easy to tell when it comes close to meeting your needs, but some how misses the mark. And then there’s the "over workshopped" aspect.

The best way to decide if your group is working for you is to make a list. Things to include:

1) What level of critique are you expecting (Novice, Journeyman, Expert)? This makes a huge difference in how crits are handed out and how they are received.

2) How comfortable do you feel with these people seeing the product of your sweat, blood, tears and soul?

3) Can you take constructive criticism (be honest with yourself) or will your every response be "They just don’t get what I’m trying to do with this work"? I occasionally find myself falling into this trap.

4) Does everyone in your group say the exact same thing?

Number 4 can be tough. On one hand, it could mean that your writing is so predictable and really needs a lot of work on the issues that keep coming up. On the other hand, it could be that everyone in your group likes a particular style or has a particular prejudice and you don’t have enough diversity in the group for good critiques. For instance, if you write horror and every single group member starts out saying "I normally don’t read horror," this probably isn’t the group for you and any critiques they make are too biased to be useful.

5) Are you too close to members of the group?

Being in a group with your best buddies or family members is usually a bad idea. Rare it is when a close friend or relative is willing to "be mean" for the sake of craft (and I mean "mean" in a constructive way). And for those who are willing, sometimes they’ve got personal bones to pick. Which leads again to another biased crit.

6) Has your writing improved any significant amount since you joined the group? Have you learned anything from the group?

If the answer to 6 is "no," RUN, don’t walk, to the nearest exit, pass GO as quickly as possible, snatch your $200.00 out of the banker’s hand and search for another writing group or forgo the writing group experience completely. Even well-known writers are always learning new things about the craft. If you aren’t learning, then the WG experience isn’t helping you.

Lastly, take a look at the re-writes you’ve done after being workshopped. You might want to wait a few months, put some distance between you and the crit experience. Then see if your manuscript has improved or gotten worse. And, if you have a non-WG friend whose judgment you trust, have him or her take a look at both versions. Is the before version better? Or is the after version?

This is probably the only true test of whether or not you’ve over-workshopped your work. Eventually, you get a feel for it. So I’m told, anyway.

The main thing to remember is, just because the group told you to change it, doesn’t mean you have to change it. You’re the author, the final arbiter of your work. Make the call. Choose which pieces of worskhop advice to follow and which to ignore. You might choose to ignore the wrong ones at first, but stick with it long enough and your gut will teach you which advice works.

Or so I’m told. Even though I’m published, I’m still learning myself. I do know, however, there are just some compromises on my work that I’m not willing to make. While some other compromises just require putting a little distance between me and the critique before I make the decision to rend/cut/re-write/change.

It hasn’t been quite a month since VP. Now do I do my novel re-write for NaNoWriMo or do I try something else? I’ve never done NaNoWriMo before, so it’ll be an interesting experience.