Critique Group : Every Writer Should Have One

            There are many factors that occur to make a writer great. Having a lot of support behind your work is quite valuable. Beyond your parents, whom are quite proud of everything you do, or your husband, boyfriend or best friend that better be proud, you may find that your work benefits significantly by having a good-fitting and experienced critique group behind you as well. You may have to shop around for the perfect fit, but it will be well worth your efforts.

            I belong to several writing groups, and happen to be the President of one (shameless plug: http://www.saturdaywriters.org/). Several times a month I find myself immersed in wonderful advise from writers of all different experience levels. Simply attending and observing is of advantage to a writer. So much is to be learned by listening to casual comments spoken throughout the room. If you are with a really good group you better take notes once the actual critique begins.

            Really, I believe we learn from any exposure we have to the craft. A writer gains even more by participating in the critique with his or her own work. For one group I attend, I had come to a point where I felt comfortable enough to commit to read something for critique this week. Boy, I soon found myself regretting that commitment.

            Nevertheless, (<---I learned this is one word at critique today!) I'd made a commitment, and I am not one to take doing so lightly. I have a couple of items I am working on for various projects. I've come up with a personal essay that will work for several venues, I have a few short stories that could use some critique for use in the future, a piece I want to enter into a particular contest with an upcoming deadline... my thriller novel I wrote for www.nanowrimo.org last November that desperately needs attention (so much so I rarely look at it because it seems a bit hopeless at times). Then there is the brilliant idea I came up with a few days ago which happens to be the lesson of this very blog...

            I am a ghost hunter. Only a handful of folks know this about me, and most that do find it hard to believe. Alas, it is true. Just this past weekend I was crawling around in creepy spaces in search of communication from the "other side".  I've been actively hunting for several years and have quite a few adventures under my belt. Back in 2010 I had an article published at http://paranormaltaskforce.com/ about a hunt I attended with the fine folks at PTF. Everyone was Ga-Ga over the article at the time. I didn't write anymore about my adventures, but in a twist of events, I've decided to chronicle my ghost hunting jaunts into a sort of "How to" manual. I figured it could be something I self-published down the road.

            So, this morning, (because my kiddo's keep me fairly busy in general, but added to that my poor dog broke her tail over the weekend, I'm busy attending events because its graduation season, and so on and so forth) I pulled up the article I'd written in 2010. Some of you may have read it on my old blog, it was called "In the Darkness, Silence is Easy to Find". I've since removed the photos I borrowed *cough*stole*cough* from the internet and what remained was the shell of the original article which relied heavily on the photos. I've since taken my own photos to replace the others, but of course they are stuck in a file somewhere to live out the rest of their natural computer file lives and are not likely to see the light of day again. (You know how it goes...)

            I decided I'd take the shell of this article and make it Part 1 of my story to read to my critique group. As I munched my egg sandwich I hurried through the article trying to change the areas I'd only had to "tell" about because it had a photo attached originally into a "show" with words. I worked on it for as long as time permitted, printed ten copies of the first 5 pages and commenced to getting the living souls in the house ready for the day.

            Once I got to my critique group I immediately changed my mind about reading. No way was this article-turned-almost-story ready to read to these members. Why, just last week one of them commented to me how he worked on his stories for weeks before presenting it to the group. Weeks?? I didn't even work on this one for hours. Yikes. The sign up sheet came to me and that darned commitment thing popped into my head again. I had to do it, bad or good writing. I'd made a commitment last week to read and I had to stand by it. Thankfully my name was last on the list. I hoped we'd run out of time before we got to my turn.

            A personal essay with a great moral was read. Then two short stories about motherhood. Next was a chapter from a memoir about a little boy learning to swim. I thought I'd be saved by the clock when it was decided I should go ahead of the second to last person.

            I-yi-yi! As I passed out a copy to each of the ten people in the room, I explained that what I was about to read was once a great paranormal article published on a legitimate website. This wasn't just some kooky ghost story, I wanted them to know. It had substance, I just needed a bit of direction, that's all.

            I read my article-turned-almost-story loud and clear and with pride. Here was a room full of people that had surely never heard of such a thing as ghost hunting. They certainly would appreciate knowing the technicalities that go into such an event. I got chuckles in the right places and I felt the reading went well. The article-turned-almost-story stalled a few times, I admit. The "sweaty ghoul finger" really had no place there, I admit that too. But, I'd explained this was a work-in-progress. It'd been a famous piece once, so they'd understand and unquestionably appreciate what was happening on the pages in front of them.

            [Crickets chirping...] Wow. Remember earlier when I mentioned the part about shopping around for the perfect fit in your critique group? Well, that's important. Writers are human beings. We're a bit slow to accept change just like everyone else. [I smile]

            The critiques and comments I received actually weren't that bad. I know folks were holding back from saying things like, "Oh my Gosh! Are you kidding me with this?? You bring this CRAP in here after I let you critique my finest work week after week??! How dare you? HOW DARE YOU?!" Okay, I probably did deserve to hear that because I admit I didn't work hard on the piece, but still. I think some people just didn't get it.

            I received comments like, "Don't leave the evidence for later." My defense (and you aren't supposed to be defensive in a critique group) is that during a ghost hunt you don't know what your evidence is until much later when you have a chance to review everything you've documented, and the original article was written in two parts.

            "It reads too scientific" It IS scientific... as scientific as paranormal can be, anyway. I got the feeling the group is programmed for STORIES.  This person took aim at a part where I wrote about describing our equipment to entities. Yes, its true, we ghost hunters speak to rooms that appear empty. I do believe the group member found this absurd. That was absurd, but a few weeks ago the person jovially critiqued a story about two headed dragons... okay.

            Of course my favorites were "Very interesting to me because I'm from that town" and "Like the whole story, keep it up" I'd say these people hated it most.

            This is where having a good and experienced critique group comes in handy: I also received numerous thoughts about my structure. Maybe I shouldn't keep all the evidence for later. My readers might find it boring having to read through tons of investigation with little or no result. They pointed out the fact that I used the word "investigation" fifteen-million times. Somehow... I hadn't caught that! They helped me think of different words for cemetery, building and old. They pointed out where they felt like I had extra long sentences that didn't work. Some of my long sentences they liked and told me to keep. They explained where my pace was slow and offered advice on how to pick it up. They want history on the town I hunted in, which I probably would not have included because that wasn't why I was there. Talking with my group I realized the history was actually interesting and it has the word "bones" in it, so it might actually add something. Two of the members even invited themselves on my next ghost hunt!

            So, the lesson of my blog is that every writer can benefit from a first-class, good-fitting critique group. Even though some of the group didn't seem able to handle the muck I forced upon them today, I feel the majority of them are willing to try and that sort of support is invaluable. I'm not sure where my article-turned-almost-story will go from here, but I am so thankful I have this group of fine folks to help me figure out where to start.