Over the years, I’ve been a member of a few writers’ groups. Most were short lived and had varying degrees of productivity. One, however, lasted more than a decade and produced quite a bit of work. Based on these experiences, here are suggestions for starting and running your own group.
Item One: Try to get a sponsor where you can meet
The long-lived group was sponsored by our local Barnes and Noble Bookseller. This provided us a good place to meet. They also promoted the group, which helped bring book-oriented people into the store on a regular basis. At first, they provided a small budget for copying, but we quickly exceeded that and had to take care of copying on our own.
One of the trade-offs for sponsorship was that we were expected to try to be an audience for other events at the store. When authors came in, we would sit and listen, which most of us wanted to do any way. The store’s cafe used to have an Open Mic Night, and we attended that as both audience and participants. One of their employees ran the group and we had a place in the store where we could drop off and pick up the groups writings to be critiqued.
The recommendation is that you try to find a business that will let you meet and is willing to be a partner to some degree. Coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and bookstores are great for this, especially if the business has some hours that are usually slow and they could use your group’s business at the time. It is important that you support their business while they are supporting your writing!
In general, as long as your group provides some benefit to the business, even if it is just buying coffee, you will probably be welcome. Just don’t let the group cause more trouble than it is worth.
Item Two: We’re here to help
One thing that usually tears apart a writers’ group is hostility. If a couple of members regularly ridicule the others or their writing, the meetings are not welcoming or useful. The non-hostile members will go away and not come back. You have to make sure that the rules for the group are set to avoid this. Regular hostility may cause an unpleasant environment in the eyes of your host establishment if you have one.
However, one of the functions of a writers’ group is to provide constructive criticism. This is different from just insulting the writing or the author. Here are two examples: “I don’t understand why the character left the room,” versus “this sucks.” Obviously the first tells the author that this reader didn’t understand some part of the story. The author can reevaluate whether this should be explained better. The second example doesn’t tell anything useful; you have to explain what sucked.
If a person insists on attacking everything without being helpful, you can ask them to leave. At that point, you do not include that person’s writing on the list of things to critique and you do not acknowledge them when they attempt to interact. This is usually adequate. We never had to get police involved to be rid of somebody (as far as I remember).
Item Three: The author speaks
During the critique of an item, the author should shut up and listen. The group members will discuss the piece and only refer to the author as “the author”. In doing so, the focus is purely on the writing and not on the author as a person. This helps avoid some hurt feelings, and it makes the group members think about what they want to say. Imagine discussing the writings of someone who is not there, such as some famous writer.
The other reason for doing this is that it keeps the author from trying to explain parts of the writing that the readers did not get. When the final written piece goes out, it must stand on its own without any further explanation from the author. If the readers in the group don’t understand something, then readers in the wild won’t either. The author should listen to these mistaken interpretations and use them to evaluate how to rewrite the piece to convey the correct message.
When the critique is over, the author can ask the group members to clarify anything they said during the session, but still should avoid explaining anything. The clarification is there to help the author do the rewrite and nothing else.
As a general rule of etiquette, the author should thank everyone for their feedback and for taking the time to read the material.
It’s also helpful if the readers give written feedback to the author after the critique. This is particularly useful if the reader found grammatical or spelling errors. The reader can also mark notable items such as, “Here’s the part where I lost track of the character’s motivation,” or “This phrasing jarred me out of the scene.”
Item Four: The schedule
The group members should submit copies (paper or email) to the group ahead of the meeting so the members will have time to read and prepare feedback. In general, the critiques should take place in the order of submission. Members should be nice enough to only submit a reasonable quantity of material so as not to hog all the group’s time.
Since your group strives for politeness, the group can decide to supercede the ordering if someone needs feedback on a piece that has an immediate deadline. For example, if a person is writing an article for a local magazine and needs to have it submitted by the following weekend, the group may decide to critique it before the regularly scheduled pieces just to be helpful. It is assumed that members will not abuse this practice.
If a member is writing a novel or other very long piece, it works best if they submit no more than a chapter or two per meeting. This keeps them from overwhelming the group’s schedule. If some members can’t wait to read the next bit, the author may choose to provide that to them separately.
The leader of the group should announce the schedule for the current meeting and the next one at the start of the meeting. This makes it very clear to everyone what will be discussed and what they should be reading next. If a member knows they will not be able to make it to a meeting when their piece is to be critiqued, they should make that known as soon as possible so the group can adjust the reading schedule.
Item Five: Other things on the table
In addition to critiquing each other’s’ works, the group will probably want to talk about writing in general. A good time to do this is at the very start of the meeting. The leader can ask if anyone has any writing-related news to share. This can be very helpful and further the goals of the group. It is important not to let trivia take up the whole meeting, though.
The group may also need breaks if the meeting runs a while. Plan accordingly and try to fit the breaks in at an approximate time. Adjust the time to the space between critiques to avoid disrupting the conversations. Of course, the members are all grownups and can come and go as they need to during the meeting.
Item Six: Pleasantness and leadership
One of the things that will keep a group going is that it must be a pleasant environment for its members. Though this is not always possible to accomplish, it should be a goal.
Part of this comes from the leader. The leader is more of a facilitator and coordinator, not a dictator. The people in the group are there because the membership is beneficial to them. A leader that lacks leadership skills will be either overbearing or incapable of maintaining some order. Either extreme will see the group fall apart.
If you don’t have a member with natural leadership skill, consider doing some research on the subject. There are many books about leadership and a couple of members could help each other by building those skills. In fact, this is a good place to develop skills that will help in the rest of your life.
Example Meeting
Here’s a quick scenario of the opening of a meeting. It’s just a general example, so don’t get too hung up on the specifics.
Leader: Welcome everyone; it looks like we have a good number of people here tonight. That should make for good critiques. Before we get started, does anyone have any news, successes, or other things they would like to share?
Member A: For those who haven’t heard, FAMOUS AUTHOR has a new book coming out next month. It’s part of their series.
Various Members: Cool. I’ve been waiting for that one.
Member B: There’s a new magazine starting in town. It’ll focus on small businesses in the area. Those of you freelancers may want to see if they need any articles. Email me and I’ll send you the particulars.
Member C: This isn’t writing related, but my sister just had her first baby. It’s a healthy baby girl and both are doing just fine.
Member D: Do you have any pictures?
Member C: Of course. I’ll show them to you during break.
Leader: That’s really cool. Congratulations to your sister. Are there any more news items? No? Then here’s the schedule. Tonight we have a short story from Member A, followed by two short poems by Member G. We will finish with a short story from Member C. For next meeting, it’s Member B, Member D, and Member F.
Member D: I won’t be able to make it to the next meeting. Can you bump me till the one after?
Leader: Sure. So next week then it’s Member B, Member F, and Member G. Are there any questions or comments?
No comments.
Leader: Okay, then we start with the short story from Member A. Member A, you are under the “cone of silence” and cannot speak until we are done. Remember everyone, only refer to Member A as “the author” and do not address Member A directly.
Everyone: the critique moves along as though the author is not present and the readers evaluate the story. If a reader has difficulty explaining something they did not like, the others try to help draw it out through the conversation. The discussion continues until it reaches a natural end. The leader can encourage something to wrap up if it seems like something is being argued for too long.
Leader: Does anyone have any last comments to make? Going once. Going twice. That’s it. Member A, the cone has been lifted and you can ask any questions.
Member A: Thanks, everybody, for your comments. I got a lot of good feedback that I can use for the rewrite. Member B, when you said you lost track of the characters, was that on page two or page five?
Member B: I think it was page five. Since I was the only one who had that problem, it may just have been me.
Member A: I’ll still take a look at it. Thanks!
Leader: Any other comments on Member A’s short story?
The group shakes their heads no.
Leader: Okay, it’s not quite break time, so we’ll plunge ahead. Member G, you’re up next. We’ll start with your poem FIRST POEM. Does everybody have that?
The group shuffles around their papers to the correct poem.
Leader: Member G, you are being critiqued.
The group critiques the poem.
The rest of the meeting continues in this fashion. At the end of the meeting, the Leader wraps up.
Leader: That takes care of tonight’s meeting. Remember for next time, read the works from Member B, Member F, and Member G. Also, those wanting info on the new small business magazine, email Member B. Congratulations to Member C on her new niece. Don’t forget to tidy up your area so we don’t leave a mess for the employees here.
Other Things
When my old group was going strong, we tended to go out to eat after the meeting. Sure, we snacked and had beverages from the B&N Cafe while meeting, but we went to a late night restaurant afterward. Even after the late supper, many of us stood in the parking lot until the wee hours still talking about writing and everything else. Writers are just like that.
We also had occasional sub-groups. In some cases, a few members found that they wrote in a very specific genre or subject matter that the general group didn’t understand, such as something technical related to their work. The general group may be able to help with paragraph structure or spelling, but would otherwise be lost. By having these temporary sub-groups, we let the specialists help the best they could while not taking up the main group’s time with things with which they offered little help.
The main thing, though is the encouragement of writing and the growth of the writers. The main reason my old group finally fell apart is that the core group, the ones who really took it seriously, just got too busy to be involved. We had all grown in our separate paths and went our different ways. All of us are still friends and in contact with each other, but the group is just a happy memory.