What Makes a Critique Group Work? Pens Afire Tri-Blog

Visiting today are the other two members of Pens Afire, one of my critique groups. Annie Weissman writes a blog called The Single Senior (at thesinglesenior.wordpress.com) and Sandy Bremser (at sbremser.com). We have a very successful weekly critique group. So why do we think that is?

ANNIE: I think the most important quality of a critique partner is insight. I used to think someone who was great at writing or a broad reader would make the best critiquer but that's not necessarily so.

SHARON: I'd agree that you want someone who knows what good writing is and whether or not your piece has what it takes. But don't you think it is generally true that a more consistently good critique partner does read a lot?

ANNIE: I agree that people who are well read in good fiction (meaning they read good fiction AND think out it) have a feel for story, character, and all the other literary elements.

SHARON: In my opinion, the single most important part of having an effective critique group is honesty with a heart. If you can’t trust that your partners will tell you the truth where your piece isn’t working, then how can you trust them when they say it is wonderful? By the same token, there are ways to give critiques that are critical and ways that are helpful. Being hurtful doesn’t move the piece forward nor does it engender trust.

SANDY: Honesty and insight are important, I agree. There are also practical aspects.

I’d say group members need to be on the same page when it comes to how often the group meets, how earnest each is about writing/publishing, and how focused they are during meetings. My goal is to publish, so I want to meet 2-4 times a month with a couple of partners who are serious about writing and don’t spend critique time discussing their jobs or their neighbor’s barking dog. The perfect time for that is after the meeting when people can stay and chat or not. Large groups require a larger personal investment of reading and critiquing others’ work.

Someone else might be after totally different things, preferring to meet once a month with several friends who mainly provide emotional support for each other’s writing efforts. Both groups could be effective, but a writer needs to seek out those critique partners who have similar goals.

If members of a critique group aren’t evenly matched but want to form a group, they could all agree on ground rules and go from there. There’s something to be said for having similar temperaments and good chemistry, so people can be honest in sharing their insights.

SHARON: How true that the group members have to share goals and a common vision! But, Sandy, that's a management issue. Say that the group does share goals and vision, still within that group some people give better feedback on your work than others. Why is that? And what makes you value some people's input more than others?

SANDY: Offhand, I want to say, “I just know which people give me the best feedback.” Upon reflection, I think the most useful advisors differ depending on the author’s needs at the time. For instance, I belong to two critique groups and receive a lot of great input. One critique partner might catch every typo, while another suggests I’m having point of view problems. I appreciate those responses, and it does save me time, but I probably would have caught them on my own during rewrites.

I benefit most from probing questions such as, “Is each character in this chapter unique and necessary for the story? Could you collapse a few personalities together so I, as a reader, don’t have to keep track of so many?” or “How does this scene move your story along? What could you add to make it more relevant to the plot?” Dialogues like these that make my book richer and tighter are flashing neon signs for me to listen up and take notes. Gotta love those critique partners!

ANNIE: I’ve been surprised more than once at insightful feedback from someone who hasn’t offered much before. But there are some people who routinely give better feedback. I also need the detail people who catch my typos and tense problems. The frequency of a critique group is very important to me to keep on track with my writing projects. If I know I have to get twenty pages ready every week or every other week, I’m much more likely to keep on track with my writing projects. I also think the moral support is very important. Writing is such a lonely profession and publication is far off and iffy.

Dilettante is as Dilettante Does

I have accused myself of being a dilettante because I write in so many genres. It surely helps with writer’s block to have so many different projects going—plays to children’s books to culinary mystery to erotica to historical fiction to . . . well, you get the idea.

But, this time, I think I out-dilettante-d myself!

I started book two in my “Dinner is Served” series about two personal chefs and the murders they solve. Good you say? Not so fast. It’s not like book one is done. That’s the one I dumped and had to start over. But I can’t. Not yet.

It’s like there is static in my head. I want to “re-purpose” parts of book one, but I have to have a new killer and motivation. The red herrings change. Nope—can’t do book one right now. I can’t get a handle on the new story because part of my brain is still working on the old one.

Fortunately, long ago I planned out multiple books in the series. So, I moved on to book 2 to get back into the series. The hardest question was do I make Cooks in the Can book two or should it be Prime Rib and Punishment? After a suggestion from one of my critique group partners, I began Prime Rib and Punishment, set in a cooking school.

Interesting to me, anyway, is that I am not writing it episodically as I wrote book one. I used Hallie Ephron’s planning guide then wrote first two chapters. Then I wrote part of last chapter because I read somewhere that when writing plays, if you write the last act first, you know where you are headed and can plant seeds throughout that ripen and come to harvest in the last act. Okay, so that’s make some sense. Then, I started getting scenes in my head, so I wrote two other scenes that will appear someplace, not sure where.

Have I planned my novel? Yep, but my pantser stepped in. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I just know I have no control over the flashes. This has happened to me before with other novels. When I get the scene flashes, I know to write them down. Even if they end up on the cutting room floor, the more I write about my characters and my story line, the better it will be for the final book.

I took the first two chapters to my Pens Afire critique group yesterday. There were multiple problems to fix (as is always the case, eh?), but the biggest one harkened to Sue Grafton’s comment re writing a series. How do you keep the recurring characters fresh? How do you introduce them to a new audience while not boring your fan base?

Writing Alli Wesson and Gina Smithson or Gina’s mom Maria and her pal, Pearl—pretty easy. I know these women! I like them, and I can tell you what they are likely to have for breakfast whether at home or when they go out to IHop.

But therein lies the problem. I am not reading this with the eyes of a reader new to my series. So Pens Afire (Sandra Bremser and Annie Weissman) called me on it. Good for them. Even though I knew of the danger, I skated right past the warning signs onto the thin ice. It’s cracking around me, but I now know, early in this book, to skate away. Thanks, Pens Afire.

Blogging Annie Weissman

Give a warm welcome to Annie Weissman. You can follow her at www.annieweissman.com and be sure to catch her blog, “The Single Senior” (theseniorsingle.wordpress.com). It is by turns funny, heartwarming, and reflective.

Sharon: Annie, you are a well-published woman! How many books do you have in print right now?

Annie: A is for Almanac: Complete Lessons to Teach Library Reference Sours Grades K-6, Transforming Storytimes Into Reading and Writing Lessons, and Do Tell! Storytelling for You and Your Students are all aimed at teachers and librarians and published by traditional publishers. As One Door Closes: A Memoir about the Plane Crash of Northwest Flight #255 is available from both Amazon and the POD publisher XLibris. Amazing Animals is available from Blurb, another POD publisher.

Sharon: When did you publish your first book? What was it about? Why did you write it?

Annie: My first book, The Castle of Chuchurumbel, el Castillo de Chuchurumbel, a bilingual picture book was published by Hispanic Books Distribultors in 1987. I was a school librarian and storyteller and had many bilingual manuscripts “in the drawer.” I had sent some retellings of folk tales to publishers, but this is the only one that was published. I did NOT do the illustrations. That isn’t my forte.

Sharon: What is your most recently completed work? What’s next?

Annie: I have just completed a novel, Our Mother’s Keeper. It’s the story of an eighty-year old woman whose dementia must be dealt with by her and her three daughters. It’s currently out with an editor and an agent and I have high hopes it will be accepted.

I’m completing a play for senior community theaters about a forty year high school reunion.

And lastly, I’m in the germination stage of a new novel about mothers and children.

Sharon: People always ask authors this: where do you get your ideas?

Annie: My nonfiction books were all based on my experience. The books for teachers and librarians are the culmination of a long career as a librarian and a principal. I wrote my memoir first as fiction in 1994 but it didn’t seem to work. In 2000 I changed it back to real life and it worked much better. The events were so painful I had wait until I could think about them in depth.

Some ideas for fiction come from my imagination with no basis in my life, like the play I’m writing. I went to my twentieth and twenty-fifth high school reunions, so I have an idea how they go, but this one is totally fabricated.

Some of my ideas for fiction come from life stories that other people tell me. That gives me the germ of an idea and I embroider it.

Some of my ideas for fiction are from my life experience. This is tricky. If it’s the truth, then it’s memoir. My latest novel is “true” in that my mother with dementia came to live with me so I had the experience to write about it. But many of the characters and incidents are from my imagination.

Sharon: When you are starting a new piece, how do you go about it? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Annie: I am definitely a plotter. I have an analytic nature. I decide on plot points and make a time line of events and approximate pages for each section. However my characters take on a life of their own and I see my original timeline as a suggestion, not a strait jacket.

Sharon: It is difficult for an author to keep a character real, show the flaws as well as the positive traits for the heroine. How do you go about making your characters multi-dimensional?

Annie: I find it quite difficult to give flaws to my main character because I usually admire her so much. That’s where the critique group is a critical part of the writing process. My writing partners remind me to make the characters more flawed.

Sharon: How do you learn more about the craft of writing?

Annie: I’ve gone to the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival twice and taken full week classes on writing the novel and on writing for children. I’ve taken a class at Phoenix College on writing for children. I’ve taken courses on writing fiction from the Y that used to have a very active writing program. I‘ve taken novel writing at Scottsdale Community College.

I also attend writing conferences. The workshops there offer help on specific topics, such as Point of View, Setting, etc.

Sharon: What is the best writing advice you’ve learned?

Annie:

1. Join a writing critique group.

2. Read dialogue aloud to see if it sounds natural.

Sharon: From your critique group experiences, what is the number one writing rule you see authors breaking?

Annie: Point of view. It’s so important to decide through whose eyes the story will be told and to stick with that point of view.

Sharon: I know you are in writing critique groups (which is how I know you). What role do you see critique groups playing in your own writing?

Annie: The weekly critique group is invaluable as a catalyst to make sure I keep writing regularly. The advice I get from my fellow writers helps me see what I’m too close to the work to see. The other members are bright, imaginative people who offer terrific suggestions.

Sharon: If you could sit down, one-on-one with a reader of this blog, what would you say to him/her?

Annie: There is no substitute for your time “in the chair.” No matter how good your idea is, or how brilliant the writing, if you don’t finish it, it won’t be read or appreciated.

Sharon: Anything else before we close up shop for the day?

Annie: Although it is difficult to get fiction published by the traditional system, today there are many other outlets: on line and print-on-demand. I would caution people to go through the traditional system first to see if your project needs improvement before rushing to publishing it yourself. There’s a lot of very bad writing being published by people who think no one should tell them how to write.

Taking a break for a few days. Come back next Monday to catch more blogging on the writing life.