How'd It Turn Out?

Follow-up to my previous post...

My previous post was about how I was presenting a piece to one of the two writing groups in which I participate. It was critique night, and I wanted feedback on the opening of a novella I’m planning to enter into competition. I haven’t been with this group, which meets online, very long, and we’ve just begun having critique nights, separate from our weekly meetings.

I was nervous. More nervous than I’ve been over critiques in a long time. I was nervous I hadn’t achieved what I wanted to with the piece. I was nervous over how much they might find wrong. And I was nervous they just wouldn’t like it. I was even nervous over the critique I’d done on the other writer’s work. I mean, what if I just sounded stupid?

To be clear, these are considerate people, and they offer sincere, thoughtful criticism with kindness and good humor.

I was still nervous.

BUT.. it went well. I’ll admit, it didn’t help that one member noted that he didn’t usually care for the genre my piece fits into. He had—inevitably—compared it to the piece the other writer offered, which was in another genre but had strong elements of mine. This member decided he liked the other one better. That sort of thing can’t be helped. It’s a fair reader reaction. Beyond that, everyone offered comments, advice, and suggestions that were pertinent and reasonable and, above all…..useful. Yes, useful.

Even suggestions I won’t take were useful in that they identified problems in my story that I definitely need to address. There were a couple of brilliant notions given to me, and a single suggestion that has the possibility to correct the most egregious problem the piece has. The most comical moment was when it was pointed out that I’d made the same kind of (we’ll call it ‘mistake’) the other writer made, only to a worse degree. Physician, heal thyself.

Luckily, I was also given some positive feedback. It’s good to hear that a section is strong or simply well-written.

Critiques are one of the most valuable services a writers group can offer. Secure surroundings (it doesn’t get much more secure than your personally-chosen computing site), agreed-upon guidelines, and thoughtful writer/readers—these keep a writer from working in either a vacuum or an echo chamber. Others’ experience can inform your writing. Their eyes can catch factual errors as well as writing techniques that aren’t working for your story. Occasionally a criticism will—by virtue of its context and comment—cement that you’re not changing that line one bit! Finding a writers group that offers solid critiques is better than gold.

I’ll write more about being in two writers groups at once some other time, but for now I will say that it has the advantage of providing very different kinds of criticism, simply based on the groups being two different audiences. Writers may have an existing audience, but readers are individuals. They comprehend differently, come from different backgrounds, and have different expectations. Readers, even readers who share a love of a genre, are not a truly homogeneous group. A writer who wants to broaden their readership benefits by taking that into account.