Spicing it up...

...or making life interesting

I’m a little nervous this week. The opening of a novella I’m writing for a competition is up for critique by the online writers group I belong to. This will be the first critique I’ve had from them, and I haven’t been a member for very long.

Now, the in-person writers group I belong to—the one whose members write for “Do You Know Where YOUR Story Is?” occasionally—well, I’ve been with them a long time. We know each others’ writing styles and habits pretty well. We also—generally—are able to kid around with each other. We dare to sound bossy when we make a suggestion and tell someone they ‘have’ to make a certain change that we are recommending. We’ve seen each other through personal difficulties, self-publishing, struggling to write about something precious to us, and celebrations of success. We also critique on a regular basis, so whether I’m being critiqued or doing the critiquing, I’m comfortable, for the most part. Did I mention we all also have types of advice we choose to ignore from each other? It’s all very equitable and fair-minded. After all, the rule is that the author has the last word.

But I’ve never been critiqued by the online group before. I joined up with them because their genre and styles are different than those I normally write—or even read now. I wanted to see where that style is going, and how this writers group felt about their work. Besides being online, their membership is very different than the in-person group. They approach writing more technically, and they are open to writing for a broader set of venues. And where my in-person group is somewhat diverse in terms of age (except for a core group all around the same age—mine), I bring the diversity to the online group, all of whom are much younger than I am.

There is a certain commonality of experience to my in-person group that differs from my online group. And I’m grateful for that, because it offers me the chance to become familiar with other perspectives, as well as to learn how to bridge them. It exposes me to alternative ideas and mind sets, and it reminds me that reading audiences are just as diverse. If I want to reach as much of the current public as I can, I need to know about all of them. Being in two disparate groups is a big advantage.

Still, I am nervous about the upcoming critique. This group, luckily, upholds the concept that the author’s decision is final, and that critiques should be honest and fair but kindly delivered. It should all be good. But—will they like what I wrote?