How to Find a Good Critique Group

Critiques can be difficult, especially if you are still emotionally attached to your manuscript. Getting critiques from a critique group can be excruciating, but it doesn't have to be. Choosing a critique group that is on par with your needs can leave you wanting to race home and write until your fingers fall off.

I have experienced both, in the classroom through workshop courses and online groups that practiced each week with a new assignment. There are several types of critique groups, from the above mentioned to the straight open critique where writers hand themselves over to be publicly flogged and dismembered at the hands of their so-called fellow writers. Once the flogging is over, a writer can feel unnerved and dismayed by the lack of constructive criticism found in poorly formed critique groups.

I was a part of one that left me questioning the fate of literature. I handed in a chapter of a young adult series I had started, hoping that someone could give me a bit of direction, since it was my first attempt at the genre. I knew I was doomed when someone questioned my use of the word 'velocity.'

I had to sit there in silence (the group leader would not allow the writer to respond to comments made) as this person thought that the use of velocity was too intellectual for teens. I had to sit through another person stating that my work was trite and that she 'could pick this up in any grocery store romance.'

I could do nothing but hang my head in shame for the literary world. These individuals, after all, believed they were the future of literature. Even my group leader, a professor no less, didn't get the story, and criticized the vocabulary. Only one woman defended the work and added that everyone in the group was clueless to young adult work. If they were familiar, they would see that the use of the word velocity was completely appropriate. For a brief moment, I had a ray of hope.

Many writers will have these experiences, unfortunately. No one can avoid the obvious obliviousness of those who are arrogant and ignorant enough to think they are the final say in the literary realm. If you find that people are more likely to tear apart a novel without explaining what issue they had with the work, the group is more destructive than constructive. Get out immediately. If you find that individuals are asking questions that make you think deeper into your story, get everyone's e-mail and phone number. You have found friends for life.

A critique group should offer you more insight into your story. Someone making a comment like the ones mentioned above is not helpful, because it does not go any further than the words on the page. You need people who not only read the words, but sees past the words to get into the meat of the story. After all, your story is so much more than the words on the page.

Group members should be asking questions that make you think, make you question, make you dive further into the character, the motives and the plot. They will ask the hard questions. They will ask the silly questions. They will ask everything in between.

I have had friends read work before who make me see the piece in such a different light that I gained new insight to what I was writing. One friend would make notes in the margins: 'Did you mean this? It would seem more like the character would do this instead of that...' or 'This doesn't seem like the character's personality.' Another friend would send e-mails asking for clarification on scenes, which told me that I needed to work on the verbiage. If someone wasn't clear on the progress of the story, then I erred somewhere in the text.

This is how a critique group should work. They should look at the story, through the story and beyond the story. They should see the characters as more than just names on the page; anything less than that and you are doing yourself and your work a great disservice. The point of a critique group is to further your story, make it a more solid piece; not to rip it to shreds out of fear or envy.

I would try several critique groups before you settle on one particular group. As members come and go, you may find that the group you once liked has become more of a trashing of work, rather than a promotion. Besides, being a member of several groups can not only help you garner further knowledge of your story, but can help you network when you need help getting your work published.