Strategies in Choosing a Writing Workshop: Find Good Editors for Your Writing

Many writers have aspirations of writing the perfect novel, short story, or feature article. Often writing is really about editing and proofreading your work. Finding the right editor for your work becomes essential to the writer. An editor's trained eye will see the flaws in the piece that you did not. Although having a professional read your work would be best, unpublished writers usually have difficulty exchanging work with them. Editors are often on deadlines and do not have time to spend with beginning writers. For a freelance writer, it can be hard to gain access to a good editor.

The answer for the fiction writer or freelance writer is a writing workshop. Here writers can learn the ropes of the trade from other writers.

The best writing workshops are usually the ones that do not meet in person. Local writing groups can help writers in their own way, but an online writing workshop is usually far more honest. If you are serious about getting published an online group is the way to go.

I first learned how to write through writing groups that met in person and online. Without these groups my position as a newspaper editor may have never happened. I would not have had the confidence to move forward in my career.

So where do you start? Stop the countless internet searches for places that exchange work from freelance and fiction writers. The first stop any serious writer should make is Urbis.com. Urbis has been the most honest system I have come across after years of research online, seeking out the best writing spot for both non-fiction and fiction writers. It allows writers a trained eye to critique their work. Another site to note is called Critique Circle.

First I will explain Urbis. On this website you can post any form of writing, from haiku to novel, and if you put effort into it you will get many honest reviews of your piece. The site has no ads and is totally free. It is all run on a simple points system: The more you review, the more points you get. Reviews for your work are locked until you pay the proper amount of points to unlock them. What makes Urbis different from other groups is the points system is based on the length of the piece and the length of your review. If you write a review of a 5,000 word short story, you will get more than if you write a review of a 2,500 word story. If your critique is a 200-words long it will give you more points than a 100-word critique. You might become a superior writer yourself just by editing the works of others.

Another site to note is called Critiquecircle.com. Critique Circle is another online writing group that deserves to be mentioned. Critique Circle has a somewhat similar system to Urbis except that the length of the piece you review does not factor into how many points you will get for it. Also, on Critique Circle you have to wait a week or longer before your story is posted on the site. On Urbis this is immediate.

In choosing a writing workshop, it is not necessary that you go to Urbis first. This has been the most constructive for me by far, but there are other options. Groups that meet in person are generally small - rarely larger than ten people - so that everyone can get a chance to read his or her story. For a wider variety of reviewers, you will want a group with a few hundred members so your work can be reviewed by as many people as possible.

I suggest you start with Urbis. If you are unhappy with it, try Critique Circle. You will learn much from both sites.

There are plenty of other points to factor into choosing a writing workshop, but those are the best I have found in over four years of searching. Online groups are cheaper than going to an expensive class or a pricey online writing workshop.

As mentioned before, a trained eye is necessary to edit a work. Perhaps you are "comma happy" or do not know whether you should italicize certain parts; these can all be rectified on a good writing group. And you just might get published for your effort.