deemarie opened this issue on Jul 05, 2006 · 10 posts
FranOnTheEdge posted Fri, 11 August 2006 at 11:28 AM
Do you belong to a writing group?
Used to. Both an online one (Compuserve Forum) and a face-to-face one, the best called “Trinity Writers” – since I've been a member of many groups - each time I moved I joined a local one.
(I’ll use the face-to-face one for most of the answers.)
Do you set a time limit for each member to go over his or her current writing?
Each person got to read (or have read out loud by someone else – preferable) no more than (I think) 15 minutes of their story/piece. Followed by about 15 – 20 mins for critique. With around 5 to 6 people present each time this just about worked in the 2 1/2 hour meeting time. Especially as not everyone had something every time.
How often did the group meet?
Every fortnight.
Did you get anything out of the critiques?
Oh yeah, lots!
I personally found it most helpful to have someone else read it aloud, I discovered things about it I’d never have found out otherwise – that’s apart from the actual comments from members after the reading.
Are all or any of the members in your group published?
We all have had stuff published in a way, some won competitions, some just had stuff published in our own magazine distributed to the local area, some published in women’s magazines, reader’s digest, this n’ that.
What happens when just a couple people bring something to share and others just critique?
Never happened, we had a homework scheme – at each meeting the next person in turn would a) run the meeting and b) set a homework for the following meeting. Er, I mean if it was your turn to run the meeting next time then you’d set the homework the meeting before – so people had time to do something – or bring their own magnum opus – Homework always got dealt with before long running work in progress – so there was always something new around. Having a different person run each meeting also meant that it helped some people come out of their shells and no one person became too bossy, and each meeting had a different flavour.
Do you allow different genres and different levels of writers?
Oh yeah, with so few members if you didn't you'd soon have had no members at all. Like there were 3 of us into scifi/fantasy, one of those horror sci-fi, 2 or 3 into short stories for women’s mags, almost all of us wrote poetry at times. One had a vast fantasy novel full of sword fights. Two were into crime. A couple did romance. One wrote a family history... some were over 70 some under 20, most around 30 or 40-ish, men and women. In total that group had around 12 – 14 members but usually a core group of 8 attended regularly. Some wrote in more than 1 category (including me).
What would your ideal writing group be like?
I'd say around 8 to 10 people, who are serious about what they do – whatever that is, and who can – or are prepared to – try anything – even if they actually prefer writing for motor-cycle magazines. Who are prepared to critique seriously with the author's desired aims in mind, like think sci-fi if that's what you're critiquing, or think romance, crime, short story, novel etc etc if that's what's being written. Critique with both positive points as well as negative ones, if highlighting problems suggest solutions, and finally and most importantly: critique the writing not the writer.
Do you preview stories/poems ahead of time, before the meeting?
This was not done in Trinity Writers but was in the online group – if you were critiquing online you had about a week to a fortnight to reply with your crit. In Trinity you critiqued on the day just after the reading, but some people would take a copy (if the writer distributed copies) and bring a more in-depth critique along to the next meeting. This was encouraged by everyone since it meant that you got more valuable feedback.
I would like to get your input on the above questions for an article I am writing.
Thanks so much for your help.
Dee-Marie
Probably too late for this, but it was an interesting question.
Fran
Measure
your mind's height
by the shade it casts.
Robert Browning (Paracelsus)