Ask any published writer—reader feedback is crucial in developing your work, especially early in the process. And while it can be great for a friend or family member to take a look at your manuscript, they might not know how to give the kind of constructive critiques you need for your goals. What’s more, even reading a sample chapter is asking for a lot of work on behalf of your reader. Not everyone has the time, even if they do care about you.
Rather than asking loved ones, it’s a great idea to be part of a writing critique group instead. That way you and your fellow members can trade off giving and receiving feedback, just like the format of most college creative writing workshops.
But if you aren’t in school anymore, it can be hard to build a good group from the ground up.
Where to Look for Members
If you don’t already have a lot of writer friends, you’ll need to find some. The best place to look? Online, of course.
NaNoWriMo Facebook groups are a great place to start, as are relevant forums and groups on websites such as Reddit. If those places are a bit too big and overwhelming, college or high school alumni groups are another great place to start. You can filter by your city, your genre, or even just look for online spaces that are big writing groups themselves.
From there, think about how you want your writing group to function. Do you want to meet in person or, at the very least, over Zoom? Or would you rather keep it online with email chains and written critiques only? How often do you want to trade work, and how many pages for each exchange? Lots of groups swap a chapter or short story at a time, but maybe you’re looking for a small group of people with whom you can trade full manuscripts.
When you make any posts looking for writing group prospects, make sure to be very clear with these goals so you can find people who will be a good fit.
Do You Need to Have Goals in Common?
Once you’ve found people who’d like to convene in the same way, you’ll need to think about your writing goals.
There’s no wrong way of doing this—someone who has different writing goals than you will not prevent them from helping you along your path (or vice versa). But it’s something worth thinking about if you want to prioritize group cohesion.
Broadly speaking, it’s likely that everyone in your group is looking to independently or traditionally publish their work. But on what time frame? Maybe everyone in your group has already done a few rounds of editing on their books, or maybe you’re all hacking out rough drafts together.
Again, depending on how you want your writing group to function, you don’t necessarily have to be on the same page as everyone else. It might keep things interesting to help someone sketch out a rough outline one week, then look for any typos in the last fifty pages of another manuscript the next.
But if you’re looking to use your group dynamic to really push each other to a specific point at a specific time, like friends training for a marathon together, then it’s essential to add those goals to your call for writer friends. It may even help you reach people who might otherwise not bother to join up.
Handling Feedback—But Not That Kind
If you’re forming or joining a writing group, you know your work is going to be critiqued—that’s the whole point! But hearing honest feedback isn’t always the easiest thing to handle. Even the most seasoned writers feel vulnerable when hearing critiques of their work, and that’s OK. But, for better or worse, a writing group is also a social group, and if you add uncomfortable social dynamics on top of an already sensitive situation, things could get ugly.
You don’t have to become best friends with everyone in the group (though hopefully some friendly feelings develop!). But if someone is causing significant problems, it’s worthwhile to address it.
For someone who’s a real issue—unkind to fellow members, defensive in the face of criticism, suffering from “main character syndrome”—do the hard thing and ask them to shape up. Sometimes you can have a perfectly lovely person who perhaps doesn’t notice that they suck all the air out of a room with their lengthy speeches. If things don’t resolve after a conversation, you can ask the person to leave; there’s nothing wrong with giving someone a try and realizing they aren’t a good fit for the group as a whole. Luckily, though, you can likely get ahead of these issues by having clear expectations from the beginning.
You’re founding the group, so you can absolutely set some ground rules. If you’ve ever taken a writing class as student, think about how your teacher corralled all those tender young egos. There was probably a set format for each class, so people knew what to expect. You might have even had to raise your hand before speaking.
That might seem overly formal for adults, but it can be helpful to have some kind of established structure. Worst-case scenario, you’ll have a format to keep the dominant personalities in check; best-case scenario, it can help even the most socially anxious people feel more comfortable speaking when they don’t have to fight to be heard. Then, once you’ve finished talking about writing, you can drop the formalities and enjoy some casual conversation before ending the meeting.
It can be hard to find a good writing group and keep it going, but it really is worth the effort. Even if you find yourself creating a new group every year, you’ll at least be connecting with other writers and getting valuable insight into your work.
Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.
