I have been in writing critique groups for about four years now, and I have never once regretted it. I love them. There is nothing more exillerating then having one of your friends read a piece of your writing for the first time or finally getting to read a new piece that you have been begging your friend to write for ages. This will be a series of blog posts addressing the benifits of being part of a critique group. Today, I will be specifically discussing the benifit of having the rest of the members of the group reading your writing. I am working on a novel series tentitively titled The Alena Trillogy. It's young adult science fiction, and it's been a lot of fun to write so far. Currently, my critique group is reading through a draft of book 1 and I've been learning a lot about my writing style, my characters, and my plot. Writing Style Whenever you have someone else read your writing, they are going to point out some things in your own writing that you simply don't notice. For example, just today I was discussing my story with my critique group, and one of my friends turned to me and said, "just so you know, you use the phrase 'lit up' and the word 'masterfully' a lot to describe things." Thinking back, I realize she is totally right, but I had never noticed that before in my own writing. But because she pointed it out, I can now go back to my own writing and change it when I need to, finding better, more interesting, words and phrases to use. Style can also reffer to more of a generic feeling that writers give off. This is really hard to quantify and put into words, but every writer I've ever meet has had their own style, or feeling, that they give off in their writing. Still, one of my own fears was that I didn't have one, or that mine was too generic and bland. When I brought up this concern to a friend who had read my book, she reassured me that I did have a style and she liked it. So long story short, critique groups gives people the resources and authority on your writing to encourage you when you are feeling down (like all writers do at one point or another). Characters Let's face it. Sometimes, your characters just don't make sense. But if you're the author and you've been with these characters in this world with this plotline for a long time, it can be difficult to see when this happens. Again, this is where a good critique group comes in. While working on this book I have been given feedback like "Your character A is too mean in the second half of the book", "Character B smiles too much for someone who is supposed to be emotionally distant", and "I really would love to see more from characters C's point of view". These types of comments are really great to get while you are still in the first drafts of the story and you can still rework it to make it better. If you wait till you submit a manuscript to an agent or editor, you are going to have a lot more work and revisions to do in the editing phase. Plot Can you guess where I'm going with this yet? That's right, critique groups can really help you iron out your plot, or at least get it to a point where it mostly makes sense. If you are anything like me, you have loose threads and continuity errors on every other page. It can be really hard to spot these things by yourself, but if you have a fresh set of eyes looking at the story in a critique group, they will spot these differences immediately and be able to point them out to you. Some examples from my own writing: "If this character never shows up again, don't spend so much time with her at the beginning", "Cut reffrences to this popculture thing, they don't really fit in your story", "these characters changed rooms in the middle of a scene" (a particularly embarrising one), and "You broke that character's leg a few chapters ago and now he's fine?". This is only a small selection of the comments that have been made to me about my novel, but now that they are pointed out, I know I have to go back in and fix them in the next round of edits. Whether you are writing a science fiction novel, a mystery romance, or a workplace drama, there is really no downside to finding yourself a really good critique group to help you while you write and edit. NEXT TIME: I will discuss the merits of reading other people's writing in critique groups.
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AuthorWriter. Reader. Lover of stories. This website serves as a creative outlit for my own thoughts as well as somewhere to keep track of the things I've written. Blog Categories
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