Depending on the size of your critique group, you will be reading and critiquing someone else's writing anywhere between 65% to 95% of the time. In other words, you are mostly giving feedback to others, not getting it yourself. So why should you care? Is this really helpful to your own writing? The answer is that you should care because yes, critiquing others really does help you grow in your own writing. Self Improvement First, and likely most obvious, the benefits of reading and editing someone else's writing is to improve your own editing skills. This includes things like copyediting - thinking about grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and wording - and content editing - looking at story structure, characters, plot, writing style, and continuity. It is helpful to grow and expand these skills reading other people's writing so that it comes more naturally to you when you turn around and attempt to do this with your own writing. This part of critique group helps us grow our own critical thinking skills and cultivate our internal editor. Better Understanding Editors Reading and editing other people's work gives you a better understanding of what type of things editors go through all the time. Does this word really need to be here? Why is this character doing this? Do I even know where the scene takes place? Editors must ask these questions while reading your work. Going through and editing someone else's writing gives you a sense of reason for why your own editors say the things they do. Even if your work comes back with tons of figurative red ink (or perhaps literal if your editor is old school), there is a reason for each mark there. You don't have to accept every edit they make, but you should respect that they know what to look for. They are only trying to help improve your work, just like you are only trying to help your friend in critique group. Inspiration One of the biggest and most cliche pieces of advice writers face is: Read. Good readers make good writers. But it's a cliche because it's true. Even if you are in a critique group with like-minded people who write things similar to your own, there is always something for you to learn from them. They will see a situation differently than you or take a twist in a different direction than you would have. Good. Learn from them. You never know when something they write or do could give you that spark of inspiration that you need for your own work. In my group, we are all around the same age and fairly like-minded, but even within that, we all have different writing styles and our books are all very unique and different. One of us writes with a more middle grade style, one of us has a knack for Tolkien-esque fantasy, one writes fantasy that subtly weaves Christianity into the story, one of us writes crime/thrillers, one writes fairytale retellings, one writes YA fantasy, and I am currently writing science fiction. I am learning something new from my friends all the time. Try to find a critique group where you can learn too. Tell me about your experiences with critique groups in the comments!
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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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