Critique Circle Basics: How to Set Up and Run an Effective Support Group

You wrote a novel! Now what? NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” Months are here—this January and February, we’ll be helping you guide your novel through the revision and publishing process. Today, NaNoWriMo participant Kathy Kitts  shares her tips for finding or forming the best group to help you through your editing process:

Experienced writers understand and appreciate the benefits of participating in a critique circle, but if you are a new writer, you might need some convincing. As you begin to slog through the edits on your novel, here are some ways that joining a critique circle might make the process a little less arduous, as well as a few tips for creating or joining a new critique group: 

1. External Motiviation

First off, having external motivation is important when there are no agents or editors beating down your door. The fear of disappointing your group will encourage you to turn off the TV before you get sucked into another rerun of Law & Order: Parking Division.

2. Gaining Perspective

Critique circles do more than find typos. They provide examples of what to do and what not to do. It’s difficult to see our own weaknesses, but it’s easy to see these “opportunities for improvement” in others. Critiquing other’s work teaches us how to better revise our own.

3. Supportive Community

Like NaNoWriMo, the greatest advantage of a critique circle is camaraderie. Writing is a lonely business. Only another writer understands the emotional toll of submitting our work only to see it rejected. Sometimes, you need a shoulder to cry on, an ear to whine to, or a poke in the butt to get you back to the computer.

If you’re already convinced of the benefits of the critique group, here are a couple of FAQ’s that can help you find or create the best community for you:

Q: For a smooth-running critique circle, how many members should you recruit?

A: On one hand, you need enough people to keep the momentum going through vacations, sick kids, and work deadlines. On the other, if there are too many members the workload will interfere with your own writing. Limiting the page count or alternating members can mitigate this somewhat, but do you really want to wait six months get feedback on your work?

I suggest six to eight members. This number of participants balances the desire to make progress with the need to protect personal writing time.

Q: Do you want your group to be genre-specific or general? 

A: Personally, I like mixed critique groups. Writers outside my area prevent me from resorting to genre-specific cheats. This improves my writing. Do not fear critiquing a genre you do not generally read. Good writing is good writing. You do not need to be a thriller writer to identify poor pacing or flat dialog.

Q: How should you choose which manuscripts to critique, and when?

A: Once you establish the make-up of your circle, you must decide on manuscript length. Does the group prefer longer but fewer manuscripts? Or fewer pages with each member giving and receiving critiques? A three hundred page novel will take over a year at ten pages every two-weeks. However, if a group of six agrees to cover one novel per month, everyone gets a review within those six months. (This assumes your critique circle does not include Follet, King, Tolstoy, or Dostoyevsky–where one novel per month would be suicide.)

Discuss your expectations and do the math. It might not be prudent to wait five months for your turn and watch the group dissolve as you send out your opus.

Q: How often should the group meet? 

A: This depends on the will of the members and how far along they are. If everyone has finished their NaNoWriMo novel, they’ll have something to pass out weekly. However, between the job and the relatives, a group of beginners might only be able to handle monthly.

Q: How should members of the group give feedback?

A: Specifying the type of critique upfront is not only polite but saves you from disappointment–or worse yet–insult. Some people are looking for fans and not critique. Others are too negative and are incapable of helping you find your work’s Platonic ideal. Avoid these folk. Neither group has your best interests at heart. Instead, find writers who can identify what works so you can do more of it.

I suggest the “sandwich” method. Start with what is great about the piece, follow with what the author could do differently, and finish by summarizing the positive. Nature has wired us to react to “danger.” Thus critiques boom in our heads and praise only whispers. We need to hear the good stuff twice to incorporate it.

Q: Should your critique circle be in-person or online? 

A: Absolutely in person, if you can swing it. You can blow off someone you’ve never met, but try doing that to someone with puppy eyes, staring you in the face, dying to find out what happened to your main character. Accountability is important.

As for where to meet, poll your group. Meeting in a coffee shop will require you to buy something, but then you won’t have to clean your house. Although libraries are free, many have eliminated their evening and weekend hours. Allow the group to choose and revisit the decision from time to time.

If you don’t know enough local writers to form a circle (all your Wrimo buddies live on the wrong side of the planet), join a local writer’s association and recruit there. Google writing groups in your area. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the number and variety.

Critique circles will help you improve your craft, provide accountability, and support you emotionally. As Ray Bradbury said in his collection of essays, Zen in the Art of Writing, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” Let your critique circle help you do that.

Dr. Kathy Kitts, a fourteen time NaNoWriMo winner, hails from the desert southwest. She is a retired geology professor who served as a team member on the NASA Discovery Mission Genesis. Despite having written dozens of scientific papers, school curricula and textbooks, she no longer writes about what is, but rather what if. Her recent fiction adventures include short literary fiction and speculative fiction in the Storyteller’s Anthology, James Gunn’s Ad Astra and Mad Scientist Journal. Visit her website at http://www.girlcooties.org/.

Top photo by Flickr user ClaraDon.