Critiquing a Critique Group

I belong to a wonderful critique group, a Novel II group, part of the Writers’ Group of the Triad. These people have become my friends and best critics. They’re fair, tactful, and make valid suggestions, but never get offended if I disagree. Some are better than others at editing, and yet some can point out things I can’t see because I’m too close to the story at the time. And they always have at least one good thing to say, for encouragement sake. They know how to critique.

Now I’m not looking for a pat on the back or a fan club when I join a critique group, but over a year ago, I participated in a "critique" group that I had to question later, what was the goal of this group? My first impression was that these people needed to learn the art of critiquing. And my next thought was, I need to warn other writers … that all critique groups are not created equal.

Is belonging to a critique group always a good thing?

I do not foolishly anticipate that everyone is going to like what I write. I can only hope whoever reads my work will appreciate my writing and is able to give me constructive criticism. I want to know if there is a problem with scene structure, if a character needs some work, if something didn’t make sense, is there tension on every page, or if Star Trek began in 1966, not 1967, etc. But please, don’t rewrite my entire story for me.

Did they offend me? More than that. They pissed me off with their stupid comments that made no sense to me. Further, they were outright insulting. It was more than brutal, they raped my manuscript. How’s that for honesty?

I write Southern fiction. I have my own style and voice. This critique group (made up mostly of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers) ripped my story apart, making it no longer Southern, no longer mine. If I had changed everything they said do … it wouldn’t have been my story anymore. My voice would’ve been gone; an alien might as well have written it.

It’s not a critique group anymore when you strip away a writer's voice. When you literally rewrite every sentence in every paragraph. Or even when you tell me what point of view “it should” be written in. It’s not a helpful critique group, it’s a damn lynch mob!

At that time I had just come from a writing conference in Philadelphia where a well-known New York Agent for the past 20 years, who reads thousands of manuscripts each year, said that point of view doesn’t matter to him, even multiple points of view, as long as it’s well written, a damn good story, and there’s enough tension on every page to make him want to read the rest.

So as I weighed all this on the scales of literary justice, I thought … do I take the advice of seven people who have submitted virtually few stories of their own to be critiqued? Or do I listen to an agent like Donald Maass?

It might have been a dilemma for me after this class, except for the fact that the story they ripped to shreds had just won two contests, one being with a book doctor and the other with an editor for publication in an anthology. So how bad was my story, really? Not at all. Were their gripes and complaints legitimate? Very, few. Did I learn anything from these people? No, just that they were all a bunch of jerks.

Had I not already won two contests with this story, I may very well have gone straight home and ripped this great story to shreds and deleted it from my hard drive forever.

Okay - okay, again, a few of their suggestions were helpful and I did make the edits. But in my opinion, more than three quarters of their comments destroyed the piece. They were mean spirited (some of them) and in bad taste. It was a good lesson in believing in myself and letting it roll off my back. Now months later, I’ve decided to write about it this experience.

I need constructive criticism. And it wasn’t in that group.

There’s a ton of professionalism in the critique group I’m in now. The comments and suggestions are not about how great my writing is … I don’t want that. (Well, not always.) But they’re well thought out, and spoken with kindness. Therein lies the difference. I think the word is … caring. The critique group I belong to these days definitely cares about the manuscript they're reading and the author - meaning they want to see it improved.

I obviously didn't feel that in the other group. Some of the comments were so off the wall and completely the opposite of my theme and plot, I had to kept my mouth shut, smile and nod. But it made me wonder, how many other critique groups have destroyed a writer’s confidence? That's when I realized, I wasn’t going back.

After the story was released in the anthology last year, I did a reading of that same story at one of the major independent bookstores in Durham, NC to a crowd that loved it. In fact, it was at that same reading a woman (who I had no idea who she was) asked me to sign her copy of the book, and as I did she bent over and said, “Honey, I think you’re better than Flannery O’Connor.”

It was all the validation I needed.

Blessings to you and yours.