"Do They or Don’t They?
Published Authors and Critique Groups"
By Kristen Painter

Finding the right critique group can really help your writing and your career. But choose carefully…

One of the most common pieces of advice aspiring writers receive is “get into a good critique group” or “find a good critique partner.” The problem inherent with that statement is defining the word good. If you’ve only just begun to write, do you really know what that means and how to find it? If you end up with a group or partner who’s at the same level as you, will that move your forward as a writer, or will you just end up with a mutual admiration society? Mutual admiration is lovely, but it doesn’t help improve your craft.

Experience is key. You must hope and pray you’ll gain entrance into a group containing writers more experienced than yourself, and that they’ll take pity on you, put up with your amateurish work devoid of internal conflict, clear points of view, commas (or excessive commas, take your pick), and let you into their inner circle.

Let’s say you find one and, after much begging, they let you in. Probably for a probationary period. You rejoice! You submit your first chapter, ready to bask in their praise of your masterpiece, sure that they’ll immediately suggest various publishers only too eager to offer you a contract. The critiques come back. You read them. Copious tears ensue, followed by murderous thoughts and some colorful word choices you’re sure they wouldn’t approve of either. You wonder who made them Queens of All Writing Great and Wonderful.

Here’s where the road forks. Which direction do you take? Do you suck it up, admit they might know more about the craft of writing, and work at the suggested changes? Or perhaps you critique a few of their chapters, nitpick them to death, finding minute reasons to dislike every thing possible about the work (Southern accents make men sound dumb, red-haired heroines are impossible to take seriously, the title needs work, the chapters are too long, the chapters are too short, those shoes are all wrong with that outfit…).

Choosing the later won’t move you forward as a writer, or as a human being, actually. While it might seem more soul satisfying to go on the defensive, it won’t endear you to the critique group. Instead, it will most likely give the group reason to bring your probationary period to a fast end.

So let’s say you put the work aside to give yourself some distance from the piece. A few days later, you reread and begin to see the light. Clichés really don’t make for great writing and commas, it turns out, have their usefulness. After some changes (including deleting the cat’s point of view), you resubmit. This time, the critiques received reflect your efforts. They praise your improvement, take genuine interest in your story, and encourage you to submit the next chapter. Best of all, they ask you to become a permanent member. You soon discover you learn as much from critiquing their work as you do from the critiques you receive. And so it goes with most critique groups.

Of course, change is inevitable. Janice Lynn, author of Jane Millionaire, split amicably with her first critique partner when their writing went in different directions. “She’d sold. I hadn’t. She felt she needed a critique partner on the same level of writing. In the long run, that worked to our advantage since we hooked up with CPs more in tune with our writing voices. We’re still good friends.”

People grow as writers, their grasp of craft improves, and what they need from a critique group changes because of that. The group may break up or simply fade away from disuse. It’s also possible that the members all grow together and the group changes as the members require. Either way, chances are your critique group will have to evolve or die. Gemma Halliday, author of the High Heels mystery series, can’t even count how many critique groups and partners she’s been through. She’s not alone. I’ve been through a few myself.

What about the ultimate change a writer goes through—from aspiring to agented to published? What happens to your critique group when that occurs? Do published authors even need critique groups? But first…

What Do Agents Think About Critique Groups?

“We often recommend that writers find critique partners because having objective feedback on one’s work is critical to growing as a writer. Otherwise, the whole process of writing books happens in a vacuum until you’ve sold and gotten an editor. The one thing to watch out for, however, is that not all critique partners are created equal, and I’ve seen bad matches derail a writer’s creative process. Make sure you’re with people who get your work, who are good writers themselves, and who give equal time to all group members,” says Deidre Knight of The Knight Agency. Knight, who also writes for Berkley , credits her writer’s group for being instrumental in helping her mature as a writer.

Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency, says “I believe a solid critique group (and I usually recommend that if my author is published, to have other published authors in the critique group), can really help to polish a first draft of a manuscript before I see it.”

Agents don’t want to see your rough draft; they want to see your best work. A critique group can be just the place to polish a piece before sending it out.

What Do Editors Think of Critique Groups?

Harlequin’s Tracy Farrell had this to say: “I think critique groups can be very useful. But they are not all created equal. Authors need to have a group that works for them. And if it is not working, they need to get out. I would not suggest to an author I have already bought that they join a critique group. I don’t remember ever having suggested that an author of mine drop their critique group, although I can certainly imagine a situation where I might. If an unpublished author has submitted a project to me that has potential but is very rough or does not follow writing conventions, I would probably suggest that she might want to join a critique group in order to develop her skills and learn to be more critical of her own writing.”

On the other side of the coin is Kensington’s Kate Duffy. “All I know about critique groups is what I have been told. Sometimes they are supportive and wonderful, sometimes they just continue to spread misinformation found on the Internet or misinterpreted by someone who knows someone who spoke at a writers’ conference sometime. Sometimes my authors report back on what their critique group thinks of a cover or cover copy or my suggestions for revisions. Bottom line—their opinions may mean something to the author but they mean nothing to me. Your critique partners do not get a vote in my world. My authors go or stay in critique groups without any comments from me. Irrelevant to my part of the publishing process.” Interesting, nonetheless.

Authors Who Do

Author of Avon ’s Almost A Goddess, Judi McCoy is a great proponent of critique groups, although she likes to keep her group small, no more than five and fewer is better. Too many people and she feels it’s difficult to give each member’s work the proper attention. Only two writers in her group are currently published. They follow a round robin format, forwarding chapters via e-mail through the group until work returns to its creator with everyone’s comments. Their two rules, be honest and be kind, have kept them going for several years.

Candace Havens, author of Charmed and Ready, gets the award for belonging to the group with the most members—50. The DFW Writer’s Workshop is perhaps one of the toughest groups around, encompassing writer’s of all genres, but Havens credits the group with getting her published. “These people can be very harsh, but this business is tough and I think they’ve helped me develop a thicker skin.” She still attends regularly, despite her success with Berkley .

Still, smaller groups are much more the norm. Red Sage author Leigh Court appreciates her group of four and likes that they meet in real life. She feels the small number allows them to critique everyone’s work each week without feeling rushed or pressured, and meeting in real life is an additional bonus because, “often one person’s comments/critique will spark a thought/discussion from another critique partner.”

This need to keep the workload manageable holds down the numbers of many groups. Seven was the largest “small” group of the author’s I spoke with.

For some writers, a loosely formed group works best when impending publication changes their needs. Shannon McKelden, author of the upcoming Tor release, Venus Envy, says that she now needs “a first reader-type of critique. … a second set of eyes to try to catch anything I haven’t noticed before I send it in.”

This is typical of many authors. They’ve mastered grammar, spelling, and punctuation. They want someone to find inconsistencies, missing words, scenes that need deepening. Things that often need a set of equally talented “writer eyes.”

Because of this, many authors choose to critique with other published authors, as does inspirational author Rachel Hauck. Of her two CPs, she says, “They are authors I trust and understand my writing. They point out inconsistencies and errors, but still let me tell the story in my voice.”

Authors Who Don’t

Sasha White thinks, “Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the stew.” If the sales for her recent release, Bound, are any indication, she might be right.

Luna/Berkley author P.C. Cast doesn’t use a critique group for two reasons. One is that she feels her writing process works best as a solitary endeavor. “Often it feels as if I’m soughing through mud, but it’s mud I have to fight through myself. That’s how I resolve plot problems and how I develop characters. If I had help, or even too much input from others, I don’t think my end product would be the same.”

Cast’s second reason is one that seems to be fairly universal among authors who don’t use critique groups: time. Like Cast, many authors produce work at a greater rate than a critique group can critique. By the time a group has looked at a chapter, many authors say they have already found the flaws and rewritten that chapter on their own.

St. Martin ’s author Ronda Thompson feels the same way, although she admits she doesn’t write as fast now as she used to. While Thompson found critique groups beneficial early on, as she progressed as an author, her editor’s comments became more valuable. She also cautions against becoming too reliant on a critique group telling you what’s good and what isn’t. “Every author eventually forgets that they are the one they are trying to please with the writing, not everyone else. Keep it that way and the joy of writing will stay with you. Let everyone else tell you what to do and like everything, it becomes a job.”

Berkley/HQN author Jennifer Skully chooses not to because the motivation her critique group once provided when she was unpublished has been replaced with the daily goals she now sets for herself.  While she still uses critique partners, it’s strictly online and mostly focused on finished projects.

Those who don’t have time for a group usually have someone they run their work past, be it a beta reader, a single critique partner, or a very honest friend. Brenda Novak, author of the Dead series for Mira, has a friend who is a “talented writer and great editor” who she trusts with her book.

Above …

Members of a critique group often know each other’s stories so well, they take a personal interest in seeing those stories published. Take the case of critique partners Marley Gibson and Diana Peterfreund.

At a writer’s conference, Gibson was seated with an editor from St. Martin ’s. The editor mentioned how much she’d enjoyed a recent release set at Yale. Gibson responded by telling the editor about a book her CP (Peterfreund) was working on about a girl in a secret society at Yale. The editor asked Gibson to have her CP send whatever was available. By the end of the conference Gibson had garnered Peterfreund several editor and agent requests. Peterfreund received offers from many of the agents, quickly made her decision, and the book, Secret Society Girl, sold at auction a week and a half later.

And Beyond

Once published authors move past the need for a true critique group, there still remains a need for some interaction with other writers. In the case of the Plot Monkeys (Carly Phillips, Janelle Denison, Julie Elizabeth Leto, and Leslie Kelly), that need was met in the form of a plotting group. They meet once or twice a year in person for “long, intense plotting sessions.” Throughout the year, the group keeps in touch via phone and a private e-mail loop, helping each other smooth rough spots in the books they’ve already plotted, giving advice, maintaining enthusiasm, and yes, providing feedback when called upon to do so. Primarily, however, the group functions as an idea factory. Their meetings usually result in two plotted books per person. And the copious consumption of junk food. Check out their entertaining blog at www.plotmonkeys.com.

Groups often evolve this way, turning into “writer’s life support group,” a place to bemoan cover art, blurbs, royalty statements, agent issues, editor changes, and to celebrate sales, new deals, fan mail, great ideas…all the fun stuff that goes on in this wonderful business.

So while critique groups aren’t for every writer, I can’t see going on this journey completely alone. Sure, finding the right group, the right people who “get you” and know how to critique in a style that works for you, can be a difficult task that takes numerous tries.

After all, they have to like you, too.