The Peabodies, A.K.A The Write 6

Formally, my husband was my critiquer. I would ask him to read my stories, and he would give me the customary "This is good." I thought with his experience of reading hundreds of Picture Books, and children's literature to my children, he'd be able to give me some valuable insight to my writing. I was wrong.

My husband was a cheerleader "My wife is the best, writer in the land, If she can't write it, nobody can." Okay--okay, maybe he didn't say that, but hopefully I've made my point.
While it was important to have someone cheering me on, I needed someone that would look at my writing with a critical eye and provide me with criticisms. I'm not saying that I wanted someone to just negatively criticize my work, but I wanted someone to constructively analyze the merits and pitfalls of my writing. I needed to know what I was doing right, and how I could improve and strengthen the areas that needed revision.

To me, joining a critique group means that I can now see my work through other people's eyes. Sometimes, a writer becomes tone to deaf his or her own writing. It's great to have someone say "What did you mean by this?" or "What about doing it this way instead?" Sometimes, my group members are just confirming that nagging feeling in the back of my head that is saying something isn't right. Other times, they are telling me when they enjoy a sentence or passage that I've written. Then there are the times, they are pointing something out that I hadn't even considered when I was committing my ideas to paper. They are even apt to tell me when parts of my novel sound "cheesy" (Hehe, Monta's words not mine).

I count myself lucky to have found a group of hard dedicated writers to help keep me on track. Originally, it was difficult for me to open myself up to other people's judgements. This was probably the case for all of us. But when you know that the people who are evaluating your work have your best interest at heart (and want to see you succeed), that makes it easier to take their comments in stride; and learn from them.

A good critique group grows together, and I think our group has done some growing. Robin's writing has evolved until she has found her niche in writing educational-type picture books. Jim is hammering away at his third installment of TT. Monta has written her first chapter over fifty-two times and has finally settled on a awesome beginning (I think). Ellen has found her grove with the flow of her writing; and Michelle is chilling with a pen and paper in her hand furiously revising her stories while making the most of her bed rest. Okay I'm not sure about that last one. Anyway, my point is, that we know what each person in our group is capable of and we encourage each other to do our best.

I think that is the formula for a good critique group.

I am extremely lucky to be apart of The Peabodies A.K.A The Write 6. I always leave our meetings with a smile on my face (Well, they are a hilarious bunch), and a renewed sense of purpose. I agree wholeheartedly with Ellen that our group is therapeutic. Together, we are kind of like Chicken Soup To The Writer's Soul. I look forward to the day when we are a group of published writers, meeting at the Panera (maybe we will ditch this place when we get money), talking about the latest trends in publishing, and pouring laboriously over each other's newest hit manuscripts. I think that will be a really great day (regardless of whether we change our meeting place or not).

Evolution of a Critique Group

I think the way a critique group evolves is important. When we first started our group, it was as a course. We had a great instructor. Carmela always brought suggestions--what to read on the craft of writing, helpful blogs to follow, conferences and writers’ societies, other workshops that met regularly, writing exercises for us to try. She is so knowledgeable (as I guess is the job of a “teaching author”). I also liked that she had us bring in recent books in the same genre of what we were writing ourselves. We had to explain what we learned from these other books. This was helpful for me but also quite interesting to hear what my classmates were doing. Finally, Carmela’s format was designed to produce as little as anxiety as possible when presenting our work--first people would say what they liked about it, then ask questions about it.

When the next session of that class met, again under Carmela, it was five of us from the first class and one “new” person who put up with us and fit in right away. I think we kept the culture of respect that Carmela had established, but felt a little more free to argue with each other--one person might have liked something the presenter did while another person didn’t. It was really good to hear the discussion of your work (though difficult to sit there quietly as the presenter) and then get your manuscripts back with everyone’s comments. I was always impressed by the resources and information my classmates brought about seminars and goings-on in the writing world, so grateful that they shared these. It was really fun to be able to continue to read the works in progress or revisions from classmates, and with a smaller class, we had more opportunities to share work.

Now we meet on our own or even just email if someone needs some quick feedback before a deadline. People in your group are familiar with your work if you are hammering away on a continuous story or bringing in a revision. It’s people who genuinely respect the effort made and are truly trying to help each other achieve better stories. It’s very constructive, so I feel that we got lucky that we can trust what others have to say when they make suggestions or ask if you could try something a different way. Instead of this massive anxiety-producing event, it becomes much more an opportunity--looking forward to bringing something to the group because you really value the input as you struggle through it. Even if it’s a really rough first draft, to not be scared to ask “what do you guys think? is it worth pursuing? what direction would you like to see it take?” I have heard some horror stories about people in critique groups where the goal seems to be to show off your own knowledge of writing while being as critical as possible. I have also heard that these tend to be more adult writers’ groups than children’s writers? Like Ellen said, it helps to have a “deadline” of when the group is scheduled to meet so it pushes you to get some work done (although much less work done by me than everyone else lately!!). And it helps get you over your fear of sharing your work with others--perhaps a professional critique at a conference or even submitting for publication--maybe not family/friends quite yet. It gives you confidence that yes, you do actually have some business writing (who do you think you are? what’s so special about you?) and that you have already put a lot of work into it.

To echo Ellen again, it is like getting a little present to open when you receive another 2000 words and are asked to critique. I feel so honored that others would trust me to read their work and hope that my feedback is valuable. Critique groups are interesting, too, because the people in them are likely at different stages of life and may be writing in different genres, but somehow everyone has this “writing thing” in common and it all clicks. So if I did end up in some snooty snotty critique group situation, hopefully it wouldn’t paralyze me or crush my spirit because I have been fortunate enough to know that truly good experiences with critique are possible!! I admit that i do think there is some luck involved, so if at first it doesn’t work for you, try again and find one that evolves!