Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Critique Groups



I  belong to a critique group, and I look forward to our weekly meetings.

We have such fun!

Uh, oh. I shouldn't have used that exclamation mark. According to one of our members, we use entirely too many of these in our writing. And, we use too many semi-colons.

We currently have eight members that come on a regular basis.
Our latest member writes mostly poems.
We have three other members who are very good at poems, but they also write short stories.
We have a member who writes novels.
One who writes novels, memoirs, children's stories, and columns.
One who writes essays and columns and is thinking about writing her memoir. She is a retired English professor and author of four books, including “The Confident Writer,” a grammar-based college textbook. Boy does she know her grammar, and she tells it in such a way (usually with humor), that makes it easy to remember.

I write picture books, middle grade books, chapter books, poems, Appalachian, columns (newspaper and magazine) and novellas.

We look forward to our meetings and try not to miss any.  We gab about this and that at the beginning. We bring extra copies of our material with us to give out to each member.We also bring our tough layer of skin, because this is when the reading and editing begins.

We mark on our copies of the story or poem and we make suggestions.

And, I almost forgot to say that we give each other support and encouragement.

At our last meeting, I was a little down. I had been bringing my novella to our meetings for critique. I said that I didn't think there was much of a chance of getting it published, because publishers weren't exactly tripping over top of each other in their rush to obtain novellas.

One of our members said, "Yes, they do. I read a lot of books that contain two or three novellas."

I had never thought of that. My two novellas would go perfect together in one book. The first manuscript takes place in 1908 when a young couple gets married and it ends with the birth of their first child. The second manuscript takes place in the early 1940s. The main character is one of the daughters of the couple in the first manuscript.

Since then I have been writing, writing and writing on my manuscript--really giving it a once over.

If you don't belong to a critique group, I would suggest you join one.  Every manuscript needs a separate set of eyes to look at them.

I love critique groups and I think you will too.

Do you belong to one?




7 comments:

  1. It sounds like you have an awesome critique group. I am in two and they are so different from each other and very different from yours, but both helpful and fun. Yes, most writers really need to be in one.

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  2. Hi, Rosi. Yes, they are great. Our next meeting is going to be at one of our member's house.I'm looking forward to it.

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  3. Sounds like you have a great critique group. We have two groups who meet at the local college campus. I've not been this summer, but plan to get involved again this fall since I have more time.

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  4. Your critique group sounds like fun and I can imagine it is very helpful. I know I use too many exclamation points- especially in blog comments, but I am trying to work on it. :)

    ~Jess

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  5. I hope this finds you and yours doing well. May we display your header on our new site directory? As it is now, the site title (linked back to its home page) is listed, and we think displaying the header will attract more attention. In any event, we hope you will come by and see what is going on at SiteHoundSniffs.com.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Jerry. Yes, you have my permission to use my header. I just hopped over to your site and I think you have a great idea going on over there.

      Delete
    2. Thank you so very much for giving permission. You can see your linked header under All, Literary and the United States. If you could say something (preferably good) about SiteHoundSniffs.com here and there, I would greatly appreciate it.

      Delete

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