Bittercon: Writing Groups
Time to steal from the best! I am raiding Readercon's program schedule for stuff that might be fun to discuss for those of us stuck at home. And on today's schedule, there's: Writing Groups and Writers, a Match Made in Heaven or Hell?
Their description goes on: Many consider critiques from their writers' group a valuable part of their submission process. Others tend to believe that writers' groups tend to dilute individual style, tending toward "groupthink."
Okay, true story. Years and years ago (twenty or so) when I was reading slush for a small zine, my co-editor and I used to send personal rejections. One time we got a story--lively, full of promise--from a certain city. The story was flawed by cliche plot devices as well as prose, and grammar and spelling errors. We touched on that in our rejection, encouraged the writer, and that was that. Very soon after, we got a story that felt similar to that one, and lo and behold, it was from the same city--different name. It reminded us enough of the previous story that we wondered if the first writer had changed their name. Then bam, bam, two more stories, same city, and the thing is, the stories all shared a lot of the same errors--familiar plot devices and character types, certain words misspelled, grammar mistakes, everybody had glowing eyes as markers for emotions, etc. When we wrote to the last one, we said there was no need to change names every time they subbed.
Well, we got a hurt letter back saying that they were four different writers, and each wrote about different things--(my example) one always wrote SF, another about elves, the third always did fairy tales, the fourth urban fantasy. They had been a writer's group for many years, met frequently, critiqued each other's work thoroughly before they submitted--they were doing everything, in other words, that professionals suggested for writers who wanted to go pro.
They were of course reinforcing one another's weak points because those weak points were invisible to one another, but also, the stories were not just similar in prose errors, but in feel: they had begun writing for one another. I suppose this could work if the others are all brilliant--look at Bloomsbury and the Fabians, etc. They wrote for one another before the world, and all became famous.
But the rest of us? Hoo. I do remember reading some derisive criticisms of works by writers in a couple of long-time writing groups whose works gradually seemed more and more similar to readers. One of these groups, I could see it, too. Yet they were all pros, selling all the time...but eventually I noted a gradual falling off in awards, big publicity for the new projects, and then appearance of books and stories. I have no idea what was going on in the dynamics of the group vis a vis individual lives, but from a distance, it seemed as if the group had found a group comfort zone, and had sunk into it. And it had hurt them in the long run.
My own feeling is that besides looking for people at all levels of writing, and people who write different types of thing, one has to get new blood, or a group might slowly erode into a group grope. We're humans, we tend to turn by degrees into us against them unless we're constantly on the watch, or unless the group keeps changing.
I think fresh eyes are crucial for most of us: old friends who love our stuff can not only reinforce habits that we are not aware of that are keeping us from improving, but by degrees we might begin writing for them. and unless their taste is either universal or so fine it transcends, we're earnestly heading right for a rut, while we think we're doing everything right, and of course all the praise feels good. At that point, one might stop and say, "Who am I really writing for?" If the answer is, "This small audience right here," then one is doing the right thing. If one wants to go for a wider readership, then it's back to the hard climb in search of better skills.
Of course finding fresh eyes can be a problem, because we want someone who will enjoy the work but have something to say, so that means finding someone with experience with critiquing. If enjoying the work has priority, the danger is in getting a cheering squad rather than a real critique. Yet deliberately seeking out someone who can't stand fantasy to read one's epic fantasy can be a recipe for frustration for both parties.
Okay, that's my thought: what about you?