Today I’m not going with the prompt and in fact I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get posts up for the next few days. I know I should have written a bunch of posts like I did last week so there was something scheduled to go up on the appropriate day, but I haven’t had the chance to do that this week.

So instead I will take a look at one of the prompts that will come up while I am out of town.

This is the prompt for Day 13 or September 25.

Have you participated in a critique group? If so, how did it work out for you? If not, why have you avoided joining one to this point? Is your critique group online or does it meet in person? What is the most useful thing you get out of your participation? How do you think a critique group could help you improve your writing?

I have belonged to several critique groups, both online and in-person. I also belonged to a round robin critique group where we sent our chapters through the mail to each other.

Critique groups are something I highly recommend. My current group as well as the last one have been a great help and motivation. They are both in-person groups and my only complaint about my current group is that we don’t meet often enough so it takes longer to get a piece ready to submit. But on the up side they have been very helpful in helping me work out the storyline. We have several different personalities that all look for something different in a manuscript, so the suggestions I get cover a wide range of issues from p.o.v shifts to comma usage, to telling me that a scene doesn’t work for whatever reason, like its too dark and gory for a YA audience.

The online groups I participated in were okay, but I didn’t feel as if I got enough constructive input. The round robin was nice, but if I’m looking to get something done quickly they would not work out for me.

To wrap this up: Critique groups are an important part of the writing, publishing process. No matter how good an editor you are (or at least for Me) you can never catch everything. A critique group provides an unbiased eye, someone with no vested interest in the piece. I’m not sure I can tell you what makes up a good critique group, I think that is different for every person. I have been lucky enough to find two really good ones, that have met a variety of needs when it comes to critiquing my work.

So I salute the South Hills Critique group in Puyallup WA and Literary Fusion in Cranberry Twp. and Wexford PA, two of the best critique groups a girl could ask for.