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Please use a #2 pencil for the following quiz. When you have completed all the questions, close your workbook and raise your hand. This is a closed book test. You may not use supplemental material to answer the questions.
You may begin. Your answers will be timed.
1) Who among you out there is currently (or has recently been) in a writing group (or has facilitated one)?
2) How did the group form? (University or other affiliation, friends, internet, etc.)
3) Were all the persons in your writing group writing in the same genre? If not, how did that work?
4) What was the primary challenge of the group? (Lousy writer(s), attendance, unhelpful feedback, other)
5) Did you obtain any goals as a result of the group that you would otherwise have not attained?
6) If you have experience with a virtual writing group (that is, without in-person meetings), is this a format you (dis)recommend, and why?
7) In what genre(s) do you write? Who is a known writer that most resembles the kind of writing you want to create?
8) Do you feel that the experience increased the quality of your work, or was it merely randomizing?
Curious, antisocial writers considering joining or creating a writing group want to know. Ahem.
lighthouse lines
10 hours ago
9 comments:
Other than joining in the mass frenzy of Nanowrimo this past November, I've not been apart of any writing group. I did do some art for a book for a writing group back in college though, if that's any experience...
Anyway, I think they can be helpful sometimes, but really it depends on the kind of writer you are. Personally, I know I wouldn't get much out of a writing group if only because I'm highly anti-social about my writing as well. I'm not going to just go out to write with other folk if only because I know that it doesn't work for me.
I might join one, however, if it meant a chance to make an acquaintance that I thought might be able to help me in some way - namely someone whom I could trust to bat around ideas as well as help in the editorial process and critiques. Usually these folk become close friends.
1) Who among you out there is currently (or has recently been) in a writing group (or has facilitated one)? Me. I joined one. I've only been to two meetings. This was very out-of-character for me, and took one dry-run in which I went to the library at which we were to meet, and peeked inside the meeting room, but didn't go in.
2) How did the group form? (University or other affiliation, friends, internet, etc.) There was a notice posted on the bulletin board at our local library, "...respons by e-mail". And I did.
3) Were all the persons in your writing group writing in the same genre? If not, how did that work?
We're all writing different kinds of stuff - there's five others plus me. One is working on an "inspirational" novel, one writes poetry and short stories, one creative nonfiction, one I-don't-know-what, and me. I don't know what I do yet.
4) What was the primary challenge of the group? (Lousy writer(s), attendance, unhelpful feedback, other) Too early to tell.
5) Did you obtain any goals as a result of the group that you would otherwise have not attained? The group decided for me that I ought to be editing my latest NaNoNovel, and so that's what I'm doing. I edit and then submit one chapter at a time before meetings (every two weeks). They review and suggest changes, give feedback, etc.
6) If you have experience with a virtual writing group (that is, without in-person meetings), is this a format you (dis)recommend, and why? No idea.
7) In what genre(s) do you write? Who is a known writer that most resembles the kind of writing you want to create? I don't know what to call it, but I'd pay an enormous sum of money to write like George Saunders. Although my current project (the NaNoNovel) is maybe more influenced by Madeleine L'Engle.
8) Do you feel that the experience increased the quality of your work, or was it merely randomizing?
Remains to be seen.
1) Attended a writing group while in Ft. Lauderdale. Writing group organizer moved to Seattle at the same time I moved to Tampa.
2) Meetup.com
3) No. It actually worked fairly well because it helped expose people of one genre to views from others. Most importantly, it helped avoid cliches for people who strayed into cross-genre territory. Very eye-opening.
4) Attendance was the biggest challenge. Very hard to keep a coherent group together for long. Also experience levels where a matter of question. If your group is open to all levels then you'll mostly end up working with the lowest common denominator.
5) Yes. I started writing considerably more fiction, and my writing quality did improve. I also started reading more genres, things I wouldn't have otherwise read.
6) No substantive experience.
7) Sci-fi. I've been told repeatedly my writing reminds readers of Arthur C. Clarke.
8) Yes.
If you find a good virtual group, tell me. I'm looking for one. Good luck!
My dog ate my answers.
Conveniently, most of them were "no" or "dunno" or "N/A" so it doesn't matter. But I will say: much as I'd love a virtual writing group to kick me into a rewrite, I think some things need to be done face-to-face. There's a whole dynamic missing from virtual groups, and I'd think they'd tend to disintegrate pretty rapidly.
That said, I'd invite you all 'round my house for cookies and typewriters and mutual assured NaNo rewrites if, you know, we weren't all apart by several hundred miles.
Not so recently, but it worked pretty well. It formed at the end of a six-week f2f class on the novel, taught by published mainstream literary writer, at local Writers' Place collective thingy.
We were all writing more or less "mainstream" novels or short stories, although one woman was writing a fantastic novel that only she and I parsed that way. One of the other writers (University English professor, so she might have known better) once wrote us wrote a story in which she sprang a saucers-arrive conclusion that she hadn't really paid for up front, you might say, a problem of working too much in mainstream realism.
The group stuck together for a couple years, with monthly meetings, so it was in some sense successful. One of the people later went off to get a creative writing degree, another is still writing & editing textbooks as she was before foraying into fiction. I would say at this distance that the biggest problem was that we were not strong enough friends, or enough excited by one another's work, to do more.
Personally I am a little lax in the goal-oriented behavior. So I got a lot of stuff started, and very little finished. Took another class there and the teacher made us write a short story every week, and that worked for me, actually finished several.
On the other hand, I started writing poetry when one of those people (the University professor) introduced me to the local poetry slam, and have continued to do so. I still have friends from that group though. Poets need a support group, and I bet a lot of other kinds of writers can use them too.
But generalizing about how writers work is fraught with error. Everyone makes their own rules and lots of the rules contradict each other.
"The best teachers for you are those friends who like you" said Barbara Ueland, etc etc, in If You Want to Write. The most writing I have done and continue to do is for apa zines, where the strict deadline, hardcopy essay format, and built-in audience work for me. I have had much more limited results from virtual groups online (see Unfinished Stuff above).
My completed short stories are rather depressingly like Raymond Carver stories. I would prefer to write like Angela Carter.
On the whole I recommend such support groups. Depends on who is in them, very much.
I have never been part of a writing group - only writing workshops that I paid to join. I've considered starting one up. From what I hear, it's best to be selective about the group you put together so as to set as another poster said, where the low of the lowest common denominator will be.
I did take online writing classes and those were great. Even though people in the class were at different levels, having an instructor address each person's strengths/weaknesses was helpful. Also we had guidelines as to how to comment/critique.
As for anti-social - it's irrelevant, esp. if it's online. The focus is to be serious about the quality of the writing and the quality of the critiquing.
Robert Sawyer recommends NOT sharing pieces of an unfinished book w/ a group as their comments on the parts might mess up the whole.
Please start a group so I can join yours!
Also-- typewriters & Rhodia? Where has your blog been all my life?! (I found you via "antique typewriter" googling.)
In response to #7 I like the style of Dorothy Parker.
I haven't been in a writing group but have collaboratively created newsletters.
The main benefit (for me) of the group setting is that you have a deadline forced upon you, thus you MUST produce the pages. I did more and better writing in a CW class than before or since.
One downside of groups is that they can become pseudo-tyrannical: members can get pigeonholed by the group (she writes bad dialog, his poetry is overly florid) and everything they produce is seen in that light.
The case has been made elsewhere for and against workshop-type groups. In my experience, take the good (deadlines, for me) and leave the rest.
Thanks for the advice... I am getting the overall impression that joining one is generally a good idea.
I should poke around Nano and look at y'all's novels. I was a failed participant so I wasn't keeping up as things were being written.
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