Joining a writers group can help a writer take their work to another level. You want to find a group with writers moving in different places in their career, established writers, newbies and middle-of-the-roaders. Too many of one kind may leave the group a bit one-sided. For example, a group with a majority of newbies may look to you to be the teacher of the group and while you can learn something from everyone, you want to have a an opportunity to learn from someone with more experience than you as well.
You also want a group that can offer constructive criticism. A bunch of haters will ruin the group and a bunch of yes men lead to the lemming scenario in the above cartoon and no one experiences much growth from either.
Online or in person the choice is up to you with upsides and downsides to both, but date around and see which group works for you.
Have you joined a writer’s group? What has been your experience?
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Depends on the level of the writers….I was in a writers group once, and most others were “hobbyists,” while I was (and still do) support my family on my income. So I found it a waste of time.
I do like this community because I think it offers a level of professionalism that I didn’t find in a physical group.
I recently joined a writing group. The feedback I received is interesting because everyone has their opinion and they are at different “writing” levels. I’ll see how it goes…
That cartoon is hilarious…
And, no, I haven’t joined a writers group, mostly because I don’t know where to find one! (Does Twitter count??)
One of my goals for the New Year is to start a writer’s group in my area – I just need a catchy name. We had one a few years back, but there were only a couple of us actually interested in freelancing. The others just wanted to bring in things they had written for people to read (and not to critique either). This group will be for writers who are looking to get published, have experience with being published or who are making writing a full time career.
Funny cartoon!
If it were to lean one way or another, I’d rather have a lemming-type group than a hater-type. At least it keeps me writing:-)
Though I’d definitely think a balance is good.
I like Kathryn’s idea. I hope I can find one like hers, for novelists.
Hi Terreece,
Off topic – but I wanted to return to the query challenge. (Yes, I am working on it!)
I have spent some time studying query letter tips and sample queries online. I have never done this before and want to learn to do it right.
I have a few questions -
1. Is it ok to introduce a slightly casual tone in an otherwise formal query letter or is it a strict No! ? For example, I want to open one query with a short line like ” ‘A’ minus ‘B’ = C.” And then I go on to describe what this C is. I have included all the parts of the query (hook, pitch etc) to my knoweldge…but I keep wondering if I shd eliminate the first line.
2. Is it absolutely necessary to mention in the query some of the names of the people I will be talking to and the quotes I will be using in the article? I guess names and quotes do add some personality and interest and convince the editor that I actually am capable of doing the research…But currently I don’t have the sources or quotes, although I will be getting them before starting the article (If I get chosen to write!) So, is it ok to leave that part out in the query or should I first work on the sources and quotes?
Thanks so much for motivating me to do this. And thanks you for all the great tips!
I joined a few online writing groups and had mixed success. Finally, some friends and I decided to start our own site for facilitating online writing groups. We haven’t finished everything we’d like to do yet, but we’ve been getting some pretty good feedback from early users. The site is Review Fuse (www.reviewfuse.com/).
If you try it out, be sure to let us know what you think and how we can make it better.
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