Sorry! Can you tell it’s a sore point for me?

I need to find a Glinda group…

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Jenny, I just wanted to thank you for this fantastic advice; six of my writing friends and I had been casting about for the best way to do an online critique group. We’re scattered from San Francisco to Charlotte and many points in between.

So far, this model is working perfectly for us and we’re hoping to slowwwwwly add members until we hit 20 or 25.

(Just so y’all know, we’re calling it The Typing Class; picking a name was one of the Big Fun things.)

We’re doing it on blogger and everyone has author/editor permissions, but I’ve discovered that there’s very little interest in chat (so far), possibly because we already know each other from another, much chattier forum. (And we also have an e-mail distribution list so I can nag remind people about things.

I also wanted to underline how useful it is (for me and, I gather, from the others) to read thoughtful critiques that aren’t directed at our work. I’m learning a lot about reader logic (other people’s reader logic) and expectations, which is very valuable to me.
So, thanks again. You’re the queen!
Betsy

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Fiction is fiction. I’ve shown people things and had them say, “You can’t do that in a romance.” And I did and it worked out fine. I think mixing genres and forbidding marketing/genre talk is really, really healthy, because then you focus on things like conflict and expectation, not “Is this a romance?” Who cares? The question is, “Is it a good story?”

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As to the critique number, the way my group solved it (see my earlier post) is that as many people as want to can post a scene in a given week, but you can ONLY post if you are willing to critique that week, too. And you must offer at least 5 critiques. That way, every week I get at least 5 critiques–and I have the opportunity for feedback on 50 scenes/year. (We’re on hiatus at Thanksgiving and Christmas). We also have Thursday Prompts and group stories (our next one is May 24, and I’ll receive the baton at 9 PM California time on May 23 and have to post by 12 midnight (3 am Eastern) the second installment. The next writer will have three hours to add for the author that follows… and so forth.

Privacy is critical. Most of us submit stories periodically for contests, etc, that must be unpublished and I’ve submitted my novel for “novels in progress” competitions that also required that it be unpublished, including electronically. If it were a “public” board, then I would have been disqualified. While our web site is published, participation on the board requires a password, and is limited to members and guests (and even guests must join Writer’s Village University for a nominal $69/year, but that gets you unlimited classes, too).

And don’t feel you have to “know what you are talking about.” My group, at least, is extremely supportive. I was a complete newbie when I joined, but they have been patient with me and taught me a lot. I feel like I’ve learned more from them than in all the reading I’ve done and in my education combined.

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I look forward to the lesson on Expectation.

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Readers read to find out what happens next. As they read, they will form theories as to what that might be. If there’s nothing in the scene that promises something interesting to follow, then the reader will not read on. If the scene promises the same old thing that the reader already knows the outcome for, she will not read on. But if the scene sets up things to come that intrigue the reader, then she’ll keep going to see what happens next, if it’s what she thinks or if there will be twists and turns.

So when you’re critiquing a scene, if you tell the writer what you’re expecting to follow it, she’ll know what expectations she’s set up and can fix the scene if they’re expectations she doesn’t want.

For example, Agnes and the Hitman begins with Agnes being threatened in her kitchen and her best pal Joey trying to get to her to help her. One of the things he says is that he’s getting somebody to protect her. If at the end of the first scene, the reader thinks Joey is the hero, I’ve set up the wrong expectation. If the reader thinks the guy he’s getting to protect her is the hero, then I’ve set up the right one. The next scene is from Shane’s POV. At the beginning, Shane answers a phone call from his uncle Joey to come protect his “little Agnes.” Shane thinks he’s going to protect some little kid. If the reader expects that Shane is the hero, the expectation is set up right. If the reader reads on to find out what happens when Shane finds out Agnes is fully grown, expecting that to be the start of a cranky romance in which most of his assumptions will be tested, then the expectation is set up correctly. Every good scene has expectation built into it (although not quite so blatantly as that little Agnes bit, we were stooping pretty low on that one).

Or to use Don’t Look Down, in the first scene, Lucy is on the bridge with three men: Gloom, Nash, and Wilder. I had to set it up so that at the end of the scene, the reader expects that Wilder will be the hero, not Nash or Gloom (Bryce is on the bridge, too, but no reader is that clueless), and that Nash will be the antagonist.

So the reason that question is there is so that the writer knows if the expectations are set up the way she wants them.

June 3, He Wrote She Wrote, in much greater detail.

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anyway, my question about the list of questions for the critique is kind of general- but why those questions? then i started thinking about the latest HWSW posts about scenes and scene beats and got it, so never mind.

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I do have a question, about question #5. Should you have an expectation of what’s going to happen next from what you read in the current scene?

Just when I think I’m getting it all figured out, you give me something new to think about, LOL.

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The Cherry Forums were put together with a Writing Forum so writing talk could be open to everyone, because Jenny wanted anyone who wanted to learn to be able to learn. She’s never been about excluding anyone.

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As to the privacy issue, while I would find the behind-the-scenes stuff fascinating, as I do the HWSW Workshop, as long as it results in more books for me to read I’m not going to feel left out of anything.

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I think face-to-face critique groups have a different dynamic. They can be better than online groups because the discussion is so much quicker, the give-and-take is much more focused. But there are also a lot of distractions in real groups and it’s almost impossible to keep things organized.

The organization on a blog, OTOH, is very clear. You are going to have to have a leader or at least a written list of who is responsible for what. One person, two at most, should be responsible for putting up the latest post for the chat thread–it’s just a placeholder post to provide an anchor for whatever anybody is chatting about but you can use it for announcements or writing information, too–but after that, the other posts are just logical–people putting up scenes or lectures put up those posts, whoever is in charge of doing the exercises or short stories puts those up. You do have to restrict who can put up a post or you’ll have them all over the place, but with twenty-five people, it’s not hard to get a consensus. On WordPress, you’d just make one or two people administrators and then everybody else an editor, which means they can pretty much go everywhere and do everything, so you really have to trust them that they’ll not overstep. But if you don’t trust them, they probably shouldn’t be in the group anyway.

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Trying to do everything oneself is partially generous and giving, but also the sign of controlling tendencies. It keeps others in subordinate roles, from which their growth is limited. So, congratulations on the best kind of leadership!

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This sounds really great. And, I liked seeing the questions you posted for the critiquers. The few I’ve offered I’d wondered if I was doing it “right;” the critiquing that is.

My first dismay that your group was closed was quickly kicked in the pants by the realization that I’m still a bit off from being ready to post anything anyway, so instead I’m grateful to see this, because now I have the information to file away for the future.

I do have a question — and I think this would be unlikely, but did you discuss the possibility that during the first week, all or most of the members might offer a critique, and then in a following week only a few people might offer one for the next writer? Do you have any provision to make sure that everyong gets a minimun of say, five responses. (I would figure that they would average closer to 10 or 12, but I wonder about particularly busy times like December, when everyone might be trying to post early to get it done.)

And I can definately see the advantage of doing this online as well.

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