What Makes a Good Critique Group?
What makes a book “good?” The experience it offers, of course, and how well it meets our expectations. Like everything else. It’s subjective, and like a book, a good critique group depends on the people in them.
What you get out of it is largely dependent on what you bring to it. One essential benefit is encouragement to trust your abilities, to feel the fear of failure and courageously believe in your inevitable success anyway. The good kind encourage respect for words, meanings and where your “translation” is off or not revelatory enough.
Does this involve fear? Oh, yes. But can you face it with courage? Of course.
It’s very difficult to find a good group that understands and consistently applies their full attention. It’s hard to find an honest, dedicated, knowledgeable group of writers willing to meet and discuss your work. Especially within 30 miles.
But a good group knows how to fix the what needs fixing. Where it’s slow, redundant and not fully developed, critiquers who are well-read, know you and appreciate the process of writing is worth a fortune. You need trust, people who get what you’re trying to do and how to pull it off to get people talking. Pro authors know early feedback is the best promotional money they can spend.
What can’t a good critique do? It can’t replace the need for a copy editor. Critique groups can’t waste time on minor issues until the big things have been addressed. So authors, skip this step and suffer the consequences.
It’s hard to give up pieces of ourselves that hold us back. We fight for our ignorance and call it personality, style, artistic license. Readers will accept low quality. But refinement is still a good idea. It’s not just making your book better, it’s making you better. And that’s the big point.
The artist who demands he has nothing to learn soon finds he has nothing to say.
Critique groups are about growth, a shared journey of trust, fear, empathy, hope and faith. It’s powerful, built on relationships over rules, on acceptance and peace amidst the striving for what’s better. I’ve been in a few, and I can promise the people you learn to write with remain lifelong friends.
In the end, a good critique group is about being your vulnerable, wart-covered self and finding it accepted and loved anyway—but loved too much not to see you improved.
As a bonus, you may just discover the true meaning of gratitude….
