Critique Group John is moving away, so we had a goodbye dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was nice to see him again, since he’s been “taking a break” from the critique group for about 6 months. This leaves just three active members in our critique group, all of them women, two are erotica writers, one (me) an action-adventure writer (currently writing urban fantasy). I think we were all hoping to tempt Critique Group John back, since he was our remaining male perspective. I’ve been meaning to do some recruiting, but just haven’t had the time. Critique Group John, probably now that he has no worries about offending anyone, talked candidly about the structure of our group and I couldn’t help but agree with most of what he said — in fact, I’d broached similar concerns often.
The problem with critique groups is it’s a bunch of people trying to find the same schedules to work on creative material. Unless all of you are in the same place with that creativity, then you’re going to have problems. When I mean “the same place,” I don’t mean talent-wise, I mean with where you see yourself with your writing. Is it a hobby? Are you doing it for eventual publication? How seriously do you take it? And of course, on top of that, how well do you take direction? How much time can you put into critiquing? A lot of the time, it seems very few people in our group had serious plans for publication, and then there’s been a few people (luckily all gone now) that have been unable to take critique direction.
Critique Group John also talked about our one-chapter-every-two-weeks format, which is also something I’ve had problems with. It’s very hard to get through a novel when you’re sending two chapters a month (and when we had eight members, that number dropped to one chapter a month). After all, that means for an average 80,000 word novel, with every chapter being…oh, say 4,000 words, you’re looking at finishing the last chapter of that novel 10 months later (20 months if you’re just sending in one chapter). For a lot of us, that means the novel has completely changed by the time the group reads the end. Or, it means that the group has difficulty remembering some of the finer details that happened in the beginning. For my own novel, I had a quick “outline guide” ready. Granted, after all this chapter-by-chapter critiquing, there’s the beta read at the end. That’s a whole novel critique instead of line-by-line edits. The beta read is to look at the overall picture, point out things like characterization and weak plot points. But, sometimes I wonder whether it wouldn’t be better to just do a beta read from the get go?
It was pointed out that submitting it chapter-by-chapter makes one stick to a writing schedule. I can’t deny that I’ve often used the excuse “Well, I have to send something into the group” as a way to produce something when I’m particularly busy. However, many professional authors will tell you that the way to become a writer is discipline. Write every day, much like people say “20 minutes of movement/activity/exercising a day.” I try to do both — exercise and write. 
And, at the risk of sounding snobby, if you’re serious about writing for publication, you really should be writing more than 4,000-or-so words every 10 days.
However, in the end, we didn’t come up with an answer to Critique Group John’s concerns, or our own. The critique group will continue as it has always continued, and I know that our current schedule tempts newcomers easier than my secret preference not that I’m complaining. I think I’ll be very happy for the one-chapter-every-two-weeks process when I start my new job.
Footnotes:
I don’t care, I think I’m funny.
I’m exhausted too; didn’t sleep a wink last night. I’m so exhausted that it took me two attempts to sing the “ABC” song to figure out where “V” is on the alphabet. Yeah, I felt dumb. The first time I skipped “R” and had to slow down so my befuddled, sleep deprived, caffeine starved brain could keep up.
