Critique Groups

Some writers swear by critique groups. Some find them underwelming. I'm sure that how the group is organized and run has a lot to do with the variety of experience. It would seem that people who are writing in the same genre would be best able to understand what an author is trying to achieve. For example, it might be difficult for a person who writes Thrillers to be helpful to a Romance author. One is attuned to complex plotting and action, the other might be more interested in the formula. Poets might be looking for structural analysis while historians are looking for facts.  Determining what kind of a group would be most helpful might make the difference between an inspiring exchange of ideas and a frustrating conversation with writers who are either too advanced to be interested in your question or too inexperienced to be of any help.

I'm not sure if you all are familiar with Terry Whalin but he is a well-known figure in the industry. Here's a link to his blog, Right-Writing, where he discusses Critique Groups: http://www.right-writing.com/critique.html

I've long wondered how we could provide this kind of an exercise for our members. With the advent of this site, we have some tools available to us that might work.  Here are a few:

• We could create a group of say 5 people at a time -- and establish a private "group" for each critique team. The group would have several tools they could use to discuss each other's work. Here are a few:
• Ustream where the moderator and the person whose work is being discussed would be the main conversation with others iming in their thoughts and ideas. We have an existing Ustream account. The log in information will be shared in the member's only handbok, "Member Resources."
• Private chatrooms are another tool. We hope to have them available soon.
• Conference calls would be useful. If people are interested in that, we can get an official MWSA account. 
• We could also set up email groups so that people within the critique group could exchange emails about the writing at hand.
• We could also make critique groups a part of MWSA Writing Academy which is coming soon.

If anyone has an ideas or suggestions about if and how they would like to approach this idea, please leave them as part of this forum discussion. 

J