SeanDareOnline.com

I consider myself a novice writer. I believe I have some God given talent, and I think I can improve to a professional level, but I am at the beginning of that process. One of the roadblocks to improvement is my inability to determine weaknesses in my own writing. I find myself re-reading, and re-writing, drafts over and over without ever feeling like the story is finished.

As with most problems there is a solution. In this case I felt the hand of God move when he had a friend of mine, Dave, tell me about a friend of his, Patty, who is starting a Christian writers group with a focus on critiquing each others work.

I should pause to tell you a little about critique groups. Their purpose is to provide constructive feedback on an author’s writing without altering the author’s voice or tone. Critique groups seem to focus mainly on mechanics, grammar and readability. I think a properly managed critique group will shave off months, if not years, of painful self discovery and refinement by exposing me to other author’s insights.

For Saturday’s meeting I brought a copy of The Father Part 2 from SeanDareOnline.com to submit for critique. The method used to critique was to distribute copies of your work to everyone, so they could read along, and then you read your piece aloud. While you read everyone makes notes on their copy of your work and at the end of your recitation they give an oral critique of your work.  I am to understand that not all critique groups work this way. Some of them distribute the work ahead of time so the others can have more time to become familiar with your work before they submit their critique. Still others have someone besides the author read the work aloud while everyone else reads along.

I started reading The Father Part 2 without any problems. After reading about two paragraphs I realized that the people who are listening to me are going to give honest, and hopefully, constructive criticisms. I had never exposed my writing to open critique before and soon I began to suffer signs of anxiety. My mouth went dry, my hands started to shake and I started stumbling over words. When I got to the end I could feel a ball in the pit of my stomach. What had I just done? I had put a piece of my soul out for all to criticize, that’s what I’d done! I set the paper down, with my hands still shaking, and prepared for the worst.

Note: When your work is being critiqued you are not allowed to say anything, you are supposed to keep quiet, take notes and save any questions you have until the end. Even then you are only allowed to ask clarifying questions. Under no circumstances are you allowed to defend your work orally. It must stand on its own. If it doesn’t then you must re-write it so that it does. This is a writing critique after all. Additionally each commenter has to wait their turn. Only one critique at a time. This prevents a feeling of being ganged up on.

The ball in my stomach slowly dissolved as we moved through the first couple of critiques. As I took notes I began to notice something fascinating. The other writers were putting into concise words the feelings and reservations I couldn’t seem to pinpoint during the writing process. You see when I am in the re-writing phase of a fictional work I often find myself feeling the work isn’t “right”, but after so many re-writes I start to loose my objectivity and have difficulty pinpointing what is wrong. The sensation is similar to being mired in quicksand. The more I struggle the harder it is to think clearly. This is probably a common problem for writers. It is also one I have to overcome. The other writers in the meeting were able to vocalize and pinpoint the vague thoughts and concerns I was feeling about my work in a way that made sense. I plan to apply these insights to future works. In short it was a great learning experience. So much so that I would like to up the ante and start attending critique groups more often.

Which brings me to the only disappointment I felt on Saturday. The Christian Writers group members are not able to commit to weekly meetings. We are not sure how often we will meet, but it will be no more often than once every two weeks.

I don’t want to leave the Christian Writers group, I think they offer valuable insight and advice, but I will probably have to supplement them with another critique group that meets more often. Now I just have to find one. Hmmm, maybe an online critique group would fill my needs? Mr. Google, could you come here a minute? I need you to look something up for me.

- Sean