Twitter Critique Group

This post is for those interested in the Twitter Writer’s Group. I have posted the information about the format below. As soon as we have submissions I will post them to get this kicked off. If you have questions, please email me at drjohnnd@hotmail or twitter me at Drjohnnd. If this group grows I may limit the amount, as we will not have time to do good critiques. (I would say 10-12 maximum) For now, I will post everyone’s submission since there is only a few of us. Please post critiques over the next week. BE HONEST. This will not work if you are worried about hurting people’s feelings. It is the only way we can grow and expand as writers.

Twitter Writing Critique Group

John Peragine, Group Facilitator

MEETING TIME: Submissions and critiques will be collected and posted on Fridays every week.

Welcome to the Twitter Writing Critique Group! This critique meets online utilizing Twitter, and a central blog. http://drjohnnd.blogspot.com Each member will send submissions and critiques that will be posted every Friday. The facilitator will be responsible for delivering posting submissions and monitoring critiques to make sure that they abide by the guidelines. We are here to help each other develop in our writing. This is an "open" critique group, but is only appropriate for people who write regularly, are seriously interested in improving their writing, and are willing and able to create and receive comprehensive written critiques. For this to succeed, and to maintain our identity as a coherent group, it is essential that this be a "one for all, all for one" group, sharing equally among ourselves. To that end, we offer the following guidelines.

GENERAL

Critique Group members write and critique any sort of fiction, whether short stories or novels. Each member has the same goal: to improve our own writing and to help our fellow members improve theirs. We are honest in our critiques and completely supportive of each other as we nurture our writing talents. Members should be familiar with the basic narrative elements of plot, character and setting and how to interrelate them.

Members are expected to participate regularly (although we're not fanatic about this), attack their own writing actively, and take the time to do thoughtful, helpful written critiques of other members' work, according to a set format. Being in this group takes time. It will not feel good to writers who prefer to give or receive, "That was nice," feedback. This is a critique GROUP; the idea is for works to be critiqued by the group. If you submit a work and don't participate for several months, we may prioritize other material submitted after yours for a weekly critique.

SUBMISSIONS

If you've ever looked at professional critique services, you will know that the members of this group are providing a valuable service for free. At the same time your fellow members are working on their own writing (and research), their jobs, their families, etc. They may also belong to more than one critique/writers group. In recognition of this, your submissions should make it as easy as possible for the members to read and critique your work. Submissions should be made in standard presentation format: they should be created as a txt.doc, or txt format. Pdf format is too hard to reformat. If you know there is a major problem in the text, uneven tense usage for example, you should correct that before submission, even if it means waiting another week. The facilitator cannot make changes once the submission has been posted.

Members ARE NOT to send out submissions to other members directly. This is extremely self-centered and disrespectful of the other group members.

For new members, we ask that you submit either a short story or the first ten pages of a novel or novel chapter. We have found that most of the problems you have will show up in this length of a submission. After that we will accept longer submissions; depending upon the number of submissions we have, we may decide to allot two or more weeks for critiquing longer works.

Your work will be posted on a blog. This is for members to read. All critiques should be sent as “comments” to that blog. You may also write shorter comments on Twitter at #writercritique. Picking and choosing who you want to critique your work is against the principles of the group. All the members of the group are expected to write critiques. These should be done throughout the follow week. New submissions will be posted on Friday. Limiting your submissions to those with the most favorable (or least unfavorable) critiques is defeating the whole purpose of the group. Of course you are free to ignore parts or all of any individual critique, though if you are serious about your writing and eventually publishing it you should do so most judiciously. Remember, these are critiques, not just proof-readings, Works not submitted to ALL members WILL NOT be included in the posts that week.

As uncomfortable as it may be for some, you WILL have to read critiques from the members posted publically! Again, this is to be fair to the WHOLE group. You will have a chance to respond to these critiques. Exchanging of written critiques without an oral report is discouraged, except in cases where a member was not at a meeting to present a critique and both the author and the critique agree on this.

It is often best to give yourself some time before plunging back into revising your submission. However, you should apply the feedback you received to your next submission. If the critiques said ((I'll use myself(John) as an example) you should use real punctuation instead of hyphens, look over the punctuation in your next work before submitting it. Again, it will be discourteous to the members if they keep seeing the same problem over and over again.

CRITIQUING

The CRITIQUER actually receives the most benefit. It is easier to see both good and bad parts in other people's writing than in your own. Looking for problems in others' writing trains us to see it in our own writing. Again, part of the fairness required in a group of this sort is remembering that we will all be critiqued at some time!

A good critique will show the author what the work looks like through the eyes of a "good reader". Yes, the eyes of a reader, not another author!. Although you may offer a suggestion or two in your critique, it is not your job to correct the problems or to rewrite the submission as "if it was me writing it".

WRITTEN REPORT. This is a 1-2 page comment that is posted on the blog under the work submitted. In the written report you might note "Too many POV changes" but you don't have to list all of them; maybe just a couple of examples to help the author see what you mean. We use the following six sections for all reviews:

1. PLOT SUMMARY: Just a couple of sentences to give the author an idea of the main thrust of the story as the reviewer saw it.

2. GENERAL EVALUATION OF THE FOUR MAJOR WRITING COMPONENTS (1-2 paragraphs each)

A. Plot B. Characters C. Setting/Milieu D. Ideas/ Themes/ Symbolism

3. THINGS THAT WORKED WELL. There may be several or (again worse case) none. Most of these should be noted on the manuscript; again you only need to give a few illustrative examples Ex.: I really like your settings. I could easily envision walking up to the haunted castle after our car broke down!"

4. THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK WELL. Same as #3 Ex. "Lots of anachronisms. Like cavemen with cell phones!"

5. WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT? If you are critiquing the beginning or middle of a story or novel, take a guess at the rest of the plot. This is not to be accurate, but to give the author an idea of what clues and story direction he/she has put in the reader's mind so far.

6. OVERALL EVALUATION. Did this story work for you? Were you interested? Did you want to read more, or was this enough, and what made you feel that way? If you picked this up off a shelf at the store and read this section, would you buy it? In hardback or wait for the paperback? Would you suggest your library get this book,?

Corrected Copy This is optional. If you would like to make corrections on the text and send m to the facilitator or scan them if you are handwriting them to the facilitator, then the facilitator will forward those corrections via email to the writer. This is optional, but all of the comments should also be mentioned in the “comment” post online. The point of a corrected copy is to point out areas in a more efficient way that writing comments alone cannot achieve.

Questions about this group should be submitted to John Peragine at Drjohnnd@hotmail.com.