Good points, Ragboy. I agree that an in-person group is, all things considered, preferable to an online group. I can keep in touch with my Clarion* buddies pretty well online, but that's because I spent six weeks seeing them every day. For me, at least, online is good for maintaining relationships, but lousy for starting them. (Please note: Only my experience. Others may have radically different experiences.)
* Clarion is a six-week workshop held in Michigan (and Clarion West is held in Seattle) once per year, in which somewhere between 12 and 20 writers write a new short story each week and get it critiqued by the group, which is led by a different professional writer or editor each week. Sort of a boot camp for short story writers. Costs a fair amount, but scholarships are available. Also takes six weeks, but you are never, ever, ever going to have a time in your life where you've got $2,000 and six free weeks just lying around waiting for you to do something with it. If you can find a way to make it happen, it's a great experience.
So, let's assume that Ragboy and I have convinced you to find a local writing group. Here (in no particular order) are things I think are important:
- How formal is it? If it has a completely draconian series of rules and regulations, you might not enjoy it. On the other hand, if it's a "come whenever, stay 'til whenever" deal with no real format, it might not be focused enough for you. You want to find something that fits your style. (For example, I'm currently in a group with some formalized rules because we had one problem person awhile back. Ninety percent of the time, the rules don't matter, but they're good for that other 10%.)
- How often does it meet? Every week is pretty ambitious. Once every three months is really more of a four-times-per-year convention than a writing group. My group meets once per month, and that works for us. That's great to get criticism. However, if you want a writing group to motivate you to write, meeting once per month might not be enough. So figure out what purpose this group is going to serve for you.
- What's the general writing feel? A group consisting entirely of female-protagonist mystery novel writers is not going to be a great critique group for your sword & sorcery short stories -- or your literary fiction, come to it. My current group is mostly SF&F, but every once in awhile, somebody writes something non-speculative, and that's not a problem. Make sure that you've got a group that is writing something that, at the very least, includes most of what you'd want to write.
- What's the general writing level? If the group consists entirely of authors who have published trilogies in print, they and you might well find it frustrating to have you in the group. This isn't a slam -- everybody starts somewhere. But the problems and growth areas of folks with three novels in print are different from the problems of writers trying to break in. On the other hand, if nobody in the group has ever gotten anything published, you might wanna ask whether this is a group that is going to be able to give you the advice you need to help get published. My current group includes many folks with high-level workshop experience (Clarion grads, or grads of programs like Clarion), several of whom have publication credits. This is just about the perfect level for me. I don't rattle around feeling like I'm the best writer in the group, but I never feel like somebody is so far above me that I can't possibly crit their stuff. Other groups include new writers but are led by pro-level authors -- so there's one clear mentor in the group. That's a bit more like a class than a collective workshop, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
- The Gaming Rule: Would you want to spend time with these people outside of the writing group? Hugely important. If somebody makes you feel massively uncomfortable by commiting some writing-group party fouls**, chances are that they's nore going to suddenly change their behavior completely, and you have to figure out whether you can put up with it because the other folks are so cool, or if you need to get out of town.
** Here's a short list: (Everybody is going to do some of these to some degree. The key is the degree to which they do it.)
-- Telling you the story they would have written instead of critiquing your story. (Saying "This plot element didn't work. Perhaps instead you could..." is okay. Saying "I would have written about this instead, because it's so much more exciting, and here's what I would have done..." is not.)
-- Trying to score points by being clever. Fun is fun, but when a critique turns into somebody's stand-up comedy act, it can become "making fun of the writer", who, by the rules of most critiques, is not allowed to respond until all critiquers have finished... and that's lame.
-- Attacking the genre of the story you're writing. (ie, "I guess this is fine for a fantasy story. It does have the usual fantasy story cliche plot...") Not liking a genre is fine. When folks get a story in a genre they dislike, they either get past it or simply say, "I'm sorry, I'm not your target audience, and I don't feel I can add anything useful here." Anyone writing anything with rockets, lasers, or cyberspace has no business getting prissy because someone else likes swords better. (It can happen the other way, but generally, SF writers are the ones initiating the little genre war.)
-- Showing up without having read your story (unless there's a darn good reason)
-- Only showing up for meetings where they have something to get critiqued (after missing every meeting where they don't have something getting critted)
-- Submitting a long story at the very last moment. Go by the rules, of course, but in most groups, it's nice to have at least a week to read a short story or three weeks to read a novel.
-- Submitting a short story when there are already a lot of stories submitted for that meeting (although this is fine in groups that meet rarely and assume that everyone will sub something, of course).
Anyway, that's a general overview. Hope it helps. And dude, let us know how it's going!
