Some Basics of Winning Writers Group

If you’re interested in your family’s stories and histories, I encourage you to write and share them, for they matter to current and future generations.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you search for a writers group that promotes win-wins for all members. And if you’re already in a writers group, are you wondering if it can improve?

I attended my first writers group in 1992 because I needed help. Participating in different ones has helped me gain skills and confidence. And I hope my comments and encouragement have helped other writers, too.

Over the years, I’ve noticed some things that matter to writers groups:

Attitudes matter

What we take with us into group meetings is more than our writing. Some gold standards for members’ attitudes include:

Teachability

Members are open to suggestions for improvement. We learn by listening to comments and suggestions about our submissions. As a bonus, we learn from reviews of what works and what doesn’t work in others’ writing. We observe where reviewers are confused, bored, or suggest corrections or clarifications. We welcome comments and suggestions for improvement. See Linda’s blog post, “The Blessings of Red Ink in Critique Group,” for more on this idea.

Respect

This includes respect for our and others’ writing, style, time, and abilities, attempts, dreams, goals, differences, topic, requests, strengths and weaknesses. It includes respect for our group’s guidelines. It means checking our offensive and defensive weapons at the door.

Thankfulness

We’re thankful for others’ strengths, honesty, and the time they’ve invested to help us make our writing clearer, cleaner, and leaner.

Guidelines matter

These might include whether submissions and reviews are on paper or digital, submission deadlines, maximum number of pages or words, and basic document formatting. It may address the maximum number of active members the group can accommodate, the requirements for membership, frequency of meetings, and start and stop times.

Some groups’ guidelines might restrict submissions to fiction or nonfiction, or to a genre such as children’s books or historical fiction. Depending on your goals, pick something that suits you and your writing project. I currently belong to a local genealogy society’s special interest group for family history writers.

Winning writers groups establish and tweak guidelines as necessary.

Logistics and venue matter

Group members determine what works well for them. Meeting in person? Online? Can they accommodate a hybrid approach with some members meeting in person and others joining online?

Many groups hold their meetings in a location where members can discuss reviews without distracting others, and others’ activities and noise don’t distract them. Depending on the group members, they might meet at a member’s home or rotate meetings among members’ homes, or gather at a church, community center, public library or coffee shop.

Many groups strive to provide a fair distribution of time for each member to receive comments on their writing. Some groups also encourage members to share information about resources or upcoming training sessions that might be useful to their fellow writers. And some winning groups intentionally built in an optional 30 minutes for members to gather early and chat with one another before the regular meeting start time.

Size matters

Your group’s guidelines probably include a cap on the number of members. Groups usually work well with three to six or seven active members. However, I belonged to a regional writers group with about forty members, but we divided into groups of no more than six to review each other’s writing.

Frequency matters

The frequency of meetings depends on the members’ time commitments to their family, work, writing, and volunteer activities.

Frequency of meetings can include both stability and flexibility. Groups may meet monthly or every specified number of weeks. But some smaller groups may set the next meeting date at the end of their current session. Groups may adjust for major holidays, times of the year when members are typically busy, or seasonal weather. Or their meeting venue might have dates blacked out for other commitments.

Asking for what you need matters

What are you struggling with in the piece you’re submitting? I might preface a submission with something like, “This article includes three same-named cousins in the same generation. How can I help the reader from being confused about which of the three I’m discussing?” Or I’ll let the reviewers know not to take time reviewing citations because I haven’t finished them yet.

It’s equally important during our reviews to keep in mind what our fellow group members have asked for when they submitted their writing.

Sharing our gifts and time matters

Writing group members bring a wealth of life experience to reviews. Each member reflects a unique mix of family, ethnicity, community ties, locations where we’ve lived and traveled, work experiences, odd jobs, education, training, knowledge, and storehouses of trivia. We each have different ways we think, process information, and see the world. We also have different writing and reviewing experience and strengths.

Regardless of our current writing skills, we can all confidently take part in reviews. Our unfamiliarly with a topic is also a gift we can share in a writers group, for we can review submissions from our fresh perspectives. As readers, we know when we’re baffled. I’ve heard comments like, “That sentence bumped me out of the piece.” And, “I’m confused here—does this refer to the mother or the daughter?” We can provide valuable feedback when we ask questions about lingo or logic.

As we write, submit, and review other’s work, we can become better writers and better reviewers. That’s part of the beauty and strength of a writers group as it promotes win-wins for all its members.

• What matters most to you when joining or taking part in a writers group?
• What tips do you have for others who are considering participating in a writers group?
• What submission and review guidelines have worked well in your writers group?
• If you’re in a writers group, what makes it a winning one?