I’ve been recommending critique groups for about 10 years now, and in that time have had only two authors join. Everyone else either still wants me to edit, or goes away looking for another editor who will tell them their work is ready for editing.

So here are some good reasons to join a critique group:

1. It doesn’t cost you anything. Well, that’s not quite true: it will cost you time and energy, as you’re expected to critique others’ work as well as receiving critiques yourself. But see #5, below. And the money you save can be better used when your book is ready for editing—and/or should you decide to self-publish, when you’ll need to hire all sorts of people like cover designers, layout people, and so on.
2. You can do it in person. Many writers prefer the weekly meetings that keep them focused and give them deadlines. Check for local critique groups through your chapter of the National Writers Union (you do belong, right?), at your local library, or check out this partial list.



3. You can do it online. If you’re not near a group, or prefer to have an assortment of critiques from all over the world, then online groups are terrific. The one I recommend is the Internet Writing Workshop, where you can participate in interesting discussions about the writing life as well as join critique groups for nearly any genre you can imagine.
4. Critiquing others’ work improves your own. I can’t say this strongly enough. Reading others’ work with an eye to whether or not it “works” will give you that eye when you come back to your own work. Not to mention the karma points!
5. You know you’re not alone. Writing is one of the loneliest activities on the planet. You create alone. You write alone. You read alone. And that’s all well and good, but when you receive your 48th straight rejection, it’s good to have people with whom to share it. People who understand. (And they’ll be your biggest supporters when you finally get that acceptance, too!)

So there you have it: five great reasons to join a critique group. Why not do it today? And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

The number one rule for critiques is derived from one you may have heard before: Critique as you would be critiqued. You wouldn’t want people telling you your story is no damn good, so don’t do it to other people, no matter what.

The first thing to say about a piece is what you liked about it–the idea, a character, the plot, a glittering piece of writing, whatever. Find something you liked, and mention it.

Don’t say only “I liked it!” or “It’s beautiful!” Figure out what made it good or bad, if you can, and talk about that.

Tell the writer whether you liked the story as a whole or not. Did it move you? Make you laugh? Make you cry? Leave you cold? Overall, what stood out, good or bad? Whether you liked the story or not, what could be done to improve it?

Talk about the writing style. Was the style too flowery, or too pedestrian? Too cute? Were the sentences overlong, or too short? Were they all similar, so they became monotonous?

What about the structure? Do the parts of the story follow in the right order? Did you learn something way down that you should have known sooner? Does the story go at breakneck speed, leaving you breathless? Or is it just too slow? Was the piece overwritten–that is, should it be cut? Where? What’s not necessary? What actually detracts? Was it too short? Did you need more information about something?

How did the characters strike you? Did you like the hero, hate the villain? How about nuances? Did the characters seem alive? How could the writer have made you feel more deeply with the characters?

Does the setting seem real? Can you feel the place? Settings matter.

You can do a line-by-line critique if you want; you don’t have to, but it’s good to show examples of things you think need to be improved.

A good critique takes time and thought. Remember, that’s what you want your stories to get–give it to those of others.

When someone critiques one of your pieces, say thank you nicely, even if you think the critique was stupid–you’ve at least learned how stupid people will view it. Take the good suggestions, and ignore the not so good. If nobody likes it, it needs work. If half love the piece and half hate it, that’s fine, for tastes differ. Don’t feel bad if there’s plenty
wrong with it; nothing’s perfect, and you can make it better. If a critique hurts, that’s okay; you’ll survive. Nobody has a thick skin, even those who say they do.

Want to learn more? Carter Jefferson’s wisdom is accessible at his website. He lives in Boston and has been a reporter and copy editor on a metropolitan daily, a Navy officer, a professor of history, and a family therapist. He started writing professionally when he was 15 on a local ethnic newspaper, and has never stopped. Officially retired, he now writes fiction, memoirs, and essays for e-zines, and teaches creative writing to the senior set at U.Mass./Boston.

So check out his work, and then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Where do you find your inspiration? What inspires you?

While I’m often inspired by the unexpected—the sight of a bald eagle, the discovery of music I hadn’t heard before, a snippet of conversation that I can see stretching out into a poem or a play or a novel—I have to feed myself inspiration as well. Especially in my workplace.

So I keep things around me that make me dream, that give me ideas. An ancient oil lamp my great-aunt brought from Greece in the 1920s. Pictures of places I love and places I long to see. Quotes from William Wordsworth to Toni Morrison. Something seasonal is usually on my desk; I just made the change from flowers from my garden to a miniature pumpkin to celebrate the autumnal equinox. I love old typewriters and am surrounded by them—I can almost hear the clacking of their keys and imagine whose hands might have touched them. Music and silence. There’s a birdfeeder outside my study window and each time I look up I see another visitor there.

What does all that do? Much as I love my home, I couldn’t write if I were not constantly pulled out of it, out of its comfort and familiarity. These objects pull me away from my workspace even as they occupy it: they help me keep looking beyond.

It’s one of the reasons I travel; but traveling doesn’t have to be physical. What inspiration does is make us travelers of the interior, travelers of the mind. And our minds can take us anywhere.

Where does your mind take you? Where do you find your inspiration? What keeps you writing, day after day, year after year, when giving up would be the easiest thing in the world? Share your stories, and then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

This impacts my life, of course, but why am I sharing it with you?

Because, like mortgages, you don’t always end up with the same players in a book deal that you started with.

Here’s an example. An editor is excited about your novel, talks the marketing department and any other relevant people at the publishing house that it’s a good bet, and you’re offered a contract. You sign, ecstatic. You begin work with the editor on your novel. Then she (and mostly it’s going to be a she) gets an offer for another job—at a different publishing house, in Paris, an internal promotion, it doesn’t really matter what: for you, what matters is that she’s gone.

Your book is now officially an orphan. The publisher will honor its commitment to you, of course, but your editor was your book’s champion. Someone else will take it on, but they won’t feel the same about it.

Changes.

In my case, the change should be a good one. Dreamtime Publishing has been sold to the publishers of Transformation Magazine. The books have been out for some time and a new publisher will, I hope, breathe new life into them.

Change can be wonderful, and horrible … but it’s always difficult, especially when you’re dealing with your writing … your books are, after all, a part of you. But finding the silver lining is an important part of being a writer. Master that and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Well, yes and no. Someone on one of my discussion lists noted that it was a handy place to check out books, drink coffee, and meet friends, and that may well have been part of the problem: while the coffees were indeed expensive enough to cover rental on a small table for a time, this was, after all, supposed to be a bookstore.

Yet walking into one some time ago—before the many closures began—one could have been forgiven for thinking otherwise. Everything was on offer at the front of the store except books: notepaper, games, office decorations, cards, journals. All very nice, but isn’t that what stationery stores are for? Where was the seriousness, the intent to read, to be challenged, to think, that one automatically associates with books?

Not at Borders, anyway.

Borders Store Closing

I’m not trying to be a curmudgeon here. Any bookstore is better than no bookstore at all, and I did in my day work as community relations manager for two different Barnes & Noble bookstores; frankly, the same issues can be taken with that chain as well. But let’s be honest. Do you really buy substantial amounts of reading material in full-priced bookstores?

As a published author who needs to sell her books, I hope you do. But as that same slightly impoverished author, I know that I don’t: I can’t afford to. I buy most of my books used (which benefits their authors not at all, unless by chance I write a glowing review for them on an online bookseller site), and when I cannot find the book I require used, I buy it from—you got it—Amazon. This despite the fact that I live next to a town with three independent booksellers. The tourists and the summer residents buy books there; I’m always pointing people there; at Christmas I make some special purchases there. But for daily fare it’s Tim’s Used Books for me.

Or Amazon. I think I heard a collective gasp when I said that. Shocked, you are, shocked that gambling goes on in this establishment. Amazon delivers to my post office box (they’d deliver to my door, but in my rural village we don’t have mail delivery), and they deliver with the best price. That’s hard to beat. I wish it were not so. I wish I didn’t contribute to the cycle that makes it so difficult for midlist authors to make a living … but as a midlist author, I don’t have much choice.

And I’m far too old to start living in a garret now.

So there it is. Where does your conscience allow convenience and price to take over? I am unsure about it myself. I won’t shop at Walmart, but I will shop at Amazon. I’m not sure what thay says about me. I do know that in some ways, I am the fat lady, I am the one who helped trigger the end of a bookselling tradition that many people out there are mourning.

Tell me what you think: tell me whether I’m alone in my confused ethics here. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!