Critique At the End of the Tunnel

In my critique group we, of course, exchange critiques.  Every fortnight (we've decided that we're resurrecting this generally considered archaic word, as it applies to so much in our lives) we get together and tell each other what we thought of the latest chapter that was sent in.  It's been extremely helpful, especially in areas like description, where we all lacked when we first started out.

We also started meeting up every couple of months with short stories and getting feedback on those.  We dubbed these meets 'Pen Duels'.  Basically what we do is I send out two writing prompts, and everyone has to come up with a story based on one or the other of the prompts.  Then we get together, read them out loud, then discuss.

This time we decided to do things a little bit differently.  Rather than getting together and reading them out, we sent them out to each other and are doing critiques on them before we get together to discuss on Saturday.

When we originally decided to do this, we talked about how these critiques shouldn't be too long.  Not like what we do for regular critique group.  Just small summaries of what we thought while we were reading through the stories.

Turns out, my brain isn't so good at holding back.  My first critique is behind me and it's just as long (if not longer) than anything that I've done for critique group.

This wouldn't be a problem, of course, except that I now have two more short stories to critique before Saturday, and a chapter to critique by Monday.

Yep.  I know.  We planned that well.

So now I'm sitting at home working on my pile of critiques rather than working on Pandora, which I'm supposed to be sending out at the end of the month.  I'm starting to feel like I might have taken on too much this year.

For the record, I've decided to cut back the epiphanies to only 100 for the year, rather than trying to get through the entire 201.  More manageable, and I won't feel like I'm going crazy.

Anyway, to get back on topic: Critiques.  Lots of critiques.

I'm working on critique # 2 right now, and I'm planning to, at the very least, get done the short stories tonight before I head to bed.  Though, if I really make myself do work, I might even get the chapter done.  Somehow, I doubt it, though.

So much to do, so little time to do it!

Are you in a critique group?  Do you ever find yourself spending more time on critiques than on writing?

Short Stories Are Too Short

Since the end of Camp Nano, I've been concentrating on short stories, as opposed to the novels I've been focusing on for a while.  So, in the last four days, I've written two full short stories, with an idea for one more story running around in my head.

The first short story I submitted for consideration to an online magazine.  I'm hoping that it will be an addition to their third issue released in late September.

The other two stories are for Pen Duels, the part of my critique group where we use writing prompts to create stories, then critique them.  I've had the writing prompts for over a month, but I've just recently had time to actually sit down and start thinking about them.

I'm actually really excited for them.  The first one, entitled Mask is already written and submitted.  I had two amazing beta readers who gave me some really good feedback, and I'm actually really hopeful that it will be accepted.  Not certain, but hopeful.

The second The Locket I've just finished.  I'm not so excited for this one, I feel like something isn't quite right in it.  I'm going to have to fix it in editing.  It's not for submission, but I feel like I need to rework it until it's right and makes the impact I want it to make.  Of course, at the same time, I really have to make sure I'm not working it too much.  I have to take into account that the stories that make it down on paper never seem quite as shiny one they're there as they do when they're bouncing around in my head.  Of course, those same stories seem so much shinier to the people reading the stories.

The third is nothing more than an idea that's lingering in my mind.  I thought of it on Monday at critique group.  I knew that I wanted to have some kind of supernatural element to it, mostly because I've really been leaning more toward the urban fantasy / dark fantasy genres.  So a friend of mine looked up mythological creatures to me, and started reading them out.  One made me sit up and take notice.  It wasn't exactly something that I would have expected to get my attention, and yet it did.  I'm eager to start it, and at the same time worried that I won't get it right.  I'll do my best, though, it's all I can do as a writer.

So why am I telling you all of this?  Because those three stories (one of which isn't even written yet) have morphed themselves into full on novels in my head.  More than just novels, in fact.  They're quickly becoming series.

I'm not exactly short on shiny new ideas.  In fact, I already know what stories I'll be writing in November, and I picked them out of a book where I record all of the ideas that I get for stories.  I have more than enough in that book to keep me busy for years.  All I have to do is flip through the pages and wait for one of them to stand out to me, and I have my next project.

Three new ideas may not sound like a lot, but these aren't exactly half thought of vague suggestions.  These are ideas that have already been fairly formed into short stories.  I can see where each of them goes, and I think that they would be fun to write.

Of course, I already have more than enough to keep me busy in November (I've even got a back up novel just in case I need more words to write...which is definitely a possibility with me.)  These ideas that are being so insistent can't be written any time soon.

So they've been jotted down in the book and told to wait.  That I'll get to them eventually. (Honestly, it will probably be sooner rather than later).

In all of this, I think I've come to a conclusion.  I'm not a short story writer.  I can write the stories, but I always have that urge to continue them.  I can never contain them to nothing more than the 5-7 pages that I originally intended them to be.

That's alright.  I love novels, and I love thinking in terms of series.  It just means that every time I write a short story, I risk getting more shiny new ideas that will have to be written down.

Pen Duels

In August of last year a group of friends and I established a critique group.  (We named it A Bitch of Writers) It's one of the greatest things that I've ever done.  We meet on a bi-weekly basis (our submissions are due one monday, we meet the next) and we each critique two other people's work.

In under a year critique group has managed to help me start putting description into my first drafts (my first book ever had absolutely no description.  I didn't even remember what my characters looked like.  I was getting better before joining the group, but now I'm leagues ahead of where I was this time last year.)  It's helped me to recognize when my plot starts to go awry, and I've found myself paying more attention to my wording choice as I'm writing.

Just recently, though, our critique group decided to add a new element to what we do.  For a while we worried about become a writing group, which wasn't our intention at all.  We're already part of a writing group, and while we love writing together, we didn't need to spend time writing in each other's company.  We got together for the purpose of improving our writing.

So, we came up with an alternative.  It's called Pen Duels.  (Yes, we do have to name everything we do.  We're writers, what do you expect?)  Basically, every month and a half to two months we get together and share a story that we've written using a writing prompt.

These prompts, which I send out the Monday after each Pen Duel meet up, whether we have a date for the next one or not, are just little things that each of us has to find a way to work around.  For example, the last Pen Duels featured stories about two existing characters from different books meet up.  We had all kinds of things!  One actually took place inside a video game!

Of course, it was a bit of a coincidence that we all ended up using the same writing prompt.  I send out two (I don't want anyone to feel forced to write something they absolutely hate, so I try to make it a choice.  Whichever one speaks to them is the one they work on.  It seems to have gone over well so far.)

So far I've found it kind of awesome to see how each person interprets the prompt in their own way.  Which is honestly my favourite thing about writing.  How two people can have identical ideas, but have the story end up completely different.

Anyway, we've set it up so, rather than sending in a submission and having everyone go over it and prepare critiques, we instead read it out loud and have a bit of a discussion afterward.  This, of course, took some developing.  Our first one we kind of sat around after the story was over, nodded and said it was good.  Since then we've decided to stick to our critiquing format (we critique seven areas: Plot, Characters, Voice & POV, Dialogue, Description, Scene Structure and Overall), while still holding it as a discussion.

Doing it this way means that we're not only putting our writing skills to work, but we're also keeping it all about critiquing, so there's no fear that we turn into a writing group.

A Bitch of Writers and Pen Duels have improved my writing ten fold.  While they also take up quite a bit of time, I would never regret joining them (or helping to set them up.)  I can't wait to see how my Camp Nano book turns out after months of critique group.

If there's one thing I would recommend to any writer to improve your writing, while studying the craft can help, I would say join a critique group.  There is nothing as valuable as getting direct feedback from other writers.  If you can't find one, take that leap and set it up!  If you make one, others will join.  I can only hope that yours is as successful as ours is.