Critiquing Writing

Sometimes somebody can't come to critiquing.

That can be good…and bad. It means we can utilize more time on fewer pages or that we get done earlier. It's not like we don't have other lives. On the other hand, it means that someone who may be a very able critiquer is perhaps gone. Furthermore, we get invested in the stories of others and want to see what's coming next.

This past week --- in fact, the past couple weeks --- M has not been able to come.

Not coming, however, is not entirely optional; you need a pretty good excuse for not being there. The consequences of not being there consistently eventually comprise of being replaced by somebody new. There's basically only time and space around a decent sized table for six of us. Family emergencies, personal emergencies, sickness, work conflicts, and, and since we're writers, book signings, speaking on writing, etc. are all acceptable excuses for not being there, within limits.

M is our only professionally published book writer at this time. The second book he worked on in the critiquing group got published by Scholastic. He made a three-book deal with them, as I understand it. The first of the contracted books --- the second he worked on in the group --- came out last October. The third one he worked on in the group will come out I believe in October. The first one he worked on in the group will be the basis for the third one that comes out sometime in the future, unless things changed. The last time he met with us, he indicated he had had an epiphany about a new book --- or a new book series --- and was having a hard time not diverging from what he had been working on to write it.

B is a schoolteacher by profession. She had written in excess of 200 pages in her novel that she has been presenting to us by the end of the school year, but when she got the break because of school being out for the summer, she hurried and completed her book. She is in the process of editing it and pitching it to agents. She said she has had some encouraging feedback.

C went first the other night. So she passed out her four pages to each of us, keeping four pages for herself to read from. Then she read. She's now several pages into a new novel set somewhat in the future geographically in what is now Montana. Her protagonist is a girl, about fourteen years old as I recall, who is enslaved to a master. In this particular episode, her protagonist is pretending not to be enslaved and is visiting a local official, trying to make some inroads with regard to her situation. So since C read first, M was gone, I critiqued her first. And on it went around the table: D, J, and B.

"… we're seeing this at the tail end of where you've changed a lot, so it might work after we read the hundred pages," says B to C. B goes on and, of course, has said more before this clip, explaining her take on the pages read, noting major pluses and minuses in what has been presented. And there's a conversation back and forth.

After one of us have finished a hundred pages we're entitled to request a meeting to discuss the entire hundred pages in context. So arrangements are made for the hundred pages to be distributed, for a time everyone has to fit it into their schedule to read and critique it, and a meeting date scheduled for that to take place. The discussion of the person's hundred pages then takes the place of the typical meeting .

Critiquing Writing with B, C, D, J, & M

I do one thing on Tuesday nights.

That's right, one thing. Don't even start thinking about me eating or satisfying my visceral needs or attending to family emergencies. I said I do one thing on Tuesday nights, and I mean it. One thing. Got that?

Beginning at 6 PM, I sit together with five other people --- four women and one man --- and we critique each other's writing. We continue on in that endeavor for three solid hours, without interruptions, with no kids present, no spouses interrupting, and all cell phones off.

Well, let's be practical here; there are emergencies, but they darn well better be occasional.

The typical mode of our endeavor has us going over twenty-four pages --- four pages each.

I've wanted to blog about this endeavor for a while. So now I am, and I want to do it consistently. However, don't cross your fingers about that.

This is our methodology.

We take turns.

Whoever's turn it is begins by handing out copies of their four pages to everyone else and then reading them out loud. Their four pages consist of of whatever they choose. They determine that. For the most part, what is worked on are novels. But there are exceptions. For example, D has been working on a dialogue between the narrator (herself) of her new novel (First? She's new to the group.) and her protagonist, whose name is Rachel. She's trying to work some problems out.

Anyway, the beginner reads while the rest of us listen, taking notes, and make editing marks on the four pages which have been provided to us. After finishing the out loud reading, the reader waits while the critiquers continue making their notes and suggestions on the four manuscript pages. After everyone finishes, a discussion ensues, hopefully, in an orderly fashion. The person to the left of the reader starts, revealing their thoughts about the manuscript, positive and negative. For the most part, the others listen during this process until it's their turn. The process continues all the way around back to the reader. The reader has a chance during the process or at its end to comment, ask questions, try and get clarification. Then the next person in line reads and the process continues on, like I said for three hours. Three hours of hard work, if we do the work well.

I have written a tax book for writers, Making Expression Less Taxing, and two novels: Time for All Eternity and Alejandro the Great. I have worked on all of these books utilizing feedback I got from this process.

M, J, B, and C have all worked on various novels in this group. D is new to the group and, to my knowledge, has not completed a book-length work.

Envy

I do a little writing. Sometimes, too little. I should do more. We all should.

There are few people interested in what I write. Mostly, it's those who have to listen to what I write, because I take it to critiquing group, and there are usually five other people there who write who in exchange for my criticism of their writing give their criticism of my writing. Otherwise, they wouldn't read it either. A few people have purchased my book, Making Expression Less Taxing, a Freelancer's Tax Resource. Whether they read it or not is another matter altogether. My editor read it all; I paid her to help me out.

Writers, even quite prolific ones, probably never reached the type of audience they dreamed of. There are exceptions, of course, like some of the best sellers. I'm pretty sure JK Rowling and Stephanie Myer are examples.

Over the years, I have been in a critiquing group. Many aspiring writers have come and gone in that group. I am the only one who remains of the original five or six individuals who started the group. I don't know how much those other individuals write now. My friend, Doug, was one of the more talented individuals who started with the group to begin with. He was published in some historical journals and, perhaps, some other places. He stopped coming to critiquing when he signed up for a screenwriting course at the University of Utah. He utilized a manuscript he had been working on in our critiquing group to create a screenplay. He entered the screenplay after it was completed in the Slamdance screenwriting contest. The contest is sponsored, as I understand it, by Sundance Film Festival. He won and subsequently tried to market his screenplay, although he didn't have the luck he hoped to have because he became affiliated with someone who was devastated because of the downturn in the economy.

I'm not aware of others until recently who have published anything who have participated in the critiquing group, although there may be some. Oh, as I say that, I remember one person --- Julie --- besides the one I was thinking of telling you about next. Julie published a story she brought to our critiquing group in the LDS church publication, The Friend. There are probably other individuals who had success, too, and I just don't remember or know about it.

Now I want to mention Matt. Several months ago, perhaps even as much as a year or so ago, Matt obtained an agent who ended up selling his second novel --- Matt writes for children and young adults --- to Scholastic. The book, known during the days that it was being fed to us at critiquing sessions, was The Fiddler's Grimoire. Now it is known as The Clockwork Three. It will be released on October 1, 2010. Matt will be headed out to New York next week to be with all the important people relative to its publication and release.

This whole background now brings me to the reason for this posting. Envy. They say that envy will knock at your door and beg you to let it in. It will use every conceivable enticement to have you let it in and turn you green, including begging.

I don't see it that way. It doesn't seem to affect me that way. Maybe it would have in my younger years. For one thing, Matt is a young man and I am an old one --- well, relatively. (Old, that is, not manly.) My dreams these days don't go to being a big, published, and recognized author. That all sounds just wonderful, but it also sounds like a lot of work and effort, too. And I am retired. And in case you haven't tried it, someday you ought to. It's awesome. However, it isn't that compatible with being a new, published author anticipating big things.

So, I don't think envy has much play in the success I see Matt having and anticipating over against my lack of success. They say also a writer should displace their envy of another writer with hard work and produce something of publishable quality. I hope I'll do that, but I'm not looking forward to all the implications of being successfully published, including all of the work.

But I guess I could make an exception, if somebody offers me big bucks and a platform.

Not that they will. :-)