If you're a writer, you need a writer's group. Check around in your area and find out where they are. Try them on for size and see what fits you.
In the beginning, I wasn't much of a sharer with my writing. It was just for fun, and I viewed it as personal. As my confidence grew, I evolved into different types of groups.
Critique group: In most critique groups, you share your work and other writers give their opinions and suggestions. Every group I've been in it was an option if you wanted to read or not. Some groups didn't let new people say anything for the first group which I though was weird. Hey, it's their group. Let it be.
One critique group I was in, the woman wrote about a man whose truck broke down on a deserted road, and he said the word, "fuck." Two of the men in the group went on for twenty minutes putting down her word. I thought that was wrong, but since it was my first time, I kept my mouth shut. Dialog tells us a lot about the character. Some people use that word. To question if a character will curse in the first chapter? Didn't his use of the word tell us something about him?
Other writing groups are just writing exercise groups. Where they give you a prompt and you just write. Sometimes it's world-building, journaling, or even passing on the story. (One person writes for 5 mins, passing the sheet, next person does 5 mins, and so on.) Some really creative stuff comes from that exercise.
Whatever writing group you find, go check it out. Find one that fits. They are your people.
No comments:
Post a Comment