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FIVE WAYS TO SURVIVE WORKSHOP CRITIQUES

It's happened to all of us. We present the work we sweated, bled and cried over to a critique group-only to have members tear it apart. "They just don't understand," we moan. But they do understand. They're writers. They are intimate with the process of writing and know what it's like to have work judged.

A critique group's purpose is to give feedback to the writer. However, feedback, due to its presentation or content, can be unpalatable to the author whose work is under consideration. How can a writer gain valuable help from a critique group without feeling personally rejected? Here are five suggestions:

1. Pick a critique group whose members write what you do.
Authors who write romance, science fiction, or westerns know the genre, and can help a writer avoid pitfalls specific to that genre. Otherwise, find a group whose members have diversified writing backgrounds. Try the chosen workshop out a few times. Do you like the way members critique? Are valid suggestions offered? Most of all, do you feel reasonably comfortable allowing your work to be read in this group? If the answer is yes to these questions, become a member.

"Writing is such a solitary craft," comments Sonnie Alexander, a writer who has participated in critique groups for several years. "It [the critique group] gives us a wonderful camaraderie, a wonderful social support system."

Suzan King, a writing instructor and a published author, says that writers need to be mentally prepared before entering critique situations. She believes that the classroom gives beginning writers a foundation and suggests that they start by taking classes such as the non-credit ones offered at community colleges.

"I'm not suggesting [they're] a bad writer when I say take Novel I," she says. "I'm suggesting that we then know that we all have the same vocabulary to work with ... that we've all had some commonality in our experience. It just makes it easier for us to talk and to relate to each other."

2. Listen.
A gentleman in one of the first novel workshops I ever attended was intent on explaining his book's plot rather than listening to our reactions. I think he wanted us to understand the book so thoroughly that we'd finally stop recommending changes. I suspected he wasn't in the workshop to improve his writing skills, but to receive congratulations on his brilliant writing.

Listening to everyone's comments can benefit your writing, especially when you can strip away the ideas and critiques

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