Writers Groups: the good, the bad and the ugly

[oneagainst]

I'm contemplating going whether I should try and go along to a writers group in the local area. It seems a natural progression, but I'm hesitant. Anyone had good/bad experiences with groups?

 

[AlinaX]

Good and bad. It gets you trying things you wouldn't normally, but... listening to other people who think they can write is a bit like reading Lit without a back button.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I think they vary wildly in quality, but a lot of the unsuitable ones will be obviously unsuitable based on the first meeting you attend. So, yeah, go! Don't be afraid to not go again, but do go the first time.

 

[Bamagan]

I'm contemplating going whether I should try and go along to a writers group in the local area. It seems a natural progression, but I'm hesitant. Anyone had good/bad experiences with groups?

I suggest you bring one of those folding paper fans to hide behind. Blocking your face from view often flusters attempts at unwanted conversation as few people know quite how to react at first.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I'm contemplating going whether I should try and go along to a writers group in the local area. It seems a natural progression, but I'm hesitant. Anyone had good/bad experiences with groups?

"When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

I've never had an experience with one. Could you get most of that from the boards on Lit? Give it a try, perhaps.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Good and bad. It gets you trying things you wouldn't normally, but... listening to other people who think they can write is a bit like reading Lit without a back button.

By "think they can write," do you mean they haven't written anything? I guess I've learned something by publishing online. It forces me to get something, anything, finished and have other people I don't know read it.

If only the other people in the group - or even in a formal creative writing class - are reading it, then I doubt the feedback would be as useful. And if they are just talking about it . . .

 

[JGittes]

Go once and find out if they are your kind of people. If not, try a different group.


I have yet to find a local group who aren't extremely self-absorbed and trying to one-up each other. Not my scene.

This has been my experience as well. There can be positive outcomes from a writer's group by attempting writing exercises outside of your comfort zone. You'll probably get better constructive criticism on specific issues with your writing here and on the feedback forum. Whatever you do, don't be lulled into revealing you write erotic fiction. I speak from experience.

 

[AchtungNight]

Go once and find out if they are your kind of people. If not, try a different group.


I have yet to find a local group who aren't extremely self-absorbed and trying to one-up each other. Not my scene.

Oh, yeah, groups like that stink.

My advice- check them out and see if they’re supportive, not competitive. Be prepared to write something other than smut, just in case.

I’m also known for a few fanfics with no sex scenes and some good video game walkthroughs.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Writers don't always get along. A co-worker once asked what I do and I told her that I write. It turned out that she also wrote. She was an academic and in her retirement years. She told me very gushingly about this wonderful book that she was finishing, a children's book that had wonderfully grown over 100k words about a kitten lost on a train and the folks who had adopted her. Then she asked what I write and all I could say was "Oh ... adult ... stuff".

So my first question would be, does the writer's group have a theme that you are comfortable sharing in?

 

[djrip]

Same.

But if you're a woman and there's even one guy in the group, he will be hella friendly until you rebuff his many advances with the devilish ploy of, "Dude, I'm married and you're older than my dad, answer's still no."

Then he'll find you to be a talentless hack trying to get a cheap rise (free rise, if I'm being honest) out of innocent guys. He'll also be really pissed off when you don't take it as an insult. Especially so if you ask, "But you still got off to it, right?" The level of indignation he exhibits will give away his answer.

If you're a guy you'll probably get eye rolls and scoffs from any women in the group. But they will secretly include you in their next private writing as the smut guy who charms them against their better judgement and fulfills all of their secret lusty whims.

In general, both sexes will be admonished as "not really writers" for writing "low level porn" which is automatically the impression regardless of what you've written because they will never ever read it openly.

The guy one doesn't sound half bad.

 

[AchtungNight]

Anyone who thinks I write “low level porn” is invited to read my stories and then decide for themselves if they still agree. I think “high end emotional smut” is a better description.

 

[TxRad]

If you're a guy you'll probably get eye rolls and scoffs from any women in the group. But they will secretly include you in their next private writing as the smut guy who charms them against their better judgement and fulfills all of their secret lusty whims.

Ah yes, I went through this with the local Ladies Readers and Writers Club. Half, maybe a third of them wanted me tarred, feathered, and ran out of town of a rail. The other bunch wanted copies of my stories and to talk writing with me. That writing talk usually ended up wanting to talk about my active imagination towards sex. This was before what's her names fake BDSM book came out. I wonder how many of them are still wandering the halls of Lit.

 

[AchtungNight]

Oh, they'll still treat you like a pariah in the group.

Just tell yourself they’d treat bestselling authors with sex scenes in their work the same way. Stephen King, Laurell K Hamilton, any romance writer…

 

[HordHolm]

Oh, they'll still treat you like a pariah in the group.

Bring a notebook and overtly take notes as they're speaking. They'll be convinced you're going to write them into your next orgy...

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

My writing group (mixed genders) knows I write smut and no one seems to be bothered by it. I mostly talk about or present for review my my non-smut writing (fantasy/SF) at meetings but I have brought the dirtier stuff in and I got the same depth of critiques. Maybe I was just fortunate with the group I found.

In the end, I think you have to treat a writing group like a buffet: you take the feedback that's helpful and leave the rest. That's true for any feedback, actually ...

 

[Bamagan]

"Belinda looked at the older man reading his heartfelt short on the death of his beloved wife and felt awash with lust and a hope that her quivering lip would convey just how much she wanted to suck his cock to alleviate his sadness."

"Liz... we've talked about this, no using group members and moments as erotica fodder."

"I changed names look, you're not Linda you're Belinda.... I mean... my character is Belinda... Wait are you admitting that's what you were thinking?"

Linda scoffed and blushed as she looked away.

"A scoff was heard and the indignation that followed the pink flush to Belinda's cheeks gave away her guilty conscience..."

"Goddamn it Liz..."

That would honestly make for an amazing read, I think. The Secret (Smutty) Life of Walter Mitty, in a sense. The readers see the protag's relatively mundane experiences followed by the salacious and scandalous scenes they wish (or believe) are happening without them.

 

[MillieDynamite]

They can be great fun and totally dull. Oddly, both can happen in the same meeting. We have a Romance Writer in the one I go to who's a very cranky old bitch. Sometimes she is wildly entertaining. Other times, she's just a pain, my pretty black ass. Two things my Dad is prone to saying come to mind: you get what you pay for, and you pay your money, and you take your chances. We did Zoom meetings for two years during the pandemic, and when it got too crappy, I just lost my internet until the next meeting. At least that was the lie I told when we met next.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Just tell yourself they’d treat bestselling authors with sex scenes in their work the same way. Stephen King, Laurell K Hamilton, any romance writer…

Think of it as just fiction with all the "off-camera" scenes left in. Writers have always pushed that as far as they could within their era. I was going to quote Shakespeare, but I've got to find a certain scene first.

By the way, nobody noticed my quote at the start. I've never seen the movie; I admit I looked it up on IMDb.com.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I did miss it, The Good, the Bad, and Ugly.

Think of it as just fiction with all the "off-camera" scenes left in. Writers have always pushed that as far as they could within their era. I was going to quote Shakespeare, but I've got to find a certain scene first.

By the way, nobody noticed my quote at the start. I've never seen the movie; I admit I looked it up on IMDb.com.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I went to a writer's group here in Denver and only went one time. I wasn't made to feel welcome, they did ask what I had published, and I said nothing, just experimenting so far. And after that, they ignored me.

 

[gunhilltrain]

But they will secretly include you in their next private writing as the smut guy who charms them against their better judgement and fulfills all of their secret lusty whims.

At my age, I highly doubt that I would qualify for the category above. And even if I did, being "admired" in secret; well, if don't know about it, it's as if it never happened.

 

[lovecraft68]

I joined Aria (Association of RI authors) in 2016. They have 300ish dues paying members, but even before 2020 a decent sized in person meeting would be 20 people. First off, like any group-including here-there were some great people and some helpful people, but the majority of them are so full of themselves and so pretentious its not funny.

Keep in mind of the in person clique there were two people who were mainstream published-and neither were the arrogant type- the rest were all self pubbing with various levels of success, but no one was writing for a living there. The fact I wrote erotica(mixed with horror for that group, my pure smut was nothing I could push at any of their events) had them looking down their noses at me, and I was told more than once erotica is not even writing.

I did comic con with them once. 12 of us sharing six tables in a row and then did Terror con the same way early the following year, after that I did the events by myself because all we did was draw from each other and I couldn't take any more 9 hour days filled with listening to them preen like peacocks(while not selling much I might add)

In the end I dropped membership in 2021 would have the year prior, but with everything going on I felt bad and wanted to give them the dues because they needed it, and I am doing everything I could do through them alone. All the drama, cliques and stupidity aside, there was nothing they could do for me I wasn't doing myself except saying "I'm a member"

I know some people with similar experiences including a couple in the way over vaunted "NE Horror writers" group. These things are mostly just circle jerks where drama and random conversations by far outweigh any type of writing discussion.

So...you can get that here

One more thing, when they did do events or workshops the same two women always were part of them and always on the comic con panels-and one year they didn't even have a booth just showed up and walked right in-because they flirted with the idiot frat boy VP....so again for the most part the thing wasn't even about writing just BS.

I think all of you as being "non writer erotica authors" would like to know I won a major group contest judged blindly by members of another group( a straight up noir horror piece), and also smote ruin upon three other horror authors at both a panel held at the RI book expo and a round table discussion at terror con.

Yeah, you don't need them.

 

[yibala]

I'm contemplating going whether I should try and go along to a writers group in the local area. It seems a natural progression, but I'm hesitant. Anyone had good/bad experiences with groups?

I've had a lot of experiences with writer's groups over the years. Most of them good. I've learned more about the craft of writing from workshopping stories than any other practice over the last twenty years or so. But there are two basic types of writer's groups in my experience. One is a more social group where writers can interact, share information and support each other, go to conferences, etc.. In my former hometown, there was a large writer's group like this that self-published a speculative fiction anthology of stories about that town. You can get a lot of useful knowledge and contacts from groups like this.

The second type is a workshop, where the primary goal is to share each others work for critiquing and feedback. A group could be of both types, but depending on what you're looking for, one or the other type might not be of use to you.

A second factor to consider is genre. If the other writers aren't writing your genre, it isn't going to be of much value. My groups are/were mostly sff writer workshops, which was right for me.

I think, as one or two people already mentioned, you'll probably find out quickly whether the group is for you. In a good workshop, the writers are committed to trying to understand the story being told, suggesting ways to make the story stronger, and most of all encouraging each other to write. I've gotten far more insightful feedback from other writers in this kind of setting than I ever have from a beta-reader who doesn't write.

Writing erotica can be a lonely undertaking, and for obvious reasons, many authors who write only erotica don't get the opportunity to have these kinds of interactions with other writers. If you have the chance to try a writer's group in a genre you write, I'd recommend it.

-Yib
My stories

 

[oneagainst]

That's a mixed bag of experiences. I'm not sure if it's helped or hindered to be honest. I went looking on the various meetups' sites for basic things such as forums, but didn't find anything - except a few links to Facebook groups - so it's hard to judge the calibre. The other telltale I'm looking at is if the meetups are in the middle of the working day. Surely an indicator it's a coffee morning with writing, as opposed to something more serious? I do know I've gotten a lot out of the forums and PMs here, but as stated above, it's a pretty lonely road.

Suck it and see seems to be good advice - so will give that a go. I can always turn up to the pub and pretend to be looking for the toilets if it's immediately obvious it's a wash. Apparently you're supposed to bring along 1000 words to share. Reckon it's not going to be any of the stuff I've written here - A Little Help is the ideal size at 750, but I can imagine finishing reading it out and hearing pins drop.

 

[sapphyrix]

have you ever heard of national novel writing month? the goal is to write a 50k word novel in a 30 day month.
(welllll, 50k isn't really a novel, more of a novella, but it's a reasonable amount to do in a month and finish the other, like, 20k to 70k later.) (novel word count expectations vary heavily based on genre)
the idea is very much about productivity, writing badly and having fun the first time around and then editing later, instead of worrying about how good it is on the first draft and thus never finishing the first draft cause you're so self conscious.
nanowrimo has a lot of regional writing groups, and in my experience these have been the best ones.
they are down to earth and don't tolerate the self absorbed idiots. no people that are like "WELL i WILL write this brilliant idea someday when i have the TIME *doesn't actually write*" no literary snobs, no people who think you have to be published to count as a writer. just if you write you are a writer, and it's equally valid to write just for fun for yourself or to write something to be edited and try for publication.
they're good people.