Writers Groups – Critiquing Methods – Read ’em and Weep

You want readers familiar with your work, you don’t want critiquers familiar with your work

I previously discussed The 20 Page Whack critiquing method. This time I’ll focus on a critiquing method wherein one person reads a piece and then others, who haven’t read it previously nor read along as it’s being read, critique it.

Review
Finding a critique group that’s good for you is based on one question:

What is your goal/reason for being in a critique’ group?

 
I answered this question as it pertains to myself in Writers’ Groups – Introduction and The 20 Page Whack; improve my storytelling and storycrafting/increase my skill levels/learn my craft.

As mentioned previously, I’m discussing critiquing groups that meet monthly and of course, I’m discussing methodologies I’ve experienced.

Someone reads a piece and people critique it after it’s read. Nobody sees the material before it’s read.
Strong suggestion up front; Attend a few of these meetings before you read your work to them.
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Lily Iona MacKenzie – Magic Realism, Dangerous Curves and Marketing Success

Lily Iona MacKenzie follows her own Great Trail

Lily Iona MacKenzieHello all and welcome to our continuing series of author interviews. Today’s guest is multi-talented San Francisco based author Lily Iona MacKenzie. Regular readers will be familiar with Lily thanks to her previous contribution Lily Iona MacKenzie’s Book Marketing 101 that covered reviews, Goodreads, readings and radio stations as promotional venues.

Lily writes poetry, fiction and magic realism, the latter in Curva Peligrosa, the story of a woman traveling through realities while journeying from Central America to Lily’s home in Alberta, Canada.

Folks, please give it up for Lily Iona MacKenzie.
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The Augmented Man -Synopsis

The ultimate battlefield is the human heart

The US government is engaged in a South American war and losing badly. After years of standard and non-standard strategies and tactics failing, the government entertains an often-made suggestion: create supersoldiers. The suggestion is about to be dismissed when (then) Captain James Donaldson adds an outrageous modification: use horribly abused and already traumatized children as the source material. These individuals, Donaldson argues, are already hardened against anything they’ll experience on the battlefield and anything we’ll ask them to do.
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The Augmented Man – Surface

What do you do when the ultimate weapon falls in love?

What follows is the first chapter of The Augmented Man. Enjoy (and let me know what you think).

Surface
1 April 2053

Trailer closed his eyes and sat at the end of the bar where the cigarette-burned, cheap black Formica countertop met the wall. He eased himself onto the last stool, tucking into the corner in the dim light, a spider hiding out of sight at the edge of its web. His fingers hovered over the cigarette burns closest to him as if divining their cause, sensing them like small, unhealed wounds, seeing the people involved, learning if each burn was an accident or intentional.

The door opened and he smelled the cool April evening on his skin. It was followed by the alcoholic breath and sweat of two men and a woman they supported between them.

Trailer brought his attention back into the bar, collating the activity immediately around him. The barkeeper, a heavy smelling man gnawing a toothpick, his face somewhere between needing a shave and growing a beard, walked over to Trailer. “Yeah?”
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Writers Groups – Critiquing Methods – The 20 Page Whack

A formidable method that’s off-putting at first (to me, anyway)

Long ago and far away I mentioned writing something about my experiences in different writers’ groups.

Okay, I mentioned it as the last line in Writers’ Groups – Critiques. I’ve been a little busy and I’m getting back to it now.

Finding a critique group (different from writers’ group in my mind. A writers’ group has a purely social agenda. A critique group has a work agenda) that’s good for you is based on one question:

What is your goal/reason for being in a critique group?

 
Continue reading “Writers Groups – Critiquing Methods – The 20 Page Whack”