I'm trying to form a local group, but it is hard to gain interest. Everyone has a life.

The first thing I did with Hatrack was join a writers group and we hit it off pretty good and lasted through five rounds before the collapse. But the collapse was based on job change with one member and another member was actually ready to submit for publishing! As you can guess it was a little intimidateting to critiue her stuff.

I think most people go into it with a certain expectation and when it doesn't work quite that way it becomes more of a burden than fun. For me, since I'm a beginner, it was a tremendous help. I learned a great deal about what I was doing wrong, but also found out what some of my strengths are.

The only problem I had was the time element. While in the group I didn't do much in the way of 'new' writing. Most of my efforts were concentrated on critiques and re-writing of my own stuff to submit to the group. So the WIP's suffered. I will probably wait a while before joining another one, but look forward to doing it again when I'm ready.

Now, all that said, is there a formula? Probably not! Just keep trying until you hit the group that finally works.

MC

The down side of joining a Hatrack group?
You can't depend on getting five other people who are on the same level of dedication as you are. Levels of writing maturity and experience don't make as much a difference as levels of dedication. And one of the GREAT values of mixed-level writing groups is that the members learn/teach/receive/give all at once and everyone benefits. But when person A checks in just when it's his turn to submit, or person B decides he's no longer interested because he just can't take the criticism, or person C does nothing deeper than write "Cool!" on his return email...

That was almost two years ago now. My opinion on the value of these groups -- not just at Hatrack, but in general -- have changed dramatically since then, and not for the better. I'll leave it at that and wish you luck.

[This message has been edited by Hildy9595 (edited December 03, 2004).]

Let me talk to my groupies. We have four active right now, and one coming back in (hopefully) next month. So we REALLY only have room for one more--otherwise you have to wait too long for it to be your turn. The idea of starting up your own is a good one, IMO. But if that happens you should let Kathleen know so she can take you off her enrollment lists.

On the plus side of our group, at least three of us are strongly committed to making it work, participating frequently and actively. I think with that core, and the ocassional infusion of new blood, we'll last our year.

Good point, Mike.

Wow, have I had it with people getting offended around here. Since when is Hatrack such a super-psycho-sensitive zone?

I didn't see that Silver3 was offended at all--simply making a polite correction for Minister's sake--particularly since Sil and Min are talking about grouping up. It's MOST interesting to me that someone completely outside the conversation seems to be the only one clearly offended.

Guess what? I'm a SHE. I've been called a HE several times on this site. I DON'T CARE! I'M NOT OFFENDED! Shocking, isn't it?

The truth about being offended is that the offended person actually has to take a mental leap and DECIDE they WANT to be offended. There was no personal attack here. Let me show you the difference, and I hope Minister will forgive me taking the liberty of using him as a scapegoat to make my point.

If I say: "Minister is a very nice person; she is always helpful." Referring to Minister as 'she' is a mere mistake. It is not intended to offend. No offense should be (or would be, I wager) taken.

If I say: "Minister is a complete idiot for buying into that Christianity garbage. (By the way, being a card-carrying Christian, I do not believe the above statement to be in any way true--merely an example) Now, THAT would be offensive. Why? Because it is meant to be offensive. Because me INTENTION in saying it would be to offend Minister.

I can't think of any real solutions, it comes down to people. I would think there is some luck involved, but not everyone really wants to dedicate the time. Kathleen does try hard to keep things going, and I know it is frustraiting.

I will admit that it has helped me. It can be irritating, and dissapointing, when the whole group seems to disapear. And occasionaly I've gotten some lame excuses for not critiquing a story.

When the last member left (officially), I didn't quite understand his reason. After some thought...and a few more months, I do. I've honestly been concidering dropping out myself. With the holidays comming up, it is always quite. Which doesn't help.

Don't let me turn anyone away from joining a group. There is value there if you have serious interest, even a bad group can give you a different perspective on what is wrong with your work.

I am understanding that the creations of the groups by Kathleen is a service when a number of people are wishing to be in a writing group but not comfortable creating the group themselves. Christine's idea, setting up a group based on previous exchanges, seems like the best way to insure compatibility.

And ON subject--I know the holidays are a difficult time. There is so much to do, everyone is busy. Don't be afraid to take the month off if you want to. Propose it to your group. But don't give up. We've had several times in which we've taken time off to catch up with life--and we've only been together since August!

Also, if you really care about your group, do a little nagging. Ask your members to recommit. Tell them how much the group means to you and what you hope to get out of it. Maybe it will encourage them to give it a greater effort--or to drop out, leaving space for someone new. Either way, it seems, your group may be better off.

I also found it amazing how few people in the group wanted to discuss writing at any length. Besides the critiques, that was all they wanted out of it. Since that is the primary goal of a writing group, I just did that here.

I was going to put them all into one post, but I think one extra-long post is not a good idea, so they'll be in separate posts.

First of all, I am becoming more and more discouraged with the groups that I have put together.

Over the years, I have changed the sign-up form several times, hoping to be able to ask questions that would help me figure out how to arrange the available individuals into groups that had a half-way decent chance of succeeding.

I have been willing to remove people from groups that didn't work for them--no questions asked--and put them into new groups, and I have been willing to do this over and over again in hopes that I would be able to find a group that would work.

The fizzle rate, in spite of my efforts, has been extremely frustrating.

Groupings have been a bit more successful when the groups have included me in their discussions, because then I get to know the group members, and I understand their dynamic better. When they need a new member, I am better able to find someone (especially if it is someone whose old group fizzled and that group also included me in their discussions).

I am seriously considering making participation in this forum a prerequisite for putting someone in a group. Maybe then I will be able to make a better guess as to what groupings have a better chance of working.

Anyway, next item:

I've sent email out to people who have applied for a group in the last month or so, but who haven't been placed in a group in that time that I am not going to be starting any groups until after the holidays--because they are such a bad time for groups.

I have also invited them to come here and see if this forum, with the discussion and the Fragments and Feedback here, might not fulfill their needs as well as a group.

I would be more than happy to have people create their own groups from contacts they have made here on the forum. Go for it!

The only reason I ask people in already existing groups to let me know if they want to add someone is so I can put those new people in my records. You are more than welcome to find and add members. You have a better chance of finding someone who might work in your group than I seem to have had so far.

Small groups are better if the group members take turns sending material around to be critiqued. We recommend four to six members as the best size for turn-taking groups.

They are not so good if some of the members are not as involved.

There are other ways to run a group than having each member take a turn sending something to the others for feedback.

One way is to have a deadline each month for submissions, and a deadline (say two weeks after that) for critiques.

For example, everyone who wants feedback on something sends it to the rest of the group by the 14th of each month, and feedback has to be in by the 28th. Those who don't send in feedback by that time, don't get to send material out for feedback until they have sent in their feedback.

Groups like that can be a little bigger, but not a lot (unless you want to give more time for feedback because there are more things to read and comment on).

There are other ways to do it--some groups have done whole novels at once, though I recommend agreeing to read someone's complete novel only after having read a partial (the first three chapters and an outline of the whole thing) and commented on it first.

OSC says that Hatrack groups should be dissolved after one year. (See Christine's post for a good explanation of why.)

Even the groups that have actually chosen to use a group discussion area, have not kept up the use. Because of the 13-line rule, most of their group business has stayed in email, and the website has not been all that convenient or useful for individual group business.

I think the forum has evolved away from that and what it has evolved into has proved quite useful for writers.

So, I will probably be getting rid of the group discussion areas after the holidays as well.

If anyone can think of a reason to keep them, please speak up--especially those of you who been in groups assigned to a group discussion area (like Lord Darkstorm). I'd like to know what you think of me removing them.

quote:

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I am seriously considering making participation in this forum a prerequisite for putting someone in a group. Maybe then I will be able to make a better guess as to what groupings have a better chance of working.

---

Kathleen, I think it's a good idea to require people to hang out here and be active for a while. However, I'm not sure how you can enforce it, and I agree that it might be even more work for you.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and rant a little, and I hope I don't offend anyone, especially Kathleen, who I admire and respect greatly. So, please stop reading here.

START OF RANT

Well, you didn't, so...

quote:

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Maybe then I will be able to make a better guess as to what groupings have a better chance of working.

---

(Kathleen, you shouldn't HAVE to guess.)

People join critique groups because of an emotional need that is unfulfilled, and not necessarily an emotional need to write, to write well, to write frequently, or to write for publication.

For lack of slick terminology I'll call the former the "needy" and the latter the "focused needy".

Hatrack's system has no significant means to filter out the unfocused, unexpressed and perhaps even misunderstood emotional "needy" person who approaches Kathleen and asks to join a critique group. The form that is currently used to request participation in a critique group is mostly just a survey, and not an adequate test of "focused need".

Thus it puts the entire burden of the decision on Kathleen's shoulders (which is unfair to Kathleen) and admits people who are unprepared to commit whether they know it or not (which is unfair to all concerned). This is generally unsatisfactory, except in those rare cases where Kathleen's good judgement and/or good fortune favors a group of the "focused needy".

Further, it fails to meet Kathleen's expectations and leads Kathleen astray because Kathleen's expectations are based upon an inadequate 'test' of the petitioners, thus her frustration.

So, who is qualified to prepare or adminster the 'test'? Well, not me!

Other forums have 'solved' the issue in their own ways:

- One depends heavily upon code to track a users progress and only allow submittals for critiquing when the registrant has met certain conditions that qualify her to request critiques.

- Another depends upon a test of personal courage to allow the registrant access to a forum in which they can give and receive critiques, and build the personal relationships that eventually lead to a personal critique group. This site also depends heavily upon really harsh and testing responses to 'newbies' to weed them out.

- A third allows any entrant to immediately post anything for critiquing without any test or requirement. (let me head off potentially hurt feelings by saying that it is not the personal forum of anyone I know)

I can't say with any confidence that either of the first two is better than the other. They're just different. However, I will say that the third is a good place for fan-fiction.

So, is the current system a good one? No, it isn't and Kathleen's frustration is what is to be expected.

Can the system be improved? Probably.

Should it be? To me, this is the real question.

Kathleen has identified (and I and I'm sure many others heartily agree!) that the Writer's Forums offer great value to everyone who participates.

Have the critique groups also offered great value? Yes, almost certainly, to some but not to others.

On these bases alone, the system warrants investment and improvement.

Should the critique groups be continued? I vote Yes!, but not at the present cost in frustration.

How should the system be improved?

Kathleen must find some way to separate the "needy" from the "focused needy", and deal with them separately, at less personal cost to herself. Please let me be clear, I am NOT saying that the "needy" should be denied. I was one myself and am learning to be "focused needy". I AM saying that the two groups should be identified, separated, and dealt with differently.

Following are some suggestions. They don't necessarily constitute a 'system'. I'm not that smart. If my arguments have any merit at all, the sharp people here on Hatrack will improve on anything I can suggest, so please take this just as a topic starter, and not a contentious position on my part.

1) Educate the petitioner to the point at which some of them will voluntarily filter themselves totally out. "Oh! That's not what I want. I'll go look elsewhere."

2) Provide two means by which petitioners can enter the system. With a good design, most will self-filter themselves into the appropriate group. "That's where I belong!"

3) Provide a means for a registrant to determine if they are in the correct group (correct to them) and a face-saving means to transfer to the other group. "Hmmm, I'm out of my league here, but I can do well there."

4) Provide a statutory limit on how long, or a limit of how often, or a 'test of character' or capability that qualifies a person to continue to actively participate in a critique group. Make it a goal, rather than a burden. "Darn. If I want to continue to be critiqued, I'd better get to participating better (whatever that may be) in the forum."

5) Find a way to take some of the burden off Kathleen's shoulders. Other forums use moderators as assistants. I'm not sure if this forum software allows for that. IF it does, and if that's the kind of thing Kathleen wants, then I'm willing to put my foot, er, my money, where my mouth is. I'll help if asked. Will you?

That said, I just spent the better part of half an hour writing with conviction, and perhaps my logic sucks and my ideas are sophomoric, but this situation warrants action, not just more talk.

Let's just do it, whatever 'it' may be.

END OF RANT

You may shoot now.

mikemunsil

[This message has been edited by mikemunsil several times in an attempt to make it coherent]

I tried joining a group. We barely made it through one round. A couple of people had unforseen life events that took them away, others couldn't get started, and some of us just fizzled. Some of the writing was easy to read or easy to critique, but once you miss one crit, the rest of it tends to snowball. Some of the feedback I personally received was good, but it fell short of being really usefull (i.e. This sounds such and such, or I didn't really like that, but nothing concrete on what might be better or what the heart of the problem was).

Requiring people to participate on the boards before joining a group might be a good idea. Not only can you learn how to play well with others, but you can get a feel for what people expect when they ask for a crit.

I tried getting the usernames of the people in my group so I could watch for them on Hatrack, but none of them shared and I don't believe any of them participated in any of the boards (if I'm wrong, my apologies).

I'll help Kathleen in any way I can.

Maybe a forum area in which to advertise your desire to join a group? They can be contacted by direct email, rather than by posting in the forum and can update their advertisement to say they've been picked up for a group.

quote:

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To tell you the truth I was EXTREMELY relieved when Mikemunsill and crew decided to group up. It took the pressure off me to have to choose between you.

---

Oooh! Damned by faint praise. I think I'll just have to go drink a beer to get over it. A Lite beer, though. And that's mikemunsil with a single 'l', sister. No 'll's here. That side of the famly gots money and they spells theys name all wonky.

quote:

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Maybe a forum area in which to advertise your desire to join a group? They can be contacted by direct email, rather than by posting in the forum and can update their advertisement to say they've been picked up for a group.

---

I need several things from a group. First, I need a small, defined population of readers that have are not self-selected out of a desire to be in my group nor have been selected my myself on the basis of their body of work. This is so that I can get critiques on different works from the same people over a longer period of time, and so that those critiques come from a distribution of tastes and levels, even including people that may have pet peeves with certain things I tend to do as a writer.

Also, I need someone else to take the lead in organizing and motivating the group. I'm not a good leader. I'm only good at organizing when individuals can be considered as type-units. And I want to try working under a deadline imposed from without from time to time, it often forces me to be creative in interesting and fruitful ways (see the X-Com story). I don't actually need deadlines to write, but they can provide a needed change of pace at times.

And I feel I need at least some people that don't know me from Adam. This is distinct from the first need...I need fresh meat every now and then. Sure, I can get that in the Frag&Feed , but....it's different.

Of course, this causes problems.

One need that I've never satiated is the need to have a group go the distance. I think that at least partly it's because my critiques are very incisive, if I can use such a neutral word for what must seem the most terrifying form of psychic assault some new writers have ever experienced. This is possibly even more true of works that I really like, since in that case I have to chop it open, pull out the heart, poke electrodes into it, and inject all manner of radio-isotoe tracers into it so that I can see how it works.

I also need feedback on my stories to be intelligent, clear, and accurate. I want to feel like someone actually read the text rather than running it through a buggy grammer checking program or something.

In other words, I want a highly select sort of readers and writers in my group, and I want them to be there without anyone hand-picking them just for me.

I suppose that I would suggest a brutally Darwinian process of group creation/management. Everyone has to be a forum member to join a group. A group is formed when enough people with the same "member ranking" are available for a group. The schedule is assigned along with the group, probably decided alphabetically by name (first, last, or member).

If you don't submit critiques and stories, then you get a score based on how much of the year you lasted before finally dropping out. If you and one other member outlast the rest of the group, then you get a score based on how long the group lasted plus three months (but your score cannot exceed one year). If you last the whole year then you get a score of one year.

New members start with a median score, the average lifespan of a group, just for signing up. Existing members are scored by the average time they've lasted in each group they were.

So to illustrate, new member "Joe" signs up, and is assigned a provisional rank equal to the average score, which is currently three months. As soon as five other people with rankings of 3-5 months are signed up, they are organized into a group.

Joe lasts two months in his first group. His new ranking is two months with a sample of 1 group. So next time he applies, he is assigned to the 0-2 month bracket. When four other 0-2 ranked members apply, they are issued a schedule again. This time the Joe does better, lasting until the breakup of the group after three months (the other remaining member is "Jane", a new member).

Joe and Jane both get a score of 6 months, but Jane's score becomes her new ranking while Joe's score is averaged into his current ranking of two months x one group, to yield a new ranking of four months x two groups. That puts him back into the 3-5 month bracket while Jane has moved into the 6-8 month bracket.

Of course, this system is prejudiced heavily in favor of people that have the tenacity to keep writing both critiques and submissions on a fixed schedule. It doesn't make any judgements based on quality or anything like that. But quality is a devilishly elusive criterion to include in the decision making process. I'm not even in favor of setting requirements on what will be considered a critique, merely that the critiqeur must respond to the submitted text and give an opinion of it ("I couldn't make it past the first page" is certainly a cogent critique of a text, after all). Unless the people simply want to admit that they made no attempt to read the submission at all, I think that any reply based on having read any of the text is sufficient.

And the best part is that it isn't as though going down a few ranks means that you'll be in the slush-pile or whatever, you'll just be with other people that don't have a good record of keeping up with a group. There will probably be more "dabblers" in the lower ranked groups, but any hack can make it into the top ranks eventually.

I'd volunteer to administrate something like that...except that then I couldn't reasonably be a participant, and I'd rather be a participant....

Ah, OK, the 'new' bulletin board is in php. See here: http://www.ubbcentral.com/

Survivor's post was a very clear demonstration of a "focused needy" per my lame 'classification'. Can't someone say it better? Please?

I have put together a few rough layouts of a web design which would support groups as well as a general feedback section. Stories could be submitted online in a secure system that would allow feedback to be dropped into the story where it needed to go.

The biggest problem with this whole idea...I don't know if I could write it myself in time for it to be usefull. The security would have to be solid, as well as a "agreement" that would protect the writers from loosing first publication problems.

The other problem for me is time. Large projects take too much time to make work. At the moment I would rather write stories. (Well, learning grammar isn't an overnight process either.)

The basic concept was to limit submissions based on critiques. A point system that limited submissions based on the number of critiques. If anyone wants to build it I'd be happy to provide all the details.

It is a shame that so many groups fail, when they can have great value. No matter how frustrating they are sometimes, they have value to anyone who is serious.

The problem is that while I can respect intelligence, I have difficulty respecting the opposite quality, which is usually what motivates my "loyal opposition". Really, the only useful role of a loyal opposition is to play devil's advocate, and I can do that just fine myself (or at least I can do it better than anyone else I've ever met).