posted
Critters has good points and bad points. Basically, they both boil down to the fact that the process is somewhat mechanical and you don't really get to know anyone. They may have changed that some. It's been a while since I tried it.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Critters is fantastic for one reason: critiquing as much fiction as possible will make you a better writer. It puts a requirement on you to keep critiquing (one story per week, minimum, to keep in good standing). I've never actually put anything up for critique, so I can't tell you about that. I do know that, if you write a shorter piece, you will almost receive too many critiques on it. I was a member for several months before grad school hit me, and hit me hard.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Apr 2002
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it is mechanical and it was too much for me when my writerly ego was not as tough as it is now
Posts: 2710 | Registered: Jul 2004
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It's not perfect, but I like it quite a bit.
I've been on it since June 04. Besides cycling short stories through I've been through the RFDR (dedicated readers) to the first 30,000 words of my "novel". Five people read and gave me very frank and useful feedback.
The drawbacks for me: (1) It feels like it takes forever for anything to hit the queue.
(2) Critting a story under 2000 words earns half a credit, I've no problem with that. However, everything over 2000 words earns one credit. Be it 3000, 5000, 10000, 20000...
If you don't RFDR novel length work, to get a good number of readers, submitting a few chapters at a time works best. Somewhere in the 3000 to 5000 word range. However doing this in six week intervals, becomes impratical. Of course, it does help with gauging the critical first three chapters.
The credit earning rules are there for a reason, to influence behavor so a writer is encouraged to produce a short in the optimal 2000 to 5000 word range.
I'm also on CritiqueCircle, but I have found that they are too nice. I've tested it. Stories that CritiqueCircle told me were great upon great, got slammed on Critters. So Critters will offer a honest, if brutal assessment.
posted
I joined Critters in August, and no, Survivor, it hasn't changed since. It's still mechanical, and you don't really get to know people, at least from my experience. But as Survivor pointed out, it's also a good point, since you don't get friendly enough to feel like not slamming at the other (which can be a problem of a lot of crit circles out there). I agree it takes forever to get a crit of something, but this may not be a bad point, since it forces you to reassess it after you've got the necessary distance from it. That said, it's obviously bad for first readers. A good thing is that it does force you to crit regularly. I haven't received feedback on anything, so I can't gauge that.
I'm also a member of the SF Online Writing Workshop (it's a paying one). It's not bad (you get credit for each crit you post, and you need four crits to post something of yours). You usually get crits within 2-3 days, and you get to know people (your regular crit partners). Drawbacks are that there's good and bad advice (like everywhere) that it's hard to sub anything over 7500 words because you need to cut it into two pieces (two separate subs), that you don't get that many crits (I get an average of 3-4), and that not everyone returns crits.
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Well, the reason why I'm asking is because I'm a member of a crit group called Muse It Up Club. There are four of us right now--but there have been as many as five. There is a schedule and only one of us subs per week, and it can only be up to 2000 words. The rest crit that week. It works fairly well, at least I get three people looking at my story--and that's better than none. The drawback is only hearing back once a month. I've tried to submit sections of my novel, but for a 60,000 word novel to be fully critiqued at this rate, it'll be 30 months. And that's if I only sub portions of my novel and never anything else.
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