Why join a writing group?

Why not to join a writing group

The first time I tried joining a writing group was nearly twenty years ago. I wasn’t sure why I was joining, or what to expect - someone had just suggested it might help. I made contact with the organiser, who seemed pleasant enough (if a little Miss Haversham-esque) and got a lift to their house out in the wilds of Cambridgeshire. At the time I didn’t drive, and there were no bus routes between our distant villages, so it wasn’t particularly accessible for me. That every meeting – one a month – was held at a different member’s house made it even more difficult and awkward. But not as difficult or awkward as the meeting itself.

You know that feeling when, as a stranger and newcomer to a group, you can immediately sense underlying tensions, unspoken issues? That evening my spidey-senses were on high alert, sat in a small front room waiting for something organised to happen as a handful of people tried and failed to make small talk. I remember a couple of readings, poetry and prose (though I don’t remember anything of their quality, and one of them was just a book someone had been reading), some congratulatory comments given with a certain hesitance, but nothing of real substance to support the writers in further amends or future work, and most of all a feeling of general unease.

Maybe it was just me – like many writers, I’m an introvert so fitting into a group always requires getting to know the individuals better before I can fully integrate with the group.  But this group seemed to have issues fitting in with itself, and certainly no clear organisation in terms of an agenda or premise for the meeting. It was more “bring some writing, maybe read it out and hear people say something nice about it”. Not really what I was looking for, and definitely not worth using up the goodwill of a friend to get me to wherever it happened to be meeting every few weeks.

So what makes a good writing group, and what can it give you as a writer?

Since moving to Colchester, I’ve been fortunate enough to have found much more supportive and better organised writing group. Before I joined, I already had a clear idea about what I wanted this time.

During my MA Creative Writing at ARU, ten years ago now, 360 feedback proved to be the most valuable part of the course. Two different members would submit a piece of writing each week, then listen (sworn to silence) while our fellow students each gave their critical analysis of it. At first it was daunting, but by the time I graduated I had become so reliant on it that the absence of feedback on my work was a gaping black hole. Hearing these different viewpoints wasn’t just helpful – it had become vital for my work.

So what I wanted from a writing group was exactly this: other writers who would read my work and give me feedback (the most valuable gift we can give each other), and the chance to sharpen my own critical faculties by reading and feeding back on theirs (in turn improving my critical thinking on my own projects). Preferably in well-organised, good natured and hopefully even fun meetings.

So when I joined Scribbles back in Summer of 2022, I was delighted to find exactly this. They had a proper system in place to ensure substantial feedback for each member – the same in fact as the MA classes. Each week, two of us submit a piece of writing (usually up to 4,000 words, in any genre or form we happen to be working with), and the rest of us will feed back our comments in orderly rotation. It isn’t overly rigid - others (including the writer) can respond when they have something important to add, but crucially, everybody always gives time, respect and consideration to each other’s comments.

Discussions (and quite often hilarity) often break out as we consider each other’s viewpoints, and explore what it’s like for them as a reader as well as a writer.

And that’s the benefit I wasn’t expecting: because we have such a wide range of experience in the group in terms of both reading and writing, the viewpoints are very wide-ranging themselves. Sometimes they’re even conflicting, giving the writer a chance to hear others debating their work, further helping them consolidate or change their own ideas and plans.

Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t writing by committee. The writer will take all these comments, discussions and ideas away with them to shape their piece independently (if they think it helpful, which it usually is – particularly when concensus is achieved about a particular point).

And of course, you get the pleasure of reading other people’s works in progress - all blessed with the same range of different styles and genres as the crits, further broadening your reading experience too.

Multiplicity of viewpoints

This multiplicity of viewpoints really shines light on your work from angles you might never have expected. Sometimes you’ll think “No, that’s not relevant – that’s not what my piece is about”. Sometimes you’ll think “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” And others it will be “Hmmm, I need to go and think about this a lot more, and figure out exactly what I’m doing with it before I know which of these comments are actually useful.”

These comments not only range in opinion but in focus as well. Typos, imagery, pacing, characterisation, plotting, narrative voice, dialogue, location, themes – everyone has their own priorities when reading, so the full gamut of what makes a story gets tossed back and forth.  Our discussions have ranged from how to make a dystopian authority seem convincingly effective without being impossible to overcome to the most convincing name for a fictional Essex village. And you always learn something new – no matter how irreverent! We’ve talked about different bird types, Nordic myths, satirical afterlifes, the catering industry, life in the Middle East, gender identity – I could fill an entire blog with the subjects we’ve touched on, thanks to our varied interests.

For a writer, this kind of interactivity from readers is what we crave for our writing as an end result. But to get it during the writing process, when we can still shape it, talk about it  and build upon it? That’s gold dust.

If you’re a writer feeling that isolation and uncertainty that we all get at some point when working alone, I would highly recommend seeking out a good writing group. But do it carefully – make sure it’s right for you: the individual members, the energy of the group  and the processes they have in place for meeting up and feeding back. Your writing is too valuable to risk exposing to an unsupportive and disorderly environment. But with the right one, you’ll see it improve faster than you could ever achieve alone.

Get in touch

And if you’re in the Colchester area, why not try our Scribbles writing group? You can get in touch with us through our Facebook page.

This isn’t a plug – we have more than enough members to ensure the integrity of our work. Think of it as a helping hand reaching out if you’re struggling to write in isolation. So what do we get out of it then? Well, your own unique perspective and valuable feedback as a reader/writer, of course!