Beta Readers vs. Writing Groups vs. Workshopping (PART ONE): A Personal Guide to Getting Feedback (and How to Avoid Disaster)

Be careful what you share, how, and when. (And why I feel this way.)

Photo by Redd F on Unsplash

TODAY’S INSTALLMENT: THE WRITING GROUP (check back next week for thoughts on Beta Readers)

I have complicated feelings about when and how to get feedback on a new manuscript or piece of writing that I’m drafting. Getting feedback too early, or from the wrong sources, or from too many sources, can be disastrous. I’ve learned this from experience.

The question becomes, of course: how to know when you’re ready for feedback, and then, how to know who to go to for that feedback?

I’ll start with a brief story from early in my writing career. I joined a writers’ group that met once a month to read people’s work. I joined it because I’d recently become a published writer, and I thought this was what all writers did. There were five people in the group. When it was my turn to share pages, I shared the first 40 pages of a new novel that I was really excited about.

My experience of getting feedback from that writers’ group nearly completely derailed that novel—a book that eventually became my third published novel by the way. Yet I almost decided not to finish it.

Let me be clear: the people in the group were all wonderful friends and fantastic writers themselves, and it’s not as though their feedback on my novel was mean and nasty or devastating. But it doesn’t take devastating feedback to derail you, either, and this is the thing I want to emphasize.

But the problem for me was several-fold:

1.     I was too early in the process of working on that novel to receive feedback.

2.     I received too much feedback at once—and it was ALL CONFLICTING.

3.     I wasn’t ready for critique on my characters/plot—even small critiques wrecked my confidence, and confidence is essential for getting through that first draft.

Luckily, after several weeks of wallowing, I pushed those well-intentioned voices aside, opened the doc for the novel again, and continued onward. And I did seek feedback again on it—of course I did! Because feedback is important. It’s crucial and helpful and essential, when the timing is right. And the timing is *not* always right.

But I learned a lot from that experience, which made me more careful with my next book. And this one learning experience has made all the difference in my writing career.

All this to say: just because it’s important to get feedback on your book or essay or short story before you send it off somewhere, doesn’t mean that at any and every point in your writing process you need to go looking for feedback.

Both YOU and YOUR PROJECT must be ready for that stage.

We all need to be careful WHEN and HOW and FROM WHOM we seek feedback, and from HOW MANY PEOPLE we seek feedback.

There is such a thing as too much feedback. (I will do a post on this soon, and also the pro’s and con’s of having your writing formally workshopped.)

There is also such a thing as too early feedback.

ALSO: Not all of us are cut out for being in a writing group. For some of us, it’s wonderful. But it’s not for everybody and I don’t think it’s for me, for all the reasons I mention above. And I’ve come to accept that this is totally fine. I don’t like to get feedback really early on because it can derail my desire to keep working on the book I’m drafting. I also kind of meltdown when I get too much feedback at once. And critique too early on can make me lose the plot so to speak—I lose confidence in what I had planned, and start wondering if I should just abandon ship.

What I learned?

I’m an INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK kind of writer. I don’t want feedback from an entire group. I go to people one by one by one—usually 3-4 max. (More on Beta Readers and how to choose them next week.) I also have learned that I have different kinds of needs depending on where I am in drafting this project.

Here are some things I think about/try to assess when I ask people to read for me:

Do I just need cheerleading?

Sometimes I just need someone to read a quarter or half the draft and tell me: YES! Keep going! Do this, Donna! I need to know from another person that the project is worth finishing—that is it. And it’s fine to need this kind of feedback. It can help me get things done.

Am I stuck and need to brainstorm?

Sometimes I don’t know if something is working, or I can’t decide on this or that turn in the narrative, or if this should happen, or I can’t figure out what should happen next. This is always a great time for me to get feedback. It can get me unstuck and moving again.

Or am I ready for the real, true, substantive feedback?

Because my draft is finally done, and now I’m ready for the hard work of revision.

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One last note on groups, specifically: THE WRITERS’ SUPPORT GROUP

This entire fall, via this substack actually, I’ve been running a program called The 90 Day Novel/Memoir, but really, it’s become a writers’ support group. A kind of accountability group. Every two weeks we meet, check in on our projects and where we currently are, we discuss what we’re struggling with, and sometimes people bring a question or quandary to the group and we talk it through, trouble shoot it. Sometimes we talk about books we’re reading too, or just laugh about stuff. We also talk about tricks for getting unblocked, for getting words onto the page (the pro’s of using timers has been a favorite topic of discussion among us, for instance.)

We encourage each other, most of all.

I have to say, I really, really love it and everyone in it. I’ve found it to be productive and motivating, and it’s taught me that not all writer’s groups need to be critique groups. Which I think I’m going to ponder more in the future, since I have to say, this feels kind of revolutionary to me.

Because I love the community, and writerly community is truly the best.

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Do *YOU* love a writers’ critique group? Or as you like me and you’ve learned you’re not a good candidate? I’d love to hear people’s different experiences if you care to share.