by Tosh McIntosh

The original purpose of this “Testimonials” category of posts was to provide members of NIP-Austin with a way to share with other members, and more specifically potential members, personal observations regarding their experience of participating in a writers’ group. A few members responded with contributions, but for the most part my objective has remained unfulfilled.

This morning while rummaging around in the dusty corridors of my personal blog, I stumbled across the following post written on Sunday, May 11, 2011, eight years after joining NIP. And after reading it for the first time since then, I decided to post it here as the 12th anniversary of my NIP participation approaches.

I’ve made a few edits to the original, but the content remains unchanged, and I want to point out one comment in the post that while still valid with regard to writers’ groups in general, does not in my opinion reflect the NIP of today. It’s in the next to last paragraph, and I think you’ll recognize it when you see it. (Especially since I put it in italics . . .)

To Group Or Not To Group–by Tosh McIntosh

This afternoon I will suffer the slicing and dicing of scalpels in the autopsy procedure known as Roundtable when fellow members of the Novel-in-Progress (NIP) group of Austin review 25 pages of Red Line, the second of a planned series that begins with Pilot Error.

I joined NIP-Austin in early 2003 when I felt my progress in learning the craft had stagnated and I needed to break free from the confines of my writing desk. The following thoughts provide a personal retrospective of eight years in the group.

Each writer has to determine whether a group serves a useful purpose. This raises a fundamental question as to whether you care what anyone else thinks. Assuming you do, or you are willing to explore the possibility, the next question is whether you should discuss your novel with anyone until it is complete at least in first draft. Some writers think that’s a mistake, and you should create your novel in isolation and seek comments from others only during the editing process with subsequent drafts.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Pilot Error was complete when I joined NIP, but Red Line isn’t. Today will be my third roundtable, which means 75 pages out of about 250 written so far will have been critiqued. I participate in a smaller group as well, however, so all of the incomplete Red Line manuscript has been reviewed by others at least once. In the case of both novels, however, the experience has been positive enough to continue participating.

Like any social entity, each writers’ group has a distinct character that changes over time, and individual writers need a group compatible with their personality and interests. The most basic criteria is the difference between what I might choose to call a fluff group, in which the primary objective is to participate in a mutual admiration society, and a true critique group.

These are my personal distinctions, of course, and they result from my belief that it serves no useful purpose to hear anyone else validate what I already think. If I don’t feel the pages I submit are good, why would I submit them? The most benefit derives from being challenged to re-evaluate what I’ve written. Then it’s up to me to decide what to do with the critiques.

Roundtable comments exist on a continuum. At one end there’s what I might call a light-bulb moment. A reviewer might say something that resonates with you to the point that you can’t wait to get home and incorporate it. At the other end resides the bogus comment, something you feel deserves an immediate trip to the trash. Most of the positive roundtable experience for me involves the middle ground with comments and suggestions that I end up incorporating in whole or in part after further consideration.

Comments also vary by how often you hear them. Some are offered only once, receive no support from other members of the group, and are often the ones the most easy to reject. But one member can also see something no one else does, and it becomes an item you immediately accept because it needs no supporting opinion. Unanimous comments are the hardest to reject because if the group is good enough to stay with, widely held opinions carry the weight of authority that you have already accepted as beneficial by choosing to participate.

When I joined NIP-Austin, I anticipated the primary benefit would be derived from my own Roundtables. That has not proven to be the case. The basic reason is that much more time is spent reviewing other writers’ material than in being reviewed, and my long-term participation is due to the fact that I have learned as much or more by writing critiques than receiving them. Four distinct factors, none of which I could have predicted, serve to illustrate the point.

First, very few of my writer friends have much personal interest in commercial genre fiction. To critique my submissions, they have to depart their comfort zone and vice versa. This fundamental difference requires a different approach to both writing reviews and receiving them. To my surprise, forcing myself to critique something I would never buy for my own reading pleasure, but with the commitment to provide the most useful comments I can, might well have taught me more than if I were reading a mystery/thriller. The requirement to get outside myself is a prime source of valuable lessons.

Second, the fact that a room full of writers can all read the same 25 pages and come up with such a variety of valuable things to say about them has never ceased to amaze me. “Why didn’t I see that?” is a common personal reaction to the comments of other reviewers.

Third, while Roundtable discussions appear at first glance to be the heart of any group, in reality the associations developed outside the group provide even more benefit. Identifying a few writers as critique buddies with whom you can trade material on a regular basis is the only way to be reviewed with sufficient frequency to directly enhance your own writing.

And finally, the most important contribution to maximizing the benefits of a writers’ group experience is leaving your ego at home. If you don’t have a thick skin, you won’t last very long, especially since some reviewers are less able than others to distinguish between what they say and how they say it. That’s reality, and you either deal with it or the experience will be more trouble than it’s worth.

At eight years and counting, I’m a writers’ group junkie with no plans to go cold turkey.

Approaching twelve years and counting, that statement is more true than ever.