How to run an Author Critique Group

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Critique or writers groups: Some writers swear by them, others view them with disdain, and I have met many folks who have just had awful experiences with them. Many successful authors label them unnecessary, which probably makes sense for them — if you have a dozen or more books under your belt, you should have honed your craft to a fine point.

I don’t need a group — I have beta readers.

Excellent. Beta readers are a necessity, but you want two types of feedback on your work. Beta readers should ideally be non-writers, and you are relying upon their input as a prospective reader. Is your book fun, exiting, boring, predictable, etc.? A writers group, however, should provide intense feedback on your craft — POV shifts, grammar, bad transitions, stereotype characters, tense, sentence and paragraph construction, etc. A good critiquer shouldn’t even have to like your genre or style to assist you in improving your writing skills.

So, what does a writers group look like anyway?

There are probably as many formats as there are writers, but let’s examine the typical criteria:

Location

• Face-to-face: Members get together, typically at one of the member’s houses, or round-robin’ing so that no one person has the sole burden of hosting. Some groups prefer neutral…