I am looking for people interested in joining a critique group. The purpose of this group is to help improve the writing of holyworlders through creating a reliable network of critiquers. As writers, we can very easily become absorbed in creating, but we also need objective eyes to give us the perspective needed to make our work better. I've found the best way to do this is to set up a system of critiquing in return for others critiques of your work.

On top of our new guidelines for posting in the Fireside (area where you request critiques), I would like to get a group of holyworlders to join the critique group in an effort to increase editing activity so people can start getting published. This is our goal right? That's my goal, and I know I can't do it by myself. I need your help to edit and in turn I understand others need help as well editing their writing.

Right now I'm proposing a three week submission cycle. The length of submissions is debatable after I see how many and who is interested. I was once in a group that just had you submit 1k words and then everyone that submitted had to critique 3-4k total from the other 3-4 people that submitted. I liked this because it was reasonable - I mean who can't write 1k words in 3 weeks? Plus, 3-4k worth of critiquing is enough responsibility without being overwhelming (as long as you don't wait till the last minute). Then the day after the critiques were due we had our writing meeting where we discussed each piece, pros slightly less than cons just so we could be the most helpful.

The only two questions I need you to answer right now are:
1) Do you have writing that needs edited?
and
2) Are you willing to help others with your editing eyes in return for theirs?

The details can be worked out in the discussion thread in the Fireside (here). Please join me, I see Christ being glorified in sharper writing as a result.

I wish I could help with this, as I love editing and exchanging critique, but I need to clean out my current backlog of "files to read for friends" before I sign up. Wishing you the best with this, and hope I can join in later!

We understand Phily. You keep doing what you're doing. We'd love to have you whenever you're ready.

I would kind of like to join the critique group. The biggest problem for me would be that I don't feel like I'm very good at giving critique. Proofreading, yes. Advice on content and the like...not so much.

On to your questions:



Yes, probably. I don't have a whole lot that I specifically want to edit and clean up, because I have so few things that are actually finished, but I could dig some stuff up.



Yes, but I don't promise to be good at it. *points to first paragraph*

We'd love to have you Miss Falconwing. (Awesome surname btw) Don't worry about not having much to say, just be honest and overtime the critiques you get will convert into helpful advice for others. That's how we all got to the place we are in critiquing.

* We still need to iron out a day and time to meet everyone. I would really prefer Tuesday night, and I'm wondering if this month is too soon. Is the 29th too soon? We'll go extra lite on responsibility this month if we do. All I would ask is for everyone interested to send in the first 500 words (almost wrote pages ) of a story. Then everyone will only have one to critique. When you upload it to Google Docs, put it in this formula: [3_29][Name Sub]Story Name.doc and when you upload a critique [3_29][Name Crit][Author's Name]Story Name.doc

OK?

I've posted my 500 word story intro in Google Docs (here). Please post yours by 3/21 (Monday) so we can have at least a week to do our critiques of one other person's.

Wait- what? How much are we supposed to post?

You probably already have a story you can use for this assignment.

So are we uploading to the Holy Worlds Revision Folder thing or just to Google Docs and posting a link?

Either way works, or you can do both. Same result. We would prefer that you do both.

How many words are we uploading?

The difference is primarily one of the kinds of critique you want. If someone can easily quote the whole piece and give all the critique he wants, you don't have to upload it (I am guessing a rough estimate of the max there would be 500 words or so). If you only want comments on flow, character development, structure, stuff that doesn't require inline comments, you also don't have to upload.

With stuff that you want inline comments on, and are longer than can be easily done all at once in one comment, you should upload it. Does that make sense?

*is now confused and will come back later when her head is clear. *

Jay,
Your comments aren't inline with my thoughts and what I posted above. It sounds like what you were talking about is submissions in general. There is a confusion over what I posted in the submission guidelines and whether that applies to the Critique Group or all submissions for critique, which is what I meant.

What I'm asking for in the March Critique is the first 500 words of a story uploaded into the Revision Folder. The focus this month is just to get people uploading something and not being overwhelmed by too long of a piece to critique.

I'm going to start a thread for each month and people can post their link in that thread.

Oh yes, my apologies. I got confused about what she was asking. Sorry.

*decides to go back and re-read everything everywhere on the Critique Group to try to understand*

eruheran

Eruheran,

Here's the link to this month's thread (here)

Also,
Did I mention I'd like all writers for Triterrus to join the Critique Group? As part of overseeing that project, I want to work with the writers through critiques in our group.

Just a bit of clarification: Triterrus developers are not the same as Triterrus writers. You can be one without being the other. The critique group is good training for the writers, though, so that they can turn out the best quality stuff for the canon.

I think I understand now. If I hadn't read the original planning in the ML Hall I would have been fine

Anyways, you can count me in to this...soon. I'm just finishing up the last 5K words of my story, and after that I have some major content revisions. . .so I'd like to get those done before I get it critiqued. But after that I'd love to get on and help with this! =)

eruheran

Great! Look foward to having you join.

I would be interested in helping to critique. ... The only thing is, I think I'm a little busy right now. I don't currently have anything ready for critiquing, and I'm not real great at proofreading, but I would be glad to help people with characters, point-of-view, plot and things.

Can someone notify me before the next cycle? In the meantime I'll try to read all the info about this group, and hopefully I'll be ready by then.

Thanks

That's fine Camille. Stay tuned for updates on this thread, but for now we will be having the submissions due the third Monday of each month and critiques due before the meeting on the fourth Tuesday. So for this month, submissions were due on the 21st, and critiques will need to be finished before the meeting Tuesday the 29th. We haven't set a time, but it will be around 7pm CST.