#critique circle

[hyperions-light]

Hello! I am once again offering spots in my creative writing workshop, which I base on similar workshops I took in college.

It will be:

On Discord

Take 8 weeks

Take approximately 1.5 hours a session, once a week.

Negotiable things:

Timing. The group will decide together what time would work best for everyone, and I will move the workshop to accommodate.

Price. If you can afford to pay me, I would appreciate it, as it allows me to justify the time commitment. However, if you cannot, I understand and am happy to have you in the workshop, regardless =)

What will happen:

We will go over some writing advice in the first session, and we will discuss how to analyze and annotate a text. I will show you how to critique a piece, and then we will begin critiquing the work of each member in the group, at two pieces per week.

What you need:

The ability to commit time. It is important that everyone in the workshop do their best to be a team player and provide their fellow participants with thoughtful critique. If you believe that you will not have the time to commit to the weekly sessions + that work at present, please consider joining a different session of the workshop.

A piece less than or equal to 5k words that you would like critiqued. You may write this for the workshop or use any previous piece that you would like feedback on and are intending to develop further.

Willingness to take (polite, constructive) criticism. This workshop is aimed at helping people grow their writing skills, so critical feedback will be provided from myself and your fellow participants. If you are not interested in that at this time, please consider joining a different session of the workshop.

English proficiency. You do not need to be a native speaker or have prior workshop/writing experience, but I am not qualified to teach ESL, so a grasp of English is required.

If you would like to have a spot in this workshop, please contact me on this post or via DMs. There are currently 6/8 spots open.

If you have any further questions about the workshop, you can check out this post, or you can contact me on Tumblr =)

Thank you for your interest!

[addicted2coke-theothercoke]

Starting to enjoy Critique Circle a lot less now that I'm getting critiqued, a lot of these people are assholes

I'm pretty blunt, which, comes off as mean sometimes when not intended, but I always tried to help the people I'm critiquing tell the story they wanted to tell

I never told them to remove entire paragraphs cause I didn't like them

I never told them the way they wanted to tell the story was too passive or too metaphoric

I never told I said not to do something because it's been done before, as though everything hasn't before

I never compared other people to giant authors like Steven King and was disappointed when they weren't as good

And I never told people their stories weren't good because they weren't as good as something by Steven King

This is a place where writers can help out other writers. It's not a place where retired assholes trash your for a thousand words, then decide they can't even be bothered to finish it

[emeraldspiral]

[candlelitwriting]

I want to start a writing group/critique circle online with 10 people max. If I did, would anyone be interested in joining? Where could we do it?

[alyceballarini-blog]

Looking for more blogs to follow!

I’ve gotten more serious with my writing lately and am in the process of finding more writing blogs to follow; If you post basically anything writing related (references, prompts, NaNoWriMo, etc) - like this post, please! 

[writinginvirginia]

Getting Critiques on Your Work

I know it’s hard sometimes to find people to critique or beta read your work, especially finding multiple people. I found a really great website that allows you to post your work one chapter at a time and get multiple critiques. (It’s FREE, unless you want to pay for extra perks through premium, but I found it wasn’t worth it.)

Critique Circle

It works through credits; you get credits by critiquing other peoples work, and then you use those credits to post your own. It’s a solidly positive community of people who are there to genuinely improve themselves, and help others along the way, too. Some people are more blunt than others, but I never had any nasty criticism; all of the comments I received were written with my best interest in mind. That might not be everyone’s experience, but I haven’t heard differently. I even found a fabulous critique partner on there (who is so much more amazing than I am. I am literally getting my grammatical ass handed to me. I don’t deserve them.) 

It’s also super fun to read other people’s work (and helpful too.) You begin to notice things about your own work (or at least I did.) There’s everything from casual short stories, to heart felt memoirs, and novels from published writers. 

I have nothing negative to say about it, and I think you should all try it out. I was so nervous the first time I posted my work; I literally had to have my sister-in-law read the first comment I received to make sure it wasn’t scathing, (It wasn’t. It was actually super nice and amazingly helpful.)

[hyperions-light]

Writing Workshop Master Post

What is it?

A writing workshop lasting approximately seven weeks (barring complications), where we go over and practice critiquing a work, and then you provide a piece that is 5,000 words or less for the entire group to give you feedback on.

Where is it?

I run it through a private Discord server.

How much does it cost?

It's free! I'm doing this to provide access to this service for people who want to improve their writing skills without spending a lot of money. I do ask that if you join the workshop and are in a financial position to do so, you consider contributing a suggested donation of $50 (or whatever you can spare) to my ko-fi after your workshop day has passed. (I want to make sure you get something useful out of it first, though!) However, if you aren't able to do that, I understand, and it's still perfectly fine for you to participate!

Further details under the cut!

How long does it take, and when is it?

It takes approximately an hour and a half each time, and we are currently doing it on Sundays at noon MST. If the group would like to pick another date/time, I can likely accommodate it.

Who is allowed to participate?

Any adult who is fluent in reading and writing English is free to join. You do not need to be a native speaker. I have no desire to lock participation to English-speaking countries, but the topics covered in ESL classes are very different from those that I cover, and I don't feel qualified to teach that sort of curriculum. You do not need to be part of the Dragon Age or BW fandoms to join. If you are under the age of majority in the country where you live, please talk to me and we'll see if we can work something out. Some pieces submitted for critique may handle adult subject matter, so special accommodations/permissions may need to be arranged.

What information will you go over?

Close reading, providing helpful critique, how to give feedback to other people that is useful and well-received, how to line-edit a piece, how to write a critique letter, and some general writing tips.

How many people will be in each workshop?

I think I will stick with eight!

How do I sign up?

I will not start a new workshop until the current one is over, but if you know you want to participate, please contact me on Tumblr or ko-fi and I will reserve a spot for you in the next one. I will contact you and send you a survey when the previous workshop ends; if the timing is inconvenient for you, but you still want to do it, let me know and I can ask you later! If you want to, you can contact me right now!

Other writing workshops cost a lot more money. Are they overcharging me?

NO. This is an extraordinary amount of work, and I have no desire to devalue the services that other people provide in this space. I am doing this for comparatively little because I have a deeply held belief that people should have access to education, regardless of their economic circumstances.

Do I have to come to every single session?

Ideally, you should attend every session. The first two are necessary to participate in the rest of the course; if you can't make it to one of those two for any reason, please contact me and I'll see if we can figure out a time to make it up. However, the strength of the workshop is in the participants and the community of writers; the more people are present to give their opinions, the better each critique will be. Please try to come to as many meetings as possible, so that everyone can have a useful and fun critique!

I want to emphasize that this workshop does involve actual critical feedback of your work, and the participants will provide suggestions for improvement. However, I also expect all participants to be respectful and polite to one another, and to offer their critique with the author's goals in mind. If anyone cannot follow these guidelines, they will be asked to leave.

I have more questions! Where can I ask?

You can always contact me on Tumblr via asks or DMs, if you have any questions!

Thank you for your interest! Hope to see you all in workshop!

[hyperions-light]

Do you like writing? Maybe? Is it fun, sometimes? Do you know what's more fun? Doing writing with other people! But sometimes it's hard to find those people. Don't worry, I'll do it for you! =)

Key Points:

Doing a writing workshop from the beginning of May through the second week of June.

Meets once a week for an hour and a half. The day/time is negotiable, depending on the group

It's free (if you can afford to pay me, I appreciate it, but you don't have to!)

You don't need a certain level of writing or editing experience, just English proficiency

You'll get one of your pieces critiqued by the entire group. There is a word limit of 5k (but only because it'd be too much work, otherwise! I love you, longfic writers <3)

You will be receiving critical (but polite) feedback, aimed at helping you make your piece the best it can be!

Each workshop will consist of 6-8 people

More information is available here

If you want to sign up, reply to this post or contact me via asks/DMs on Tumblr !

At the end of it, hopefully you'll have a group of people whose feedback you trust, and you can write with in the future! Let's have fun and build writing community =)

Right now I have 8/8 spaces open for this workshop!

Will reblog with updates as spaces fill up!