https://play.ht/articles/ca4e9728f5e2

I left a writer’s group when I couldn’t take one more week of their critiques. In fact, I even abandoned the project I was working on because I had listened to each of their advice and turned it into something that no longer made sense to me. I can now tell, two things were wrong: I stayed too long, and I listened to all the advice, even the ones that didn’t fit my work.

I listened to them because I hadn’t published anything and they had. I figured I could learn from their expertise in the writing craft. Each week was more draining than the next, and while I made ‘kind sandwiches’ with their projects — put two things that worked for me on the bread slides and what didn’t in the middle — their sandwiches had stale bread that was rough and rude.

Nonetheless, I kept at it with my kind sandwiches because I figured, eventually, they would catch on and do the same as me. Don’t get me wrong. Some did give me a ‘kind sandwich’ when they critiqued my work, but most didn’t. Perhaps I’m more sensitive than I care to admit, or maybe I was just in a too advanced group, but their feedbacks depleted me. They felt like bombs going off from the first sentences with no reprieve until nothing was left in the field. It was like a hole on the ground from a nuclear weapon. Some left a little flower, though.

I know I’m being dramatic, but I don’t think some people understand its gravity. This was a story grafted from me, part of me. A gift I shared with my critique partners so they may help polish it and make it shine better than before, not for them to trash it and throw mud at it.

Why did I stay so long?

I believe in second, third, and fourth chances, but I also think that sometimes I need to be an example if I am to demand the behavior. Week after week, I held my tongue and modeled this behavior. At one point, I stopped submitting chapters and just critique, I figured I could get better at giving feedback since the writing was not getting any better.

My saving grace

But one day worked became too hectic, and right before I would start class on the MFA Creative Writing program, I’m currently attending, I asked for a break from the group because I wouldn’t be able to turn in critiques once a week.

It was such a change with me during that pause. My husband noticed it, I was not wound up every Friday through Sunday. I didn’t lament over how bad my writing was at night. Even though I was swamped at work and starting school for the first time in three years, I was so at peace and relaxed. After that break, I never went back.

During one of my classes in the MFA program, when it was time for critiques, I caught a headache thinking about it. I gritted my teeth before pressing submit. While I waited for the feedback, I paced back and forth, deciding whether to log on and read the replies. But when I finally opened the post and read the critiques, I didn’t feel a zing. Don’t get me wrong; not all feedback was positive, nor was all negative, but they all were devoid of emotional language that would have made those words sting like the zing from a slap to the face.

Here’s why it worked

These formalized critiques had strings attached in the form of criteria that must be met to earn a grade. Our parameters were this: “Write a 500-word critique addressing the texts posted by your peers. Each critique should take the form of a letter, use a professional peer-to-peer tone, and stick closely to the text, discussing the techniques the writer used. Feel free to quote the author if that makes it easier to point out sections you admire or struggled with. A good way to phrase your criticism is to talk about the writing in terms of what works (and why) and what doesn’t work (and why).” (National University, fiction seminar)

Do you see how unemotional are the instructions? Reread it if you must.

When all the emotion stayed out of the critique, it didn’t zing anymore. It was so weird. Even when another student admitted to not reading the genre I was writing, it didn’t hurt me. Because that was something, she admitted so I can understand her feedback may lack genre-specific detail. However, she gave me productive feedback on clarity and distinguishing characters from one another when they are in the same scene. I was able to integrate not just in that chapter but others as well.

The environment the professor created for us pushed the students to be professional and respectful to each other. I admit that the consequence of a lousy grade helped enforce these rules, but the experience can be mimicked not just in the classroom but also in any other environment. However, as long as in a critique group, there is someone who enforces the rules, and there is a motivator for writers to stick to the rules, a critique group can be a healthy community that makes an author’s writing better, and propel growth.

Lessons Learned

I also learned from my professor that I don’t have to follow every advice the classmates or she gives us. She told us that in the first week, “my say is not the final say, and neither is your classmates. If it doesn’t fit your style, narrative, or story, you don’t have to use it.” Gosh, I wish I wouldn’t have known that before.

I would add size as a factor to success in these teams from my observation of writing groups. The group I left was huge, and it was growing more. With a big size, unless there’s a lot of admins and all the admins give the same quality oversight, a writing group can quickly turn into a troll factory.

I know I’m sensitive about my writing because I put my heart out there. Write what you know is exactly what I do, but I was taught long ago when evaluating performance to start with the positive, and if you didn’t see a positive, look harder.

I didn’t know it then, but with that bit of information, my mentor taught me how to nourish growth in those around me. He called this servant leadership. I tried to follow that guidance in the critique group I left, but it got to a point where it was sucking the joy and peace away from me.

I still practice servant leadership both at work and at school. I don’t coddle feedback, I simply look for something that works, and point it out first. But I don’t talk about personalities or likes. Instead, I focus on behavior and the writing craft. Because when I do the former instead of the latter, people get defensive and fight back. But wouldn’t you? If someone told you how awful you are?

When I become defensive, I tune the other person out. To the point where I don’t hear or remember anything they say. This is my defense mechanism. In the writing group I left, I wasn’t getting anything out of it because I was tunning them out, merely going through the motions, making the changes on my work, but not really listening to their feedback. I wasn’t growing as a writer.

I’m happy I left the group, I don’t have time for online vampires. I enjoy them better in books. I still have my classmates, giving me fantastic feedback as we work through the program, and I found a supportive writer on twitter to exchange chapters.