Writer’s Groups: Negatives—When to Stay Away or Jump Ship

Issue #31, Writer's Groups 3 of 4

Oct 01, 2024

Last issue painted a glowing picture of writer’s groups (or WG, for use in this 4-part series), but it’s not all roses. I believe that WG are absolutely worth it, but…if you’re not in the right one, it can do more harm than good. Let’s peek at the other side of the coin and see why.

Writer’s Groups: Con – Overall

In addition to the positive comments in Claire McMurray’s Praxis abstract cited in Writing Rhythm Issue #30, she cautions that writing groups “…are only beneficial if participants decide to join one, stay in it, and are satisfied with the outcome.”

In “The Pitfalls of Writing Groups and How to Avoid Them” on Linkedin, M.J. Morton says:

“…a mismanaged group can be overly judgmental. It can derail a writer’s current work in progress (WIP), encouraging them to take wrong turns on their book’s journey and make unnecessary revisions.”

Author and speaker Judy Bodmer warns writers to identify and avoid bad groups in her article, “Dangerous Critique Groups.”

For me, the most negative aspect I’ve encountered involves personality conflict and drama. I’ve been in more than one writing group which crashed and burned because of such shenanigans.

Amy Wallen’s OC Register article “A Deliciously Cautionary Tale About Writing Groups” covers the comedy angle of this problem, wonderfully cartooned (below) by Emil Wilson.

In her blog article “Eight Things That Can Push a Group Over to the Dark Side” Anne R. Allen goes on to suggest a few additional personalities who are prone to haunt writing groups:

· The Grammar Taliban (if you listen to them, your work will end up sounding like a high school term paper).

· Power Trippers (who insist it’s mandatory that the writer being critiqued must make the changes they suggest) [See “The Question of the Month” in Writing Rhythm Issue #30!].

· Praiseaholics (to them, any string of words typed onto a piece of paper is genius).

· Co-Authors (who are sooooo helpful they’ll try to re-write your story entirely—to sound exactly like one of theirs).

The truth is, after years of attending various groups, I DO recognize those characters. These stereotypes have a lot of truth, as stereotypes often do, and it’s one inevitable bit of baggage you’ll find in WG. And it’s not the only one.

List of Negatives on Writing Groups

1) Potential disagreements on the degree of socializing.

2) Differing levels of experience mean mismatched critiques.

3) Similarly, too much variety in genres is not a good fit.

4) Writing groups generally run on reciprocation, thus you might feel you’re spending too much time on other writers’ material.

5) Critiques can be either brutally tough or too wimpy and lightweight.

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Remember the Ignited Ink chart (again, Writing Rhythm Issue #30) describing good writer’s groups? Well, here’s how to ID the bad ones:

If you see most or all of these traits, I’d suggest you walk away. When something (anything) is that broke, you probably can’t fix it.

I realize I’ve just presented a boatload of downsides, but I encourage you to balance them out in your mind with the positives from issue #30, apply ratiocination (the process of reasoned thinking) and decide for yourself if WG are for you.

Despite having personally experienced a number of these negatives, I still feel the advantages far outweigh the problems. If you write, I absolutely encourage you to consider a group, though you will have to work to find or create a functional one. But that’s for next issue.

It’s buffing-up-your-vocabulary time. You might have to think and think hard about this one (it’s another five-syllable mouthful, introduced just above).