After several months drifting without a critique group, I have recently joined two. These groups are very different, and I think I will want to make the most of them both.

The first group I joined is a local Speculative Fiction group. We meet once a month at a bookstore 40 minutes away, and talk Science Fiction and Fantasy. As I work on my SF project, I think this group will be very good for me.

I’ve recently decided to set Space Corp General aside for a while and focus on revising The Flight of Na Pua Lei, so I probably won’t submit anything to this group until after the first of the year, but I expect I’ll still get a lot from the group even without them reading my stuff.

While Science Fiction was the core of my reading as a youth, I’ve been out of it for a while, and it’s good to hear fans of the genre discuss what’s new and hot. It’s also good to read what they write, and hear them critique each other. And critique they do.

Some of the feedback can be downright brutal, but it’s a brutal industry, so hearing that kind of feedback from friends is probably a good thing. And I think I’ll become better at giving critiques by hearing the things they say.

The second group I’ve joined is an online LDS fiction group. Being a thousand miles from the heart of LDS fiction territory, having an online group I can work with is a tremendous asset.

What’s great about having different people read is that everyone seems to notice something different. I’ve very rarely had two people offer contradictory advice. Rather, my readers seem to hone in on different elements of the story, and each comment shows me something different that I failed to catch myself.

I know this post is probably preaching to the choir, but I wanted to add my voice to those advocating the benefits of critique groups, and give a shout out to all of my new critique buddies.

Thanks, and have a great week!

My daughter and I attended our first meeting of the North Texas Speculative Fiction Writers group last night. There was a pretty large turnout – I count 17 from memory. (My daughter counted 19). Not quite the ideal, intimate critique group, but it looked like the system of submitting material a week before and then just doing comments at the meeting was pretty effective.

I thought it was interesting that the only time the group agreed was when one story was universally disliked. All of the other stories had group members who loved them, and group members who hated them. Just like in the real world.

I got the feel that this group was very serious about their writing, which is what I need. They are also very serious about the speculative fiction genre, so hopefully they don’t kick me out if I end up with a three-book deal for my romantic LDS fiction and have to set Space Corp General aside for a while.

The group only meets once a month, which is good for our schedule – especially since the meeting place is 30+ minutes away and the meetings have been known to go as long as 4 hours.

And after the meetings, the group goes across the freeway to Chili’s and parties until closing. Although I recognize the value of socializing, I think we’ll skip that part.

We had our first meeting with the youth-only writer’s group on Thursday, and it went pretty well. Only half of the regular kids showed up, so our numbers were a little sparse, but that gave us a chance to discuss some house-keeping items and still allow everyone to read what they brought.

The kids like writing stuff and reading it to the group, but many of the things they bring are, while quite creative, first drafts that are quite rough. My goal is to try and get them to polish their writing by revising a time or two before bringing it, so our feedback can be a little more helpful.

I think I’ll take the first chapter of my new work next time we meet. It’s middle grade, and most of the kids fall in that age group, so it will be interesting to see what they think about it. I’ve been working away at it, and it’s really quite a refreshing change from my other work.

The feedback on my old manuscript is filtering back in, and I’ll start back into that come February. I’m looking forward to reading the book again with fresh eyes.

Last night, our writing group split in half. It was a planned split, as the group had grown quite big, with a large number of young writers joining recently. As a result, many of the adult writers have turned up missing, so the group’s leader and I decided maybe it was time for two groups – one for youth and the other for adults.

I have agreed to lead the youth section. This works out well, since I bring along Anna, who is IMHO the most talented (and the most rambunctious) of the young people.

I’m both nervous and excited about this endeavor. The kids are all very good and have quite a bit of potential. I’ve learned a lot about what makes good writing, especially in the last couple of years, and I hope I can share this in a positive way with the youngsters.

I plan to lean very hard on the resources I’ve found – notes from the LDStorymaker’s Boot Camp, blogs about writing, and talented authors I’ve met and read.

If you’re going to be in the Dallas area, I’d love to have you come in and talk writing with the group. We’ll be meeting the first and third Thursday of every month.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

It was nice to hit a few mature chapters today, and get a big word count for just a little work. Plus, these are some of my favorite chapters in the book, and it helps to read things I’ve written that I actually like. Restoring hope and all that good stuff.

My scene was well received at the writer’s group last night. Whew! After the dance scene got filleted so badly, (and deservedly so) I was a little gun shy. I still haven’t had the nerve to take that reworked scene back. I need to re-rework it at least one more time before I do.

I learned a lot about how to fix the weak points in my story yesterday, and it didn’t have anything to with the 1325 pages that went from my printer to my beta readers.

No, this insight came from three of the best places to gain writerly knowledge – Kids, Writer’s Groups, and Blogland.

Annette Lyon wrote a great post over at the Writing On The Wall blog talking about Specificity - the way specific details bring a story to life. She accurately pointed out that “writers tend to err on the side of being too vague.” Guilty as charged.

Task one for the next draft – be more specific.

The other lesson I learned involved both a child and a writer’s group. I’m fortunate to have my daughter Anna as a member of our group for many reasons. One thing I noticed during our meeting last night and the conversations that followed is that she is very much like me, and makes many of the same mistakes I do. The thing is, it’s much easier for me to see those mistakes when she makes them.

For example, she read a little piece she had written that involved cryptic text messages from a mysterious stranger seeking help in an underwater excavation, and requesting a meeting at a nearby bridge. I was intrigued – this sounded very interesting.

Others in the group expressed concerns about the potential for danger and mysterious nature of the messages. Red flags and warning lights should have been going off all over the place. Nobody would rush headlong into danger like that.

I mentioned that as long as she gave the protagonist a good reason to go against her better judgment, the things she wrote were great. As we talked about it later, she said “I think I’ll just make these two people old friends or something.”

“Why?” I asked. “The mystery and suspense is what makes the story exciting.”

“I know, but it’s just too tricky.”

“Honey, the tricky stuff is what makes it exciting!”

And of course, that’s when it hit me: The weakest places in my story are the ones where I shied away from the tricky stuff.

Task two for the next draft – tackle the tricky stuff.

Yesterday I printed out 5 copies of my manuscript. That’s a lot of trees, I’m afraid. I thought about sending electronic copies to everyone, but I really need to see their red marks on the paper.

I’m taking one to my writer’s group tonight to give the leader.

Three went into the mail today to my sister, a friend from work, and a friend from high school.

And last night I gave a copy to my wife. She read several chapters before it “wore her out,” whatever that means. I’ll have to see if she picks it up today, or goes back to reading that Dashner guy.

Today was my writing group, and I wanted to have something to read, so I decided to work on an important scene. It’s pivotal, and it’s weak.

I took it and worked on it and cleaned it up. It seems I cleaned it up so much, it got sterilized, as it was universally panned as flat and emotionless.

I thought I put in a fair amount of emotion, but I must admit the scene certainly needs some more.

At least nobody said my character was wimpy – he sure was when I started reworking this scene.

Tristi has decided to continue her writing challenge into August, which will be great for me. I have ten scenes left to write, which should take me 10-15 writing days. That means I should still have enough time to give this draft a quick polish before sending it to my lucky beta readers in time for Labor Day.

Now that I think about it, I should probably do some of that polishing in connection with the writer’s group meetings. I have a couple of scenes that are really pivotal, and they need to be right. I think I’ll take them to the meetings this month.

As for the July writing challenge, I pulled down 37,613 words for the month. YeeHaw!

I had a most amazing experience at our writer’s group last night. I’ve been obsessing over my first chapter lately, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give it to the group. I decided to take it, and I’m glad I did.

The new beginning was very well received, especially by those who heard my attempt two weeks ago. I got some good feedback. Several others read, including my daughter and a young woman who had brought a comic book she was working on.

After the meeting, the gal with the comic book handed me a drawing of a girl. At first I thought it was part of her comic, but as I looked at it and she explained it to me, I realized that this was a picture of one of my characters, illustrating the climax of the scene I had just read.

I was completely taken by surprise. My writing had made a connection with someone, and I was holding the evidence in my hand. Really, really cool.

I thanked her profusely, and picked up a frame at Wal-Mart on the way home. The drawing is now hanging on the wall in my office.

I’m so excited, I just have to share. Not the whole chapter – just the part in the picture.

George looked at the paper Mia had given him before he left. Her auntie’s name was Kehau Pulakaumaka, but George didn’t have much else to go on – just a phone number and a vague description. “She’s about my height with black hair about this long,” Mia had said, pointing to her shoulder. “You can’t miss her.”

As George scanned the arriving passengers, he soon spotted a woman matching Kehau’s description. In fact, it didn’t take him long to spot several dozen women about Mia’s height, and they all had shoulder-length black hair. George looked at the paper and read through the scant information again, hoping to find something that might help his search, but there was nothing.

He watched a group of kids in matching green t-shirts gather around a big man holding a sign that read Hana Elementary. With a sudden flash of inspiration, George walked over to a rental car counter. He smiled at the man behind the desk and said “Do you by any chance have a piece of paper and a marker I could borrow?” The man pulled a nearly-blank sheet from a stack near his printer, and then rummaged around in his desk before handing George a large red Sharpie.

“Here you go. I’ll need the pen back, but you can keep the paper when you’re done,” he said with a wink.

George returned the man’s smile and said “Thank you.” He then copied the name from Mia’s little scrap, starting out neatly but cramming the last half of “Pulakaumaka” against the right side of the page. He returned the pen and made his way to the baggage carousel for Kehau’s flight, where he stood with his makeshift sign, smiling at every middle-aged, dark-haired woman who passed. He got a lot of smiles in return, but nobody stopped.

As he looked over the crowd, he noticed a girl across the baggage claim eyeing him. She was about his age, and quite attractive. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, then turned her attention to her back pack, from which she produced a cell phone. As George continued his search for Kehau, he kept stealing glances back towards this girl. After a few minutes, she put her phone away and began wheeling her suitcase towards him. His heart began to beat faster. As she approached, George smiled and said “Hi.”

“Hi… George?” she said.

George wrinkled his brow. How did she know his name? He searched his memory frantically, but couldn’t remember ever meeting this girl before. He looked at her luggage for a clue, but without success, and he finally had to admit defeat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What was your name again?”

The girl raised her eyebrows, and then smiled. She took the sign from his hand and held it under her chin so that the top of the paper brushed her black, shoulder length hair.

George had found Auntie Kehau.