I had great hopes for this class--not only to find a crit partner, but to open a door to a fellow writer so my room isn't so lonely. That didn't happen, unfortunately. I understand that this type of event can be difficult to pull off. I hope some of the writers were successful matches. My recommendations for a future crit-partner event: 1. offer multiple crits per person each week. My third crit felt like a duplicate of my first--thus a waste of time for both of us. This will offer various perspectives of the same piece and if someone backs out (especially without notice), then the person still has responses. If it means the piece has a lower word count to accomplish--that's okay. 2. Offer that if another person (not chosen) wants to crit, they can. I found some I would've liked to comment on, but felt it would've been pushy. There was a person I would've liked to received a crit from, but I was never partnered with her. It's hard to know in the isolation of my computer screen what's acceptable behavior. Crossing the line might offend some--which my bluntness tends to do anyways. 3. In the introductions, consider asking people about their backgrounds. I've studied writing for ten years--I may have offered a crit to someone who's only studied for a month and my responses might not be as in-depth. Has the other person published? I don't know--especially if the person is using a name other than their pen name. The last person didn't even seem to offer anything--I'm assuming it's because she was new to writing and only wanted her work critiqued. Maybe I was too harsh...IDK.
I tend to mark what I see and her curt, simple crit made me think I offended her. So, with 5 crits possible, two tossed out as worthless, and one person didn't respond the week before for her crit--so she didn't show up for mine either. That left two crits of any substance--and one clearly didn't care for my writing style. While my rating isn't high--based on my personal experience, of course--this type of event has great value and I hope you will consider offering it again with modifications. Thanks.