Hi everyone!
We are working hard on a new crit partner matching program. We did try a group crit and found that while it worked for some people, it didn't work well enough to make us happy.
So, it's back to the drawing board for this. This part of our behind the scenes discussion on what we liked and didn't like...I would LOVE to have all of your input on this!
In my experience these are the ones that I have tried :
1) Anonymous big crit groups where it's a feeding frenzy. The only people who do well there are really tough. Critters is like this and I still have nightmares about my experience with them! *shiver*
2) Team crits like the RWA subchapters do where you post chapters and people crit them. You often do not get the same person critting twice and it's really frustrating to make sense of it. And the cliques...OMG the cliques.
3) Crit events where you are matched with others somewhat arbitrarily...these small teams or groups often do not last past the event. This is what we did in January and as of now, one (maybe two) of these groups is still together.
4) Partnerships where you find your "soul mate" CP and you live happily ever after (or at least for a few years usually), but there are not any real matching programs for this so it's totally ad hoc.
Did I miss any of them? If so, please add them. OK, so this is what I am thinking. We change our crit event to a crit partner match by doing event. Ever heard of speed dating? We do that but with crits in a totally positive and very structured way.
It goes like this:
We match up people in some way, likely by genre.
We have them trade the following:
1) three chapters (that way you get an idea of writing technical level, structure, and voice)
2) an outline (or notes if this is a pantser) but something that shows how they plan a story. (Personally, I cannot imagine being stuck with a pantser, I am so structured that would make me crazy and I bet vice versa!)
3) A statement of how that person would like to work with a CP. How often to trade information, do they want to sprint together, etc.
We have them work together for some small amount of time, 3 days? a week?
The goal is to set up partnerships of no more than 3 people to crit together. Maybe we do the speed dating thing for a month, 3 weeks? Not sure here.
Then set up structured lessons for 4 weeks or so.
Then provide support and suggestions for another month.
The lessons would follow Liz's three pass and Melinda's class.
1)How to critique the story, not the prose --This is I feel the fundamental of what everyone needs to learn. how to evaluate a story, not the line edits but the story. Liz Pelletier is just AMAZING at this and I always refer back to her first pass edit, whenever I get a new story to crit)
2) How to critique plot, character, and setting as part of the story critque.
3) Then use that to write an editorial letter (based on the story critique in #1)
4) How to line edit-- this I feel is the least important because if you write a good story with engaging characters, you can find people who will line edit your work.
But I think the focus needs to be on how to crit the story and the story elements, not so much on how to line edit. Too many people go right to the line edits.
