(1) What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your question and why?
My essential question is 'How can a writing group best be facilitated to help writers develop their craft?'. This year I have studied three different answers which are:
- To give and receive constructive criticism
- Set realistic deadlines
- Recognize your role as a reader and a writer
My best answer of these the would have to be to give and receive constructive criticism because that is the basic purpose of a writing group or a critique group. I emphasize constructive because criticism that is vague, negative, or otherwise empty praise will not help the writer acknowledge their weaknesses, which is critical when being critiqued.
(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
During the time I've been in Wordsmitten, maintained my blog, and submitted my pieces to Fictionpress, I've come to notice that out of those three, I received the most effective criticism on Fictionpress mainly because it is run by the same people who run Fanfiction.net. These websites attract so much attention from audiences of all ages, that inevitably they are criticized on basically everything a writer could be criticized on. I did not expect this to happen though, considering Wordsmitten is a class designed to give aspiring young writers criticism.
Wordsmitten, however, has not given me as much as I hope it would. Perhaps it is because I become easily distracted in that class or because my classmates are almost all younger than me. They write stories geared to younger audiences, while I have been told my writing would receive more attention from older audiences. I don't know if that's true, but I can say that in Wordsmitten, I don't receive the criticism I wish I did. Most of it is praise or people just don't pay attention to my pieces because they're paying more attention to their friends.
Because I don't receive the criticism I wish I did receive and have received in the past, I know that if I were given that criticism, my writing would get better and I would have more motivation to write my narratives. For example, I shared with my friend, Steven, who regularly asks to read my work, a piece I had been working on for a while and when I felt comfortable enough to share with him my piece, he was quite critical about it. He didn't dismiss the fact that I was missing essential details or that my piece was too "cheesy". He told me which parts could be improved and what parts I did well on. So I took his advice and fixed it.
While the other two answers are important, criticism is, again the basis of a writing group, therefore it benefits a writer the most because they'll improve their writing without being discouraged.
Wordsmitten, however, has not given me as much as I hope it would. Perhaps it is because I become easily distracted in that class or because my classmates are almost all younger than me. They write stories geared to younger audiences, while I have been told my writing would receive more attention from older audiences. I don't know if that's true, but I can say that in Wordsmitten, I don't receive the criticism I wish I did. Most of it is praise or people just don't pay attention to my pieces because they're paying more attention to their friends.
Because I don't receive the criticism I wish I did receive and have received in the past, I know that if I were given that criticism, my writing would get better and I would have more motivation to write my narratives. For example, I shared with my friend, Steven, who regularly asks to read my work, a piece I had been working on for a while and when I felt comfortable enough to share with him my piece, he was quite critical about it. He didn't dismiss the fact that I was missing essential details or that my piece was too "cheesy". He told me which parts could be improved and what parts I did well on. So I took his advice and fixed it.
While the other two answers are important, criticism is, again the basis of a writing group, therefore it benefits a writer the most because they'll improve their writing without being discouraged.
(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
One of my issues was finding a mentor nearby because I have very little means of transportation or contact opportunities. The few times I went to the Cal Poly Post I did not receive what I expected to. Going there made me realize that perhaps journalism is not the road I would want to go down, but perhaps being an editor would work well for me in the future. A solution that I found, however, were online groups. There was no specific mentor unfortunately, but there were experienced writers, freelancer writers for example, that regularly visited sites like Critique Circle and Writerscafe. A few of them are published authors who are trying to contribute to the writing community, young and old, beginners and experienced.
(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
I purchased a book called "The Critique and Writing Group Survival Guide..." by Becky Levine, which essentially revolves around how to facilitate and participate effectively in a writing group. Each chapter is broken up into sections and Levine gives many excerpts from narratives to use as examples.
A second source, and one I've found most helpful, would have to be my Wordsmitten class. It was through that class that I was first introduced to writing groups and where I gained most of my experience as a critic.
A second source, and one I've found most helpful, would have to be my Wordsmitten class. It was through that class that I was first introduced to writing groups and where I gained most of my experience as a critic.
(5) What is your product and why?
My product, after researching and practicing for nearly nine months, would have to be conditioning myself to have disciplined writing habits. The most common advise for writers is to both read and write as often as possible, and while I read on a daily basis, writing on a daily basis was something I did not do religiously. However, after maintaing a blog for 30 hours, with almost 50 posts and 29 followers, writing has become part of my daily routine.
This habit is important to facilitating a writing group because it embodies all of my answers, in that the more often you write, the more experience you'll gain and the easier it will be to recognize when someone has been practicing their writing skills. If they have not, then that can be a piece of advice you can give them in a critique. Also writing on a daily basis would be the same as having set yourself a realistic deadline. It's not so difficult writing something everyday as long as it has coherent thought and effort behind it.
My product, after researching and practicing for nearly nine months, would have to be conditioning myself to have disciplined writing habits. The most common advise for writers is to both read and write as often as possible, and while I read on a daily basis, writing on a daily basis was something I did not do religiously. However, after maintaing a blog for 30 hours, with almost 50 posts and 29 followers, writing has become part of my daily routine.
This habit is important to facilitating a writing group because it embodies all of my answers, in that the more often you write, the more experience you'll gain and the easier it will be to recognize when someone has been practicing their writing skills. If they have not, then that can be a piece of advice you can give them in a critique. Also writing on a daily basis would be the same as having set yourself a realistic deadline. It's not so difficult writing something everyday as long as it has coherent thought and effort behind it.
