Feedback/Writing Group sites

Thanks, Thecliff. Took a look at authonomy.com and at your pieces posted there. Very heartfelt and moving and your characters face hard, real world problems. I see you have a following. That's very nice - congratulations!

For me, I think I will stick with Scribophile, though, for a critique site (haven't posted there yet) because they have such a nice setup for doing critiques. The points system is annoying and time consuming but needs to be. It keeps the people who give you feedback to ones who put some effort in to it.

All of these critique sites frighten me. :-(

That's why a heavily moderated site is best. You can't avoid having some jerks out there, especially when they are giving feedback. In Scribophile, the site owner has a lot invested in it, so watches pretty carefully and the community is watchful, too. They know a few trolls can destroy a lot.

So, exactly why do the critique sites scare you, Gitchel? We're all scared of getting critiqued, but it really is the only way to improve your writing. I drag my feet toward doing it, but find once it is done, I'm pretty impervious to the feedback. It is rare that someone can tell you what exactly to do with your story - everyone has their own take - but the main thing it does is let you know you have or have not communicated what you want to communicate.

Well random people can give you a different perspective on things, if you don't have any one else to read your stuff.

I'm a bit like Gitchel. I've been too afraid to try the critique sites due to the quality of the feedback. I've looked at a few and read the chapters. The comments were so either gushing or bad mouthing that I felt badly for the writer not getting anything helpful. I will take the plunge and try one of the sites recommended here, as I think these lists have hopefully weeded out the 'vanity vs troll' sites. Still nervous though.

And the name of this board should be "Writing Correctly" ;-)

I'm a member of both Critique Circle and Scribophile. I am a premium member on Scribophile, which is the paid membership and has been totally worth it, but just a freebie on Critique Circle.

I like Scrib's critique software. It also has inline where you can make a comment anywhere in the piece, highlight the paragraph, sentence or word you are referring to, etc. Very flexible and makes critiquing so much easier. You can put comments, as long as you want, in before and after the inline. It also has a template critique (Plot, Character, Theme, etc.)and freeform critique which is just a blank sheet of "paper". You choose which you want to use. It takes 5 karma to post a work and you get one karma for a 135 word critique - which is a pretty pathetic critique and most go beyond that - and a percentage of karma for each word above that.

You can pick two categories to label your work, eg Science Fiction and Fantasy and people can sort on that if they want. There is the Main Spotlight, New Member Spotlight where your first post goes, Good Critiquer Spotlight, etc.

I think Jennifer pointed out the key to these online sites is getting a group of people whose critiques you respect, will critique you and you critique them. Basically, you make your own critique group within the larger group. If someone is a Premium Member they can make a group page where you can post and etc. You can make it public or private. One of the reasons I like it is that I became involved in a group that exchanges crits and you agree to post every week and crit your team members every week.

There are a lot of published writers on Scrib, so the advice can be very good. It can also be not so good, but that is the same anywhere. The forums are very active. There is a lot of good info about self-publishing.

Scribophile and Critique Circle are almost universally accepted as the top two writer critique sites. They are very similar, so it depends on which one you feel the most comfortable in.

It is a way to get feedback on your writing and to mingle with other writers while developing your craft. the thing I find about it that is better than in person groups - other than trying to find a good one - is that it has a tendency to remain more focused on the writing. In person groups, people don't bring pages or start talking about how hard it is to write or their life or etc. etc. It disintegrates in to a social club. That can happen to you on these sites, too, but you can always find someone to concentrate on the writing. The pool is much bigger.

Both Scrib and CC have one big thing in common - the administrators and owners of the sites are very involved in it. They make sure things don't get out of hand. That is the key to a good site, in my opinion.

Ok I joined Scribophile... now what? A bit of a learning curve I guess. I'm going through the newbie checklist... searching (lurking in) the forums.