Many moons ago, I joined a writing group. I learned more in that writing group than I ever did in a creative writing class. And, if not for them, my novel Toy of the Gods, would not have been as successful or as well-received.

Why? Because by hearing constructive feedback about my writing I learned quickly how to be a better writer.

Since then, the group changed hands and I ended up taking over. It’s been a wonderful journey to work with writers.

Don’t ask family or friends for reviews

Don’t give your writing to friends or family! They’ll either just give you a high-five for writing anything or they’ll tell you it’s terrible and that you should give up. They don’t understand that writing is a learning process and that sometimes we do write total crap sometimes and that it just needs attention and work to be better.

Find or Make a Review Group

Instead, find others who love writing. By sharing with other writers who are willing to be honest with each other you truly learn from the experience.

And, make sure there are parameters around the group. For example, each reader must share something that they didn’t understand or that didn’t work for them from a story.

There’s nothing worse than having a group that meets and never talks about things that aren’t working in a story. I once sat next to a group meeting in a restaurant. They went around to talk about a story from one of the group members. “It was great.” “I enjoyed reading it.” etc. One of the writers asked “How do we learn to be better writers?” Another member said, “There’s nothing to learn! We are born writers.”

Not true. We can be born writers, but we aren’t born good writers. By having parameters, everyone in the group understands what’s expected of them and the author gets constructive feedback to make a better story and learns to be a better writer.

You can create your own group, or consider joining my virtual group Querque Quills. I’ll put you in our group and you’ll get the input you need to write a better story.