Critique Group Week: Meet Writers in the Rain!

FROM LEFT: Angela, Martina, Suma, Fabio, Eileen, Brenda

1. How many members do you have? 
Our
critique group is called Writers in the Rain. There are six of us:
Brenda Beem, Fabio Bueno, Martina Dalton, Angela Orlowski-Peart, Eileen Riccio, and Suma Subramaniam. All of us have finished books, and two
have been published. The other members are on the verge of publishing or
querying.

2. How long has the group been together?
We signed
up for critique groups at the 2010 SCBWI-WWA conference. Angela
requested a list of Young Adult writers looking for critique groups from
the critique coordinator and sent out a call for partners. Several
writers answered, but only the five of us lived close enough to form a
group that would meet in person. We exchanged emails, met for coffee,
and developed an instant connection!

3. Do you focus on single or
multiple genres?
Our novels are YA and upper-middle-grade in
multiple YA sub-genres. Some of us are branching out into New Adult and
adult books.

4. How often do you meet? Where?
We meet weekly.
The group used to meet at the King County libraries, but they close at 9pm, and we didn’t have enough time to critique everybody’s pages.
Since then, we’ve been meeting at pubs, restaurants, sports bars, and
coffeehouses.

5. What has been your group’s biggest challenge(s)? How
have you resolved it/them?
Probably time management. Giving
everyone’s pages a detailed critique is a complicated task. Sometimes,
we lose track of time. We solved it by using a stopwatch and allowing
everyone
thirty minutes. In addition, we became more efficient in
our critiques. Grammar and punctuation corrections, for example, are
usually just marked on the pages.
Another challenge is finding a
location to meet that is relatively quiet and that stays open late. We
stopped going to one establishment because we had to pick up our feet
while the waitress vacuumed under our legs!

6. What is the
format of your meetings?
Because we
are not only the critique partners, but, most importantly, good friends,
we always start on catching up while ordering food and drinks. Each of
us brings up to five printed pages to the meetings, and we hand them
out. One member reads aloud, and the rest have copies to make notes for
discussion. Then we critique and brainstorm. The discussions focus not
only on voice, pace, grammar, dialogue, and description, but we also
analyze character arcs, plot points, continuity, and even mundane
details, like names and shoe brands a character would wear.

7. What is the key to a successful group dynamic?
The
most important thing is that we truly like each other, and have a deep
respect for each others’ work, writing skills, and knowledge.
We listen to the advice we’re given, and also give the best writing advice we can.
We trust each other.
We are always learning and growing as writers.
And we write, and write, and re-write.

8. Any quirky group rituals? Inspirational rituals? Favorite snacks?
We
have a ritual: “fries on me.” Every time one of us
celebrates a milestone in their journey—an award, publication, full
requests, a new book cover, sterling reviews—the person celebrating buys
a basket of french fries for the whole group.
We definitely
enjoy a good laugh. We take our writing and our meetings seriously, but
that doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate the idiosyncrasies in our own
stories. After reading so many pages at one point of the night we may
get a little punchy. As you might expect, somebody gets the giggles.
It’s contagious! We go from the quietest table in the restaurant to the
most raucous.

A super shout out to SCBWI for getting us all started on our paths! Thank you.

We would love to hear from you! Please connect through our web sites!