Hi,
The Intensive Critique group is looking for new members!

The group was set up to provide in-depth comment on member's work. As such, this group is aimed at writers who are confident of their abilities and willing to consider honest feedback - even if it is robust.

Because of this, we have established a respectful etiquette where all reviewers accept that theirs is just one opinion. Our aspiration is to ensure that all work receives at least three separate opinions from three separate reviewers so as to provide enough information for writers to make their own decisions about what they do, or do not, wish to change.

To make this work, we anticipate that members review and comment on three pieces for each piece they upload. In this way, you get out what you put in and, if you want to receive a lot of feedback, you will also give a lot of feedback. Equally, it allows you to take a back seat if you hit a busy time and want to simply get your head down and write.

Hope this sounds interesting, it has certainly been very useful for me!

Cheers,

Gaius

Hi Gaius

This exactly what Joella and I have suggested already in the proposed new group Dual Dulligence, as we want committed readers without feeling obliged to review everyone in a group, especially when such a lot of people have novels on the boil and want opinions for them throughout. We are proposing two allocated readers per author, with the freedom to review other members if and when we have the time, but the reviewers must make their allocated authors their priority. We felt following more than two other novels all at the same time may overstretch people's committment. We didn't feel any of the groups offered that.

But as you and I have already discussed this at length, you would know that.

After we 'talked' on the subject, I was surprised to read your post earlier this week declaring the opposite -- the bigger the group the better, but now you seem to be endorsing our idea and trying to implement it elsewhere.

So I can only assume it's the 'allocated' part of our suggestion that puts you off joining us. We felt this was necessary because weaker writers won't get read so much and therefore would not benefit from what we are trying to do. If other members are not prepared to read and help them improve, does that not undermine the spirit of the site, after all?

No, I don't think the 2 groups are the same.
IC has a broad brush of material that can be uploaded - from chapters to short stories to poems - and Gaius' intention is to achieve a concensus of opinion through a large quantity of critiques for each upload.
Dual Diligence is specifically for those who wish to have feedback on their whole novel, and since this is a big committment of members time it will at best consist of trios of members to ensure each novel gets at least 2 crits.
The problem for IC is, (with the exception of Beginners), writers tend not to move out of their comfort zones and crit across the genres so most will join other WW Groups and IC willl remain small. There is, however, a need for a General Fiction group for those novels that do not fit into a specific genre, or fit in a genre which is not currently catered for such as Horror, Crime, Thrillers, so maybe consider altering it's parameters.
The problem for Dual Diligence is the committment involved in critting 2 novels over the course of a year or more. In all liklihood group members will drop out for one reason or other and then you are unlikely to find anyone to take their place and be willing to crit several months worth of work to get up to speed. Another problem is you need 4 people to launch the group, but 2 trios to make it work. It might be better to find one trio and do it privately or as a private committment on another, established, WW Group.


- NaomiM

<Added>

DD also has the same problem as IC in that writers prefer not to go outside their genre comfort zones to crit other novels.

Hi Demonqueen,
Firstly, I was and am genuine in applauding your initiative; as I said in my mail, I will help if I can.

However, I don't see these groups as similar and I do want to maintain and build on the better parts of IC.

Yours is specifically aimed at achieving a dedicated readership through an entire novel and, yes, if I'm honest, I am wary both of being tied to the same reviewer and being tied to the same writer. I like a varied diet in my reading.

By contrast, the emphasis for IC is the style and focus of review. We have historically uploaded all of novels, shorts, and flashes: certainly not restricted to a single project.

The intention is to improve through responding to in-depth feedback and, as I said, the question of how to achieve understanding for meaningful review of later chapters remains unresolved; hence my interest in your group.

So, I think there is room and justification for both groups and see no inconsistency in my position.

Gaius

<Added>

Ps: As Naomi says, the emphasis is on trying to get multiple opinions (consensus may be unachievable, however! ). The idea of three opinions is to ensure all pieces get read and commented on where, without this principle, those who don't push their work might occasionally be missed.

Hi Gaius,
Yes, I'm sorry, they are not the same - I did realise I'd misread your post the following day, mixing it up with our earlier conversation, but I've not had much chance to come back to you on it until today, I'm afraid (partly an ill child, partly a cat on heat who's determinded to wreck my house in order to escape to shagdom! At least all this running around is a bit of exercise, I suppose). I don't think I quite had my head on the other morning (it was very early). So, my apologies for that.

I know it is very difficult to get people to commit to an entire WIP, but it is also difficult giving fair critique of the odd chapter here and there of many members, and usually ends up with only the first few chapters getting reviewed. After that people think they won't be able to catch up on the story so far, amongst other problems, and you never end up with an opinion on the story as a whole.

Tis a tough thing indeed. What did all the novelists (the published ones) do back in the day when there was no internet (a mere, what, fifteen or twenty years ago?)? Who read them through before they submitted to a publisher?

Hi Demonqueen,
Our cats don't need to be on heat before they decide to attack various parts of our house (or each other). Good luck!

I agree wholeheartedly on the problems for obtaining critique of longer pieces (cf: http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/146_329873.asp ).

What did they do before?

I've read various people on the forum saying things like there was a different attitude where publishers would allow writers to develop by actually publishing... implying the benefit of an editorial team who could advise. Whether or not that is true? I can't comment as I don't know.

I think it's down to nurturing a goodly number of literate friends with time to kill and not going to them too soon - eg: making sure you don't waste their time on something you don't think is ready.

But yes, it does need, at some point, to have a person willing to read the whole bloody thing through from start to finish in one go and to give you honest feedback (at the right level) that is worth receiving.

Wish I knew how to bribe people enough to get that!

G