WRITERS ROUND TABLE? Here's Some Advice
By Christine Trzyna
I've been asked about Writers Round Tables. Now that school is back in sessions and students are settling in, this may be a good time to establish and participate in a Writers Round Table that runs until the holiday season.
I think these opportunities to share, critique, and discuss writing and becoming published can be a very valuable support system for the writer, that is if every member is at about the same place in their writing AND as dedicated to participation and mutual success as the next. This is rare. My experience is that it's very difficult to select the group members and that just accepting or not accepting members implies judgement that someone has to make. I've found myself being "given" the responsbility for running a Round Table by the more passive other members, becoming the "heart and soul" of the group (according to one ex member of a Round Table I was involved with for well over a year many years ago). It's a responsbility I took on and often enjoyed but I doubt the group would have stayed together as long as it did if I hadn't.
First of all, you must decide if you want to focus on a genre or form of writing, such as poetry, short stories, chapters from novels, freewriting, etc. I find that three hours is about enough time for about 5 members to discuss poetry or short fiction. I think more than about 7 members becomes overwrought, with some people feeling they did not get enough focus or time.
Second, you must decide if you want to be a real critique group or not and what the basis for that critique will be and set standards for professionalism which means NO PERSONAL ATTACKS allowed. Writers must use the lexicon of the critique focusing on the piece, not the writer. Even in my college workshops personal attacks were allowed by a professor; I don't respect that.
Third, if you're determined to send work out as a goal of the group, all members should share in their responsibility to bring publication opportunity information to the group. One group I belonged to became locked in procrastination and perfectionism and the fear that sending work out that was not A plus and five stars, even to small local chap book publications, would result in some sort of banishment from the publishing industry if the work failed to be accepted. Thus some members presented the same short story a half dozen times or more; excruciating indecision about a few word choices and the like. I believe it is better to keep writing, keep producing, without the editor in your head stopping the process, than to agonize like this. If the work holds it's own, it can withstand the go through with an eventual publishing house editor.
Fourth, decide if you have a system for exiting a non-cooperative or abusive member. Sticky, sticky, sticky. But the GROUP has to do it if it needs to be done.
Fifth, enter into a confidentiality agreement with the group so that your ideas and work is not pirated. This has happened in a group I was in in which during the first session I submitted some story ideas to a new member who showed up without any of his own work. The guy was a screenwriter who never showed up again or even attempted to return my work to me. I don't believe people who identify themselves primarily as screenwriters should be in a group with people who are concentrating on short fiction or novels. Sorry! But I live in a town where just about everyone says they are a screenwriter - particularly in Starbucks - where just about everyone has a laptop with a screenwriting program (but me), and where just about everyone has a manuscript in their desk drawer at the office. And sadly, every one of them seems to be looking for the Story Idea that will make them rich and famous, and most of them can't think of that Story Idea themselves so, some of them steal.
Sixth, meet somewhere that the writers can linger with a couple coffees or tea rather than meet in people's homes. Keeping in mind the confidentiality of the work, this may be a difficult place to locate. However if everyone doesn't have a home to use on a fair, rotational basis, even hosting the group can become a powerplay in the group. So to keep things democratic, even under the trees in the park is better. And forget the potlucking or taking turns bringing food. Write instead of cooking.
C Christine Trzyna 2008
