Building the Benefits of a Writers Group & Keeping it Afloat

Earlier this year a writers group I belonged to basically fell apart.  I usually don't go to writers groups as I don't need incentive to write, the travel time to and from them is time I could be writing, and most people use them as excuses to talk about writing rather than actually writing.

However I did notice a number of benefits to having a writers group, and they're not always completely evident.  There's the obvious aid it provides by being able to read what you're working on and getting feedback from others.  This can be laborious as you also have to listen to everyone else's and give them feedback; but you don't want to be selfish, and you can always learn from what others are doing.

But there are some other things to make one's writing group beneficial.  For one, having a central location to communicate between the group meetings is invaluable.  With our group what I suggested was to post on the Facebook group we already had.  It had been set up just for communicating who was coming, but when we started using it to post what we were working on, it became beneficial for members to post both what they were working on, and what they had already finished.  The current work could be critiqued and people could come to the meetings with advice already to give.

The earlier work was especially beneficial online because the members could share it.  Online resources are the best way to spread the word of your work, and one of the best uses of a writers group can be for everyone to help spread each other's work, and to post reviews for one another.  This latter action is one of the most important commodities for independent writers.

Another great benefit for writers groups can be for everyone to swap suggestions on where they can take their work to be seen by those who need to see it.  Screenplays need to be seen by producers.  Short stories need to be seen by magazines.  Traditional works need to be seen by publishers.  Independent works need audiences.  And everyone could use a good agent.

Some of these suggestions may seem obvious, but so many writers groups are all about people writing off of a prompt and fishing for compliments.  The group pats each other on the backs and everyone goes away feeling good, but they gain nothing.  Regardless of how good they feel in the moment, though, eventually they'll realize that they're going nowhere in their careers, and going to the writers group isn't paying off, so the group will slowly dissolve.

So the best way to make one's writers group thrive is to provide elements that will help the members in the long run.  It may not be as much fun, and it may be uncomfortable even when you give suggestions rather than just say, "that's great," but ultimately it will keep people coming back as they'll see it as indispensable.