Writing in Circles

[Guest]

Do you belong to a Writers' Circle? Or have you ever attended one? There's probably one in any town or city that has a public library; where you go along to a night class and join in with others interested in the arts of writing.

So tell all of us your experiences and your views on the value of such gatherings.

For myself, I have attended one or two meetings as a guest (I would also include Poetry Circles in this category) and I suppose that we message boarders might indeed consider this very forum to be a sort of writers' circle; although we (usually) contribute views rather than poetry or prose.

I leave it there, for the moment - but I will be back.

VH

[Robert]

I went to a local writers group, but to be honest I didn't really get much out of it.
What happened was, we were all sitting around reading bits from out own work, which in the groups case was largely poetry and a bit of prose. Each person in turn read out their own piece. Because there were about 16 people there and each extract took about 10 minutes, it took about 1 hour and a half to get through everything. I foolishly put my name down last on the schedule to read something from a novel that I have written on the Gunpowder Plot, so I waited 1 hour and a half to read an extract. There was a bit of a discussion about the readings, but I failed to understand what the whole process was about.
In retrospect it would have been better I think for there to have been a workshop style session where people were encouraged to write things perhaps colaboratively, and for there to be a more nuts and bolts style approach to writing.
I was reading that C.J. Sansom, the Tudor novelist guy who has achieved enormous success in recent years, started off by going to writers groups, but I just wonder what the format of that was.
Essentially, I think it can hone some of your skills, but writing is basically, or good writing is , a lonely and rather self obsessed occupation.
Frankly, I think if you have a reasonable level of education and intelligence, you know whether what you are writing is c**p or not.
The process of validation has to come I think from yourself and the real test is basically whether other people simply like it.
When I finished reading my extract from the Gunpowder Plot, which described the plotters smashing their way through the tunnel to get to parliament, there was absolute silence followed then by quite a few questions.

[Ventilhorn]

I went to a local writers group, but to be honest I didn't really get much out of it.
What happened was, we were all sitting around reading bits from out own work, which in the groups case was largely poetry and a bit of prose. Each person in turn read out their own piece. Because there were about 16 people there and each extract took about 10 minutes, it took about 1 hour and a half to get through everything. I foolishly put my name down last on the schedule to read something from a novel that I have written on the Gunpowder Plot, so I waited 1 hour and a half to read an extract. There was a bit of a discussion about the readings, but I failed to understand what the whole process was about.
In retrospect it would have been better I think for there to have been a workshop style session where people were encouraged to write things perhaps colaboratively, and for there to be a more nuts and bolts style approach to writing.
I was reading that C.J. Sansom, the Tudor novelist guy who has achieved enormous success in recent years, started off by going to writers groups, but I just wonder what the format of that was.
Essentially, I think it can hone some of your skills, but writing is basically, or good writing is , a lonely and rather self obsessed occupation.
Frankly, I think if you have a reasonable level of education and intelligence, you know whether what you are writing is c**p or not.
The process of validation has to come I think from yourself and the real test is basically whether other people simply like it.
When I finished reading my extract from the Gunpowder Plot, which described the plotters smashing their way through the tunnel to get to parliament, there was absolute silence followed then by quite a few questions.

I have quoted your reply in full because I think you have raised many interesting points, Robert, upon which others may wish to comment or confirm from their own experience.

But I must ask you why did you join? Was it to improve your style? To get ideas for a story? To learn from other members' writings?

Did you find that everyone was only really interested in reading their own works to an audience and did not really pay any attention to the offerings of others?

My brother has belonged to the local writers group for over 14 years, but he seems much more concerned with criticising the punctuation and grammar of others than actually assessing the 'story value' and interest of the subject.

I shall come back on this topic when a few more posts come in.

VH

[Robert]

I have quoted your reply in full because I think you have raised many interesting points, Robert, upon which others may wish to comment or confirm from their own experience.

But I must ask you why did you join? Was it to improve your style? To get ideas for a story? To learn from other members' writings?

Did you find that everyone was only really interested in reading their own works to an audience and did not really pay any attention to the offerings of others?

My brother has belonged to the local writers group for over 14 years, but he seems much more concerned with criticising the punctuation and grammar of others than actually assessing the 'story value' and interest of the subject.

I shall come back on this topic when a few more posts come in.

VH

Absolutely, why did I join the writers group? I'm still trying to work that one out.
I completely agree that the atmosphere can become pervaded by a school mastery kind of approach. Again I agree it is about whether you can tell a good story or not, or write a good poem, but when everyone just seems keen to stick their oar in, I can't really see the benefit of these groups. Funnily enough, about a week before, I attented another writers group which was linked with this one, and it was the same kind of set up. I think we all like to feel validated. Perhaps many of the people were happy to just write for personal pleasure, whereas I am more driven than that, in that I wan't to get my stuff published.

[PatrickOD]

I think that a writers group could be a very uselful tool for would be writers. There are several in my locality of varying seriousness, some with leaders who have had at least local success. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any. I'll tell you why, if you have time.

[Mandryka]

I have two experiences of writers groups, about twelve years apart: I think it's fair to say I don't think they're for me.

Although a bit of sociability in what can be a very solitary occupation doesn't go amiss, I think the problem is that these groups attract people who are working on very different kinds of writing with greatly varying degrees of seriousness. And I agree with the point made above that a person of reasonable intelligence with some literary chops will be able to judge whether what they're doing is worth pursuing.

The abiding memory for me is of one young housewife who wrote poems about her children and an elderly gentleman who wrote Croft/Perry type comedy scenarios, along with a couple of aspirant Mills and Boon writers. Not my cup of tea.

[salymap]

My nearest approach to writing was a series of very slightly scurrilous verses, in various styles, relating to the musicians around in the mid 20th century and written with and circulated to a large group of friends.

I'm afraid I'm not a 'joiner' and would hate to take part in the writing circles described.

We have a well-known writer on these boards at the moment. Mr.Bert Coules. What does he think of these groups, I wonder?

We have other good writers on these boards, nearer home, as it were.