Conquer Your Fears – Join a Writing Group
By Brianna Malotke
It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned writer or someone who has just finished their first story, writing groups can seem intimidating and possibly like an unnecessary activity. But here’s the thing, the right writing group can provide you with benefits you wouldn’t achieve any other way.
Finding Your Voice
Once you’re able to find a good fit and are able to share your work with others, you’ll find a sense of belonging. This socialization and sense of community can assist you in becoming more comfortable with sharing your work and finding your voice as an author. A lot of groups have a variety of writers – from newbies to seasoned and from people who are really great at details to those who love a good twist. This variety of input can help you truly refine your own personal writing process. You’ll discover your own voice as a writer and develop it further.
Getting Help and Helping Others
A writing group can provide you with valuable feedback on your work. Having another set of eyes read your work can offer a different perspective. Along with this, by actively critiquing others’ work, it will help you see ways to improve your own writing. Sometimes seeing how others do things can help you find your own groove.
Plus, once you’ve finished your story (congrats!) you have a small group of beta readers who are ready to comb through it. Your writing peers will give you insight into your structure, your character development, your language – just all of the literary aspects. This support system can be better than just finding random beta readers who just express how much they enjoyed reading your story. The in-depth critique is what is going to help you as a writer.
Having Accountability and Encouragement
Another benefit of a writing group is the accountability. Depending on the group type, some will have everyone share their writing goals. Hand in hand with trying to avoid procrastination, the encouragement from others will help you power through when you feel like you’re in a rut. Then, when you are in a rut, you have a group of peers whom you can bounce ideas off of and they’ll be able to help you power through your writing.
How Do I Find A Group?
On board with possibly finding a writing group? Great!
There are a handful of ways to find a writing group:
First, check out your local library or community college. These places will typically have a small variety of social groups. You can also check with your local bookstores, they may host group meetings and know who to put you in touch with about finding a group.
Social media such as Facebook and Instagram provide you with access to a diversity of writing groups all over the world. If you are in a specific genre, search for those. Otherwise, you can focus on the type of writing you do: poetry, flash fiction, drabbles, short stories, novels, etc.
If you write in a specific genre, don’t be afraid to go online in search of groups for it. It can help you steer your story into a set of hands of someone who has the same passion. Horror writers have the Horror Writers Association, and with it comes a lot of local chapters in each of the states. Utah has a “League of Utah Writers” with over a dozen different chapters in it. And the list goes on.
Don’t be afraid to seek out groups. You’ll be surprised at what you can find.
Brianna Malotke
Brianna is a freelance writer and a member of the Horror Writers Association. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s boxing. Her work is included in the anthologies The Deep, Beautiful Tragedies 2, The Dire Circle and Under Her Skin. Later this year she has short stories in the anthologies Their Ghoulish Reputation from Dark Lake Publishing LLP and Out of Time by Timber Wolf Press.