Got kicked out of a writer's group

Cassiopeia · Sep 4, 2009

shameless said:
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I probably don't know it for a fact, but I do think it's tactless to tell a writer who has been participating in a writing group to take a course in creative writing. It's cold and it's mean.

We only know how Shamrock took it. I know if someone said that to me, I'd probably take it pretty hard even if they said it in the nicest possible way.

Is there an easy way to tell someone they need to take a grammar class? Probably not. I think they should have had a screening process to begin with and this in all likelihood could have been avoided.

But it's prompted Shamrock to branch out and start her own group which can and will be a great learning experience.

scarletpeaches · Sep 4, 2009

Some writers need to improve their grammar. If you tell them that, it's going to hurt. No matter how nice you are, as Cass said.

The thing is - yes, I'm brutally honest when it comes to writing but bear with me - we're here to improve our writing, not to circle-jerk each other's egos.

I hope. If you need to work on something, I for one will tell you. Don't like it? Then grow a thick skin and come back to me when you're done.

Kathleen42 · Sep 4, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I hope. If you need to work on something, I for one will tell you. Don't like it? Then grow a thick skin and come back to me when you're done.

There's a reason I only post my queries

I've never suggested classes but I have recommended specific books where I thought they could help.

Cassiopeia · Sep 4, 2009

The thing is, I can see why this hurt Shamrock's feelings...it's grossly unfair for her to have to drive that far to a group just to be told, yeah go take a class. If they really thought that before, why didn't they tell her when she was told to revise?

If I'm understanding the situation correctly, she took the work before, they told her to work on it and edit it, she brought it back and before she could submit her revision for review, they told her to go take a class. OUCH!

However, in every situation, (yes, I'm going to be happy clappy, Cassi) there IS something to be learned. I remember the first time KTC sent back some work of mine and the guy actually had the nerve (god help me, I'm exaggerating) to cut out like, I dunno 500 of my precious words. I mean a whole flipping segment of a chapter. I was like GAHHHHHHHHHHH! OUCH man that hurt. But as soon as I caught my breath and thought about it...of course! he was totally right.

It took me just that ONE time to really feel that first sting of honest to goodness, blunt forthright, criticism (trust me, he's that honest but he's never mean..sorry Kevin there goes your reputation AGAIN) but it took just that once for me to realize, if I'm going to get any better at this, I better listen to those who I ask for help from.

So, really, maybe though these gentlemen were far from nice or fair about it...maybe they've done you a HUGE favor.

Some of us, myself included, need grammar and other writing classes. It's worth the time and effort. After all, are we here to get this right or not?

Robin Bayne · Sep 4, 2009

C.bronco said:
Don't waste good free copies on rude people. Send them to us!

Hear, hear!

Ken · Sep 4, 2009

... got kicked out of a group, myself, back when. It was a college creative writing class. The professor threw me out, told me I didn't have what it takes to be a writer, and made a notation on my records saying that if I ever tried enrolling in another writing class he should be contacted, as I later found.

After being thrown out of the class and being really down about that for a day I went to the college bookstore and bought an armload of books on grammar and basic writing. Been working hard ever since to improve and am gradually making some strides forward. And even if that professor was correct and I just don't have what it takes, I will at least have made my best effort to succeed, which will leave me with nothing to feel ashamed about.

Good luck overcoming your own setback and try turning it into a positive experience as I have.

scarletpeaches · Sep 4, 2009

Hey, if you think about it, anyone who's been banned from AW has been kicked out of a writer's group.

*cough*notmenosir*cough*

Ken · Sep 4, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
Hey, if you think about it, anyone who's been banned from AW has been kicked out of a writer's group.

... sigh. Thanks for pointing this out, SP. Now I gotta consider myself as being kicked out of two groups: one of them twice :-(

scarletpeaches · Sep 4, 2009

Hey, happens to all the cool kids, darlin'.

Cassiopeia · Sep 4, 2009

Ken said:
... got kicked out of a group, myself, back when. It was a college creative writing class. The professor threw me out, told me I didn't have what it takes to be a writer, and made a notation on my records saying that if I ever tried enrolling in another writing class he should be contacted, as I later found.

After being thrown out of the class and being really down about that for a day I went to the college bookstore and bought an armload of books on grammar and basic writing. Been working hard ever since to improve and am gradually making some strides forward. And even if that professor was correct and I just don't have what it takes, I will at least have made my best effort to succeed, which will leave me with nothing to feel ashamed about.

Good luck overcoming your own setback and try turning it into a positive experience as I have.

Ken, darling....why didn't you challenge that professor. You were paying for his class. What utter (sorry in advance) fucking bullshit. This pisses me off to such an extreme. I mean really, who did he think he is? You were paying to have him TEACH you how to write, that's what college is there for.

Oh man this makes me soo mad...I want to write him the most scathing letter and tell him what a bad educator he is.

Yes, there, I swore, a LOT!

Ken · Sep 4, 2009

... thanks (((Cass))).
I was too crushed to say anything in my defense. The professor was a published author, too, and a week or so before I'd seen him interviewed on tv. Nothing major, but still enough to put me in awe of him. And to be honest, he really was right about my writing. I still have the short story that made him take the action he did and man is it bad! Guess he might've been a bit more tactful when it came to throwing me out, though.

Cassiopeia · Sep 4, 2009

Ken said:
... thanks (((Cass))).
I was too crushed to say anything in my defense. The professor was a published author, too, and a week or so before I'd seen him interviewed on tv. Nothing major, but still enough to put me in awe of him. And to be honest, he really was right about my writing. I still have the short story that made him take the action he did and man is it bad! Guess he might've been a bit more tactful when it came to throwing me out, though.

No, no...ken dear...you don't understand. they can't kick you out of a class that's mean to teach you writing! It's not fair and it's not right. I don't care if he's a published author or not, he was acting as your professor, you were PAYING the university. Whatever his power trip was/is, he treated you unfairly.

So how long ago was this and where can I write to?

Ken · Sep 4, 2009

... will pm you the info

Hettie · Sep 4, 2009

Sometimes people in a position of authority use their 'power' to make themselves feel better.... this goes for your situation, Shamrock and yours too Ken! Are they so famous and fabulous and published *gasp* that they can lose their social graces and treat the non-published lowlifes poorly?

It would be 'beneath' them to actually 'help' you... BAHHHHH!

Read Cass' rant, because that is how I feel too!

mariedees · Sep 6, 2009

I do think it's tactless to tell a writer who has been participating in a writing group to take a course in creative writing.

I have to disagree with this because it may discourage people from actually suggesting useful resources to writers. I recommend classes, seminars, conferences, etc. all the time to people in groups with me. Now kicking them out of the group is a bit tough. But to tell someone "hey, Holly Lisle has a free course on plotting available" is not in itself evil. Even recommending a good grammar course or a copy of Strunk and White isn't evil. Writers never stop learning.

I've belonged to many groups and small groups are the toughest dynamic to manage. I've never been in a group that kicked anyone out, but I was part of an infamous "failure" group. The failure group was a happy group that met regularly but a certain member felt she was the creator of the group and the leader. We'd noticed that she wasn't making it to many meetings. Then one day we all received an email from her that the group was a failure and she was disbanding it. We were rather surprised because we'd been too busy to notice we were all failures. So we just changed the group name and kept on meeting. We're still meeting and still happy.

Don't let yourself hold a grudge against a writing group or an individual. Just move forward. There are other groups out there. And in the end, the writing is the critical thing.

Marie

brainstorm77 · Sep 6, 2009

I'd like to hear from the other side before forming an opinion.

shameless · Sep 6, 2009

I'm bowing out of this discussion because I seem to be in the minority. I believe anyone can be told anything -- even something bad about her writing -- if done in a kind way. Kicking someone out of a group because the members don't complement each other or someone doesn't fit, I understand. Doing so and adding an insult about her abilities, I don't.

Y'all have fun with this... I'm done.

Susan Gable · Sep 7, 2009

shameless said:
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I probably don't know it for a fact, but I do think it's tactless to tell a writer who has been participating in a writing group to take a course in creative writing. It's cold and it's mean.

I can top that. At a multi-genre, multi-type writing conference I attended in the spring, one workshop presenter told everyone in the room that Nora Roberts should take a writing class.

<snort> (I am sure she'd be CRUSHED to know he said that. LOLOL.)

Now, you don't have to like Nora's books. But saying something like that to a roomful of writers smacks of sour grapes to me. And holier than thou. And I don't like either of those things. (Plus I wonder how many of her recent books he'd read to form that opinion?)

Susan G.

veinglory · Sep 7, 2009

A writing group is essentially a social cliche with a theme. If it isn't going to work you move on.

Maryn · Sep 7, 2009

I've been in three writing groups, one of them since 1992. I've co-taught a class on how to run a writing group (with the other group members, of course) and shared various hand-outs on writing groups and critique groups with anybody who asked. A good group can improve everybody's writing. A bad group can be toxic.

It's not a popular viewpoint, but I don't think it's wrong to eject a member whose writing contains a great many mistakes. A member whose skills in writing mechanics are weak tends to absorb 80% of the group's energy in correction and instruction. A proper critique of such a manuscript might take three times as long as clean copy.

As KTC said, the playing field has to be pretty close to level when it comes to basic skills. Many writers who want to be helpful simply cannot look past errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. to examine character development or underlying structure. This mistakes stand between the would-be critic and the meat of the work.

My group screens now, but we didn't always. An experience with a prolific writer who lacked basic skills caused us to implement the policy. We tried to be kind and tactful, yet truthful, when we told her why we were asking her to leave and what our requirement would be for her to rejoin us. We told her we were unanimous in genuine hope she would fulfill them, because we liked her. We told her she was welcome to sit in on our meetings and absorb what she could as we critiqued other work, but that she could not share her own work for critique until she took and passed any one of several local intro-to-writing classes.

She didn't. Last I heard (from a stranger who struck up a conversation when he saw me critiquing a manuscript while waiting for a car repair), she'd been asked to leave another critique group because fixing mistakes in her writing mechanics was taking too much of the group's time.

So while I sympathize with the sting of the rebuke, I can also understand why they felt they had to do it. I bet they screen from this point forward.

And I hope that in your quest to write better, you'll step away from the sting to see if they had a point, and act accordingly.

Maryn, kind of tough-love-ish

Salis · Sep 7, 2009

This is why I don't really understand the point of a writing group. Taste in writing varies way too much to get some objective benefit out of throwing five (even competent) writers together to look at each other's work. Look at how viciously people on this forum tear apart the works of bestselling novelists.

I think that showing your work to unbiased readers is, nine times out of ten, more effective than showing it to a bunch of writers. Some people will say "Well, only fellow writers can really understand the craft and help you improve!"

From my perspective, you can improve just fine on your own. What you need is an understanding of what isn't working, which is what readers will give you. It's always better to write for readers instead of writers, after all.

MaggieK · Sep 7, 2009

One time I tried to join an online writer's group and had to submit a sample. The members voted me down and said I needed to keep working to bring myself up to their level. They said I could try to join later after I'd improved. The funny thing, though, was the sample I sent had won first place in a writing contest. I found out later several members of this group do mainly self-publishing (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course

~ Maggie

KTC · Sep 7, 2009

Salis said:
This is why I don't really understand the point of a writing group. Taste in writing varies way too much to get some objective benefit out of throwing five (even competent) writers together to look at each other's work. Look at how viciously people on this forum tear apart the works of bestselling novelists.

I think that showing your work to unbiased readers is, nine times out of ten, more effective than showing it to a bunch of writers. Some people will say "Well, only fellow writers can really understand the craft and help you improve!"

From my perspective, you can improve just fine on your own. What you need is an understanding of what isn't working, which is what readers will give you. It's always better to write for readers instead of writers, after all.

this really has nothing to do with taste. it has everything to do with skill levels. you're being unfair.

Karen Junker · Sep 7, 2009

I was recently rejected by a crit group of romance writers. My writing samples got me to the final round of their application process, but then came the 'personal' questions. I wasn't told why I didn't appeal to them, but I was surprised they didn't want me, since I edit romances for my day job. Maybe they felt I would be too critical.

On the other side of the coin, I've beta'd for several people here on AW. I didn't think I was being particularly cruel or harsh, but a few of them have simply not responded to my crits and they have since re-posted here, looking for new betas. So, I've been rejected by writers as a crit partner.

I wish someone would have had the courtesy to let me know what about my crits didn't work for them!

Cathy C · Sep 7, 2009

I've never actually joined a writer group--probably because most of the people I met who belonged to one didn't read "genre trash novels." LOL! I do have to agree with Sandy that to eject a person from an openly advertised meeting is curlish at best.

I honestly don't think I'd do well in a group, even a CP group. I don't mind sharing and taking criticism, but I do expect that if I take the time to comment, I won't get shouted down by the author. I've had that happen more than once on forums and loops, so I tend to be somewhat low-key except on one-to-one basis. As others have said, writing IS very subjective. What I consider "great" others don't, and vice-versa.

And speaking of which--it's time to get back to my writing. Carry on peeps and thanks, as always, for remaining civil on a difficult topic!

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