How Editing Groups Work (Part 5 of 4)

Peter Lundell sent this email:

I’m lost in semantics. The online group I’m in does basically, in an online format, what you’ve described in these “How Editing Groups Work” posts. But we call it a critique group. I’m having a hard time distinguishing what you’re calling editing and what we’re calling critiquing.

Here’s my response.

Writers’ critique groups formed in the days when it was expensive to make copies of manuscripts. They were set up so they could read their manuscripts aloud. It’s an old-fashioned method that seems to have survived. Across the country people still sit around a table and read their manuscripts while the others listen without interruption. They make comments at the end of the reading.

In 1971, I decided what I wanted and formed such a group. I formed a group where I didn’t have to listen to anyone read aloud (or bore them with my reading aloud). As far as I’m aware, no one else called them editing groups in 1971. I did that intentionally to distinguish us.

I started the face-to-face group and called us the Scribe Tribe. A week before each meeting, we mailed copies of our manuscripts to every member—and we kept the membership to no more than nine people. Sometimes that meant typing (as in tsing a typewriter and making carbon copies) the manuscript twice or three times.

I wanted members to write on the manuscript so I could take the various responses home with me and ponder what they wrote.

In the days since the Scribe Tribe and the proliferation of the Internet, the words have tended to become interchangeable, but I still use editing when it means people edit manuscripts sentence by sentence. As long as read-aloud groups remain, I’ll insist on the word editing.

Editing groups edit manuscripts.
That’s why I call them editing groups.

How Editing Groups Work (Part 1 of 4)

Beyond what I've written in previous blogs, here are reasons for joining or starting an editing group.

1. It’s a humbling experience: Someone can always help improve our writing.

2. An editing group is one way for us to learn professionalism. Remember the principle: A group edits my work, it does not criticize me.

3. An editing group offers a sense of identity. We’re no longer alone in our desires and ambitions.

4. We associate with other people who can understand us and our dreams. An editing group can offer support and affirmation as we pursue our craft.

Join an editing group,
learn from others,
and prepare yourself to become an outstanding writer.

Being Edited (Part 4 of 6)

In a previous blog I referred to editing groups and distinguish them from critique groups. Members of editing groups edit each other's manuscripts. If they do it well, they learn more about the craft and become more sensitive to good writing.

In editing groups, members mark on the manuscripts—either with a pen, or on the computer they use comment boxes in Word texts. They do that before the meeting, and no one reads manuscripts aloud at the meetings. With the proliferation of the Internet, more groups are moving into editing each other on-line.

I detest critique groups and I'm quite vocal about objecting. Writers spend half the meeting time reading aloud the manuscripts and members make comments. I consider that a waste of time. We write for the eye not the ear (with the possible exception of poetry). Some writers read their manuscripts aloud to listen to the cadence and pick up sentences that don't flow, but that's different.

Editors don't sit and read submissions aloud. As their eyes race across the page, they recognize the quality of the writing.

We help other writers when we edit them;
we rarely do much good critiquing when they read aloud.