How to Start a Writing Group 3 Keys to Success

What derails writing group faster than anything else? It's poor planning not having clear expectations for everybody in the group so that everybody knows what they need to do and they know what they can get out of the group. So in this video, I'm showing you how to start writing group that is well organized so that everybody knows what they need to do and can have positive writing group experience Hey, I'm Suzanne Davis and I'm an online academic writing tutor and help college students and graduate students excel at writing and this is the second video in series on "Secrets to Wonderful Writing Groups." The first video in that series was called "How to Give and Get Powerful Writing Feedback." If you haven't seen that definitely check that video out because it goes through how to support each other as writers and be able to give those suggestions that are going to benefit everybody in the group. But today's episode is "How to Start Writing Group: 3 Keys to Success." And those three keys are setting up clear writing expectations setting up clear reading expectations and then knowing how to marry those two so that everybody can manage what they need to do in the group. So let's dive into how to do all of that The first key to starting successful writing group is to set clear writing expectations. How much writing should each member do before meeting. What is reasonable for how often you meet? So if you're meeting every week, obviously you can't write as much as you could if your meetings were set apart every two weeks or even further away. Also, when you're setting your writing expectations consider your group's writing genre. So, if your group's writing genre is poetry you might ask people to just write one to three poems week and and bring those to meeting. If your group's genre is creative writing and everybody's working on novel, then likely your group members are going to be writing in terms of novels. For example, they might bring one chapter per week to meeting, but the tricky thing when you have writing expectations that are based on chapters is that Different writers write different length chapters. write short chapters that are five to seven pages. Whereas other people write chapters like George R.R. Martin does and there are 20 pages or more. In that case, you might want to say to your group members if you write short chapters feel free to bring two or three chapters to meeting. And then the final thing you need to consider with setting writing expectations is what is the group's objective? Some writing groups are short term group and they're formed in order to help people complete project by deadline. For example, writing group that supports people as they write their their master thesis or writing group where people are working step-by-step on on final research paper In that case the writing expectations are determined really step-by-step as to all of the different things that need to be done on that project in order to complete it by the deadline. And this is different if you have an ongoing Writing group because you're writing expectations can be more flexible. You're just helping people grow writers over the long term and Everybody has different Paces at which they write The next key that you want to look at is Setting up clear reading expectations How much reading do members need to do before meeting? How much reading do they do during meeting? Usually with writing groups you have one of two situations The first one is where people are doing short pieces of writing and they just show up to the meeting with the writing they've done and everybody just gets together and at that time they read the other group members work and make comments and suggestions. However, in writing groups where people have longer writing assignments you'll find that it's easier to have members Exchange the writing ahead of time so that everybody in the group can read it before coming to meeting. An example of this would be if people are working on research papers it would make sense to read long research papers outside of the meeting and then bring comments and suggestions into the meeting. And then also when people do read before meeting are they taking written notes on what they read or are they just showing up and sharing their ideas and their comments? The third key to success is really to look at the writing and reading expectations in your group and figure out what everyone in your group can manage How much writing and reading can the writers in your group handle with everything else they do? So talk to them about their outside commitments. How much time they spend with work with school? with their family and all of those other things that go on in life and That's going to affect the size of your writing group Because if you have writing group where everybody is writing lot and they need to read lot before meeting You're going to want smaller group size to make it manageable for everyone but if you've got writing group that focuses on poetry or essays or or shorter pieces of fiction or nonfiction Then you're going to find that it might be really easy to do one small piece of writing for every week and then just read each other's work right in the meeting and you might find that It's really beneficial to have larger group because then you'll get more ideas and more feedback and more points of view on your work So, if you like this video actually like the video and Subscribe to my Youtube channel so that you can get new tips and tutorials on every aspect of writing for college or graduate school And I'll see you next week Cheers You