Writer's groups

I've been looking for a good writers groups for a while now. This week, in the midst of all my other chaos, I am going to check out a local group to see if we'd make a good fit.  Every group has it's own rules but here are some of the rules I follow for critiques:

• If you are the one being critiques don't speak unless there is a direct and specific question asked of you.  Don't defend or justify your work.
• As the critiquer start with something positive.  If you can not find anything positive you probably should critique.
• Don't be personal in your critique.
• Don't say how you would rewrite it.  No "you shoulds."
• Find a middle ground between nit picking grammar and word choice and painting in broad strokes. "I liked it," not helpful.  "I liked X because of Y," is much more informative.

A lot of my material comes from Brandon Sanderson's course.  Go watch the video, he's got some great stuff in there.