Thank you for your interest in beginning a Cafe based critique group.
Please note that the Children’s Book Writers Cafe does not directly run Critique groups begun by our members, or endorse or control them. The Critique groups are seperate from the Cafe. We offer these guidelines and advice as a service to our members who are interested in beginning a group.
Creating a Group 1) Finding members for your group- It’s a good idea to see if there’s interest in a new group before actually going to the trouble of creating a group. You may want to post a message on the Cafe boards, or even post ads at one or more of the many children’s writers groups online. Be sure to include your contact information in your post or ad, so that potential members will be able to reach you, and mention whether potential members will be required to also be members of the Childrens' Book Writers Cafe.
2) Once you establish a potential member list, creating a group with MSN, or a similar service, is very simple. Just visit the MSN home page, www.msn.communities.com, (or other service home page) and click the ‘Create A Community’ link. You will be given step by step directions on how to create a private online group.
3) You will be asked at some point to set the ‘security’ or ‘privacy’ level for your group. You will want to set your group to ‘private’, to protect the privacy of your members and to prevent outsiders from veiwing your members’ manuscripts.
The Makeup of the Critique Group-
1) What genre will your group focus on? Picture Book, Midgrade, Young Adult, Poetry, Nonfiction, or a mix of those genres?
2) What do you want from your group? You should decide what level of writers your group will be made up of. Will you recruit beginners, intermediate writers, advanced, or proffesionals? Or will your group be made up of mixed levels of writers?
3) Number of members: You should decide in advance how many members your group will have. You want to have enough members so that your group will be active and lively, but not so many that the workload is overwhelming. Most of our groups find that eight to twelve members is an ideal size.
Screening Potential Members
1) Depending on your group’s makeup, you’ll want to establish a process for potential members to apply to your group. You may want to require a writing sample, or publishing credits for an advanced group. Develop a list of questions reflecting the makeup of your group. It’s important to feel out the personality and ability of potential members.
2) Some groups find that it’s useful to require a probationary period of membership to the group, in order to be certain new members will be a good fit with the group.
Critiques-
1) What exactly do you expect the members to get from each other’s critiques? Will you expect members to do a line by line analysis of each file posted? Or a general overview?
2) What percentage of files posted will you expect members to critique? We’ve had success with both ‘relaxed’ style groups, where members critique only as many files as they post, and stricter groups where members are required to critique all files posted. An in between group might ask that members critique two or three posted files for each critique they request.
Guidelines-
1) It’s a good idea to create a list of membership guidelines for your critique group. Spelling out expectations for your members will prevent misunderstandings and hurt feelings down the line.
2) Be sure to spell out the workings of your group in the guidelines. Mention the procedure for posting a file for critique, and be sure to mention list etiquette issues- for example, in one of our groups, we ask that members upload a file to the Documents section, then post a message on the general discussion board announcing the file and detailing what issues they’d like addressed in critiques. Members are then asked to reply to the original message when posting critiques.
Managing files
1) Members should be given a reasonable time limit in which to critique posted files. Once a member posting a file has received the required critiques, he or she should remove the story from the files section of the group to avoid clutter.
2) A Critique Log should be created to track who has critiqued which files, especially important in a group where members are required to critique all stories offered within a set amount of time.
3) Posting limits- Depending on the size of your group, you may want to limit the number of stories members may post in the files for critique in a given time period. One picture book file per week or one chapter or longer work every other week are examples of limits that have worked well in established Cafe groups.
Membership Requirements
1) You may wish to require your members to remain active in order to keep their membership in the group. Decide ahead of time what you will require of your members.
2) What will you do if a member is not doing the required number of critiques? You will want to allow in the guidelines for removal from the group if a member is not meeting the requirements for membership.
Flaming
1) Flaming or tearing down someone’s work SHOULD NOT be tolerated. It is possible to give an opinion while sparing the authors feelings. Everyone should be encouraged to be honest, but not hateful. Anyone not abiding should be banned from the group.
2) No profanity or derogatory language should be tolerated. This includes but is not limited to racism, sexism, ageism etc. Be sure to include these warnings in your guidelines, and the consequences if members should choose to ignore them. Also provide an address for members to report such activities to.
Moderators
1) As owner, you should be prepared to deal with questions or problems members have in the group. Your contact information should be posted within the guidelines, and you should read the messages on the board often to keep track of what’s happening in your group.
2) Once a group is established, you may want to choose one or two individuals to appoint as assistant moderators. It’s always a good idea to have back up, in case you are suddenly unable to carry on with the group, or need to take some time off. You'll want to approach members who are consistantly on time with their critiques and who seem to have the time and interest to moderate.
