: Re: What weight should be given to writers groups critiques? I joined a writers group that meets every three weeks. I submitted the first eighteen pages of my work and also sent the same file

@Bethany377

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Some writing groups are awful and shouldn't be giving advice. I'd be more considerate of my fellow writers' critiques if they were successful teachers with students who had been published and/or people in the industry: other writers who have been published, agents, editors, etc. At the worst, it would be great to be in a group of writers who are keyed into what's going on in the industry and understand how to be effective instead of being focused on their personal pet peeves. It's very difficult to get into a quality writing group; but if you suspect their information is off base or capricious it probably is if they can't explain the why behind their comments.

If applying their advice to any part of your story doesn't measurably improve the quality of your work, then it's likely not worth it. And, frankly, if they are mostly worried about things that editors worry about then they likely are looking for problems instead of really understanding why your story is or is not working.

This is not to say all writing groups are bad. There are more bad members of writing groups than there are bad writing groups. But, you can't think just because a group of people got together that they know what they are talking about. You can find lots of groups around you that you totally disagree with that have nothing to do with writing. Why would writing be any different?

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