Soft-hearted friends and hard-boiled fiction

My love for hardboiled detective fiction dates back to a glorious summer after sixth grade, during which I read my way around an entire rusted carousel rack of cheap paperback mysteries at the public library in Onalaska, Wisconsin. Drawn to the pulp fiction cover art, I started with Farewell, My Lovely and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, gateway drugs for Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Many forgettable dime novels followed, but there were some wonderful ones in there as well. Cain’s Double Indemnity made such an impression on me that I immediately recognized the cover when I saw it thirty years later in a vintage bookstore in Texas, triggering a whole new hardboiled binge, which took in the complete works of Dashiell Hammett.

Coming to these books from the perspective of a seasoned writer, I found a whole new joy in the terse prose and a whole new dismay in the blatant sexism, racism, and homophobia. I expanded my hardboiled deep dive to include Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Val McDermid, and Elmore Leonard. (I was completely chuffed to discover among the acknowledgements that I’d had editors in common with both McDermid and Leonard.)

This was not the genre where I wanted to hang out long-term as a writer, but I couldn’t resist the challenges presented by this sort of procedural fiction: structural knots, moral ambiguity, gritty dialogue. It struck me as the perfect vehicle for sending up old school isms and skewering literary snootiness. Developing Smartie’s style for the Smack Wilder novels is the most fun I’ve ever had on paper.

Revisiting the manuscript in preparation for this 10^th Anniversary Edition, I laughed out loud, and I hope readers will too. This gimlet-eyed view of the writing process and publishing industry is true, in spirit, to my experience as a writer, especially the portrayal of Smartie’s critique group, The Quilters.

My own critique group, The Midwives, five dedicated professional writers, met every other Friday evening in the suburbs of Houston. Colleen Thompson, our unofficial high priestess, is a successful romantic suspense novelist who wrote The Salt Maiden, The Off Season, Fatal Error, and many others. Barbara Taylor Sissel has written several crime-centered family dramas including Evidence of Life, Faultlines, and Tell No One. Thieme Bittick, who wrote as TJ Bennett, is the author of fantasy novels The Legacy, The Promise, and Dark Angel. Wanda Dion had been successfully published as a YA author and was looking to spread her wings in a darker direction. 

Being in The Midwives was one of the greatest experiences of my personal and professional life. These fabulously funny, intelligent, well read, compassionate, and talented women worked hard and upheld high craft standards. There was no jealousy or competitiveness, because we all understood that book writers don’t compete with each other; they compete with television, Facebook, and other time-sucks that prevent people from reading. What I learned from them about writing, publishing, mothering, and life could fill another book.

We always began with half an hour of lively conversation, during which we allowed one snack and one snack only: Chex Mix. Long before I joined the group, they’d decided that fussing over hostess duties was not a good use of a writer’s time. We all showed up with five hard copies of our weekly pages and read in a round robin: each author would read her ten pages aloud without interruption while the rest of us took notes, then we’d discuss for fifteen or twenty minutes. We were staunchly supportive of each other’s work, but no punches were pulled. No gratuitous praise was offered in the spirit of “being nice,” because we all knew that it’s not nice to be lied to and sent out bare-assed into an unforgiving publishing ethos. When The Midwives told me, “This is working,” I knew it was solid. When something wasn’t working, I could rely on them to speak the truth in a loving, helpful context.

Colleen, whose husband was a fireman, was especially sharp when it came to all things first responder. Like me, she’s a research fiend, and we shared a few rollicking research road trips, driving through a herd of buffalo in Yellowstone Park, trudging across the West Texas desert to view the Marfa Lights, and wandering the eerie murals in an old resort where Nazi brass had been housed as prisoners of war. These are adventures I couldn’t have shared with anyone but other than a fellow writer nerd—someone who really gets the wealth of inspiration that happens when you smell the inside of a toolbox or examine the texture of a taco shell.

After seven intensely productive, joyful years, Bobbi moved to the Hill Country, I relocated to the beach in Washington State, and the critique group drifted apart. We remain lifelong friends, and that powerful critique model informs the work I do now, mentoring and nurturing small groups of writers at Westport Lighthouse Writers Retreat. We Midwives celebrated each other’s successes and cried for each other’s heartaches. We believed in each other’s talent and forgave each other’s foibles, because, at the end of the day, we were five women who loved each other.

The greatest blessing I could hope for any writer is to find such a tribe.

Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Common Peer Review Mistakes and their Overlap with Critique Groups

While some of the common "mistakes" in this video are specific to an oral critique, paired peer situation, there are others that are common to any critiquing relationship. Are you a Picky Patty, a Mean Margaret, or a Defensive Dave? Have you ever been critiqued by a Pushy Paula or by Jean the Generalizer?

Conversely, what characterizes effective writing feedback? How do you know when a critique partnership is working, and when is it time to let go? And what are your best tips for handling writing advice?

Critique Groups: The Good, the Bad, and the Coyote Ugly

Back in 18th-century Paris, the literati and the culturati had their literary salons. I'm sure they were fascinating, if crammed full of pretension. In Greenwich Village in the early 20th century, the Dadaists formed tightly-knit groups of artistic weirdness or genius, depending on your viewpoint.

Many modern commercial writers gravitate toward critique groups, a working (or aspiring-to-be-working) stiffs' variation on the theme. Like-minded members gather to share pages of their drafts-in-progress, praise the good in them, and offer helpfully-meant criticisms of anything that might impede the authors' path to publication.

A good critique group is not only a great place to learn but also a real joy. The critique group forms an alliance, with every member helping every other member achieve his/her potential. Members respect the fact that good writing, characterization, and story transcend market slots such as genre, and snobbism, pettiness, and competitiveness are all checked at the door. Members are also mature enough to realize that a high tide floats all boats and one member's successes do nothing to diminish their own chances. In fact, these group successes help to add to the collective wisdom and experience of the hive. (Bzzzz, Bzzzz!)

I've been blessed with a terrific critique group called The Midwives for more than ten years now, and in it, I've formed some of the closest friendships of my adult life. We laugh (a lot), we share triumphs, and we cushion one another's disappointments. Plus, we can talk writing and publishing all we like with watching the other party's eyes glaze over (as often happens with our longsuffering family members.)

Unfortunately, not all critique groups are created equal. From the snarky and condescending to the hierarchical to the vicious, critique groups sometimes get a bad rap. Some of the worst of these, in my opinion, run like some college creative-writing workshops, where English majors and black-dressed Sylvia Plath wannabees try to impress the prof by slicing-and-dicing the other students' work and jockeying for position in More-Erudite-Than-Thou-Land. (I sincerely hope there are kinder, gentler college creative writing workshops than the ones that I remember from my own days in such classrooms, but I've heard from many writers who have also been there and will know of what I speak.) These types of groups drive undermine the confidence of some and drive others completely away from writing... or at least from attempting to find the Nirvana of a group that is a better fit.

Before I joined the Midwives, I participated in several unhealthy critique situations. Almost as bad as the Lord of the Flies, "gotcha" type (aha! I found a missing comma! And look, here! A -- insert gasp -- dangling participle. Indicating that, clearly, you suck and I rule!) were those in which members offered nothing except praise... to everyone for every effort. Either they were so inexperienced they couldn't see the problems or too nice to mention them, but no one in either type of group every progressed.

If you find you're in such a group, don't waste your time (or risk your ego) hanging with it. Just politely distance yourself and keep trying, because I guarantee a perfect fit is well worth the trouble it takes to find or form one.

For a great article on how to start your own critique group, read Life and Creativity Coach Lisa Gates' article here. (Warning: this link takes a while to load, but it's worth reading.)

The Curse of the Soul-Sucking Critique Group

Last night's meeting of my long-time critique group, The Midwives, was so constructive, upbeat, and just plain fun that I can't help comparing it to some of my earlier critiquing experiences. Most writers agree that the right critique group is a joy, offering support during tough times, cheers during good times, and honest-but-supportive dialogue about perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of each member's work in progress.

But a lot of times, writers find themselves in less than helpful situations with those who hinder instead of help. For fear of hurting feelings, they stagger along with these emotionally-draining groups for far too long.

Here are some signs that it's time to split the sheets with your current critique partner/group.

• You dread going and look for excuses to avoid it. Others do the same, so attendance is sporadic and ever-changing.
• An individual's positive news is greeted with stony, resentful-looking silence or attributed to dumb luck/pandering to the marketplace, etc.
• One or more dominating individuals not only share their opinions of the work, but try to force absolute obedience by the piece's author.
• A toxic member gleefully jumps on minor punctuation points or adherence to trivial "rules" or genre conventions or engages in the "revenge hack n' slash" after you have pointed out a problem in his/her own work.
• Other group members make disparaging remarks about the genre/sub-genre that you write. (It's wonderful to have didn't critique partners writing in different genres as long as everyone agrees that good writing is good writing.)
• No one appears to be actively, seriously pursuing publication. Instead, there's a pervasive, defeatist attitude about the chances for "real talent" to break into the industry.

If any of these conditions exist in your critique group, you may want to have a frank talk with others involved, or you may just want to cut your losses and move on, or even work on your own. Thanks to the Internet, your next, great critique group may be only a mouse-click away.