Unless you’re collaborating with others, the act of writing is, by its nature, a rather solitary activity. But the actual process of writing a story is only the first of many steps. The next step – revision – needs others. Whether it’s a professional editor, a beta reader, a friend whose opinion you value, or an anonymous stranger on the other side of the internet, finding and using a writing buddy who can tell you when you’re on track and when you need to put in a little more work is a necessary part of getting your manuscript ready to be seen by the general public.

The local critique group

Founding a local writer’s critique group is both challenging and rewarding. It can be difficult to find other local writers who are dedicated enough to their craft to continue with an organized group on an ongoing basis, and who all get along well and have something to offer each other.

One of the best bets for finding local, dedicated writers who might be interested in an ongoing critique group is to join a writing course at your local college or community center. You might not feel like you need the instruction, but making contact with fellow dedicated writers is often worth the price of admission.

Alternately, you could advertise in local listings (Kijji, Craigslist, meetup.com) to find others who are interested in the same thing you are. It might take some time to find the right group of people with whom you really mesh well, but the rewards are well worth it.

Even online writers groups can help you find local writers with whom to meet face-to-face. When you sign up for the yearly writer’s challenge National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo), you can join localized message forums and join in local write-ins and meet-ups.

Another great way to find fellow writers is to attend conferences for and about writers. These conferences can pull people from far and wide, so although you might not find local writers, you may make enough connections that you can organize an online writer’s group of your very own.  Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Canada

Ottawa Writer’s Festival – October, Ottawa, ON

Saskatchewan Festival of Words – July, Moose Jaw, SK

The Vancouver Writer’s Fest – October, Vancouver, BC

US

San Francisco Writers Conference – February, San Francisco, CA

Self-Publishing Book Expo – October, New York City, NY

UK

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival – July, Harrogate, UK

The Winchester Writers Conference – June, Winchester, UK

Australia

Perth Writers Festival – February, Perth, AU

Sydney Writers Festival – May, Sydney, AU

Emerging Writers Festival – May, Melbourne, AU

The online critique group

If you’re a little nervous about meeting other people in person, or if you’re in a small or remote community where other writers are thin on the ground, then an online critique group might be the best way to go for you. There are dozens of great critiquing sites available. Here is just a brief cross-section of websites to help get you started:

Critique Circle: When you sign up, you can add your story to the newbies queue for free; thereafter, in order to earn credits for the critiques of others, you have to offer critiques of your own. This is a great system to ensure full participation, and you’ll get a lot of thoughtful reviews and critiques. Don’t see critiquing the works of others as a chore: it’s actually a great way to hone your own reviewing skills.

Fan Story: All writing and all genres are welcome: poetry, prose, or scripts, partial or complete. Offer critiques and receive critiques on everything you post.  Take advantage of the vibrant community, participate in monthly contests, or take an online writing course.

Writing.com: Keep an online portfolio, get critiques on your work, and gain access to valuable tools and contests to keep you growing, reviewing, and improving.

There are even sites to help those writers who are true hermits – the AutoCrit Editing Wizard doesn’t require contact with another human being at all. Simply upload your chapter or section, click the “Analyze” button, and the automated editor will alert you to overused words, clichés, missing dialog tags, and more.

No matter where you find them, your writing buddies are an invaluable part of the writing process. We spend so much time with our own words, it really does help to have a second (or third, or fifteenth) pair of eyes on it to point out to us the missteps that we’ve become inured to.  Revision is much easier with a buddy or two, and their objectivity is crucial to getting our manuscripts in the best shape possible.

So you’ve decided to try your hand at writing erotica—why not? It’s a very popular genre right now, and selling like hotcakes. Bestselling novelist Kelly Favor, author of the wildly popular For His Pleasure series, took the time to share some thoughts, answer some questions, and provide a few Dos and Don’ts for the beginning writer.

Dos

Start fast, and stay in the “now.” Open with a scene that grabs readers’ attention and establishes the main character, and also establishes the “sexiness” of the story.

That doesn’t mean you need to start with a sex scene, but it means that you want to foreshadow or in some way indicate that there is some racy content to come. However, it’s important to also establish character at the same time—make certain you’ve instantly made the reader feel that they want to know more about this person and this situation.

From there, it’s all about developing plot and character, as any writing in any genre must do. Keeping the pace fast and the plot moving is really important for beginning writers, since many struggle when the plot isn’t moving. Newer writers have trouble writing sharp dialogue and sometimes their scenes will ramble and become dull if they don’t have plot points moving things forward.

There aren’t really tricks per se; they’re more conventions or “notes” that one must hit in order for the writing to appeal. It’s like being a musician—you have to understand the music you’re playing and you must hit those notes and stay on beat. If you go off rhythm or you start to hit the wrong notes, it becomes a mess.

However, if you know your own limitations, then you can write a very simple story with simple characters and still create something exciting and highly palatable for reader, just like a musician might play a very simple song that still pleases the ear.

Don’ts

The Don’ts are sort of the reverse of the Dos. Don’t start slow. Don’t start with tons of backstory. Don’t “info dump”, which is when a writer needs to get information about a character out and they just dump it wholesale on the reader. Backstory and the like should be interspersed throughout a scene or multiple scenes, broken by dialogue and action, so that the information doesn’t bog down the flow of the story.

I find that beginning writers struggle a great deal with writing naturally. Many of them overwrite, using “big words” in order to sound more literary, or because they feel it makes the prose more interesting.

I tell writers that if you would never speak this way in real life, don’t write it. Good writing is conversational, easy, and mostly simple. Yes, there are writers who have a more complex style, but they tend to develop that over time and usually they have a very strong vision.

Most writers—myself included—benefit from keeping things simple.

What distinguishes a great racy read from a dud?

It’s the same in any genre. A great read holds your attention, and makes you care about the characters. A dud tends to be dull, unoriginal, and lacking imagination and risk. Good writing, in the end, always involves some level of risk.

Every great story needs to have some element that stands out. Some great stories have great dialogue, some have great characters, some have exciting plots with twists and turns. You don’t need every element to be great. However, a great story has at least one element that soars, and typically more than one element that soars.

What would you want would-be writers to know?

Writing is really a craft, and that it’s not as mysterious and serious as many would have them believe.  You need to work hard and study books and become excited and passionate about writing, but you don’t need to be snooty and you don’t need to be perfect with your prose. You need to learn to be a good storyteller, because that’s what writing is.

I think there is an overemphasis on trying to “great,” and trying to be a genius where every sentence is perfection. Readers don’t really care about perfection. They just want to be entertained and transported. Learn to do that and you’ve got the essence of it.

Also remember that things will continue to get tougher and more competitive, but good writers can succeed. It’s important to understand, however, that being an indie writer means also being a good businessperson. Many writers seem to be struggling, in my opinion, to be both good writers and good businesspeople.

Check out Kelly Favor’s books on Kobo!