When I first started writing I knew little about it and decided I needed some instruction. I tried a distance learning course, which I didn't get on with: I soon found what I wanted to do (novel writing) and the assignments were at odds. Something had to go and it was the course, but I wasn't wrong about needing feedback. I went along to a local writing group and tried that for a while, but that didn't do the trick either. You will find writing groups are filled with would-be poets and people who think they can write flash fiction and short stories, and again there is little place for useful comment on any extended piece of work. However, the guy who ran the group, someone who is a published novelist and who works as a freelance editor, told me about another group he ran - this time just for novelists. It is a quarterly workshop where each person present reads out a part of their work in progress which is then suitably interrupted, criticised and commented upon. You need a thick skin for this, of course, but everyone is in the same boat and it really does work. Best of all it's free!
Jack Orchison, November 29, 2013.
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