New Critique Group

I have joined a new local critique group. No, I'm definitely not getting rid of my romance critique group. They have been invaluable to me this year. At the same time, however, I want to learn as much as I can about my own writing., The more push I receive from groups, the better. This second group so far consists of four women who are mostly writing women's fiction and paranormal fiction. As readers of more paranormal and urban fantasy type fiction, these women will be able to hopefully help me with Pandemic in ways that my HCRW group can't.

Tonight is our first meeting where we will actually be talking about someone's work. We have 54 pages of one woman's novel. I am a little nervous about tonight, because even though my comments and critiques are written across her writing to help her, I am scared I will hurt her feelings. It's so tough when you're starting a group for the first time. You don't know how sensitive certain people might be or how well they will take critique. You don't know what they know or how much writing experience they truly have. It takes time to get to know each other and to know if this group is going to be a valuable group or not.

As someone who has cried about comments made about my writing, I understand how easy it is to get your feelings hurt when someone else is critiquing your work. So I keep asking myself if I should just go super easy on this first woman? Should I tell her the positive things about the entry and just mention a few of the more broadsweeping errors I see? And they aren't even necessarily errors - just things I see as a reader that pull me out of the story or that make it weaker than it could be. I'm so scared I'll come across as a know-it-all. The good news is that I'm already learning more about how to deal with other writers and her pages have taught me more about what I want to do with my own writing. That's a good sign. I'll let you know how it goes after our first meeting.