How is Group Coaching Different to a Critique Group?

Are there too many voices in your head? 

Lots of writers are members of critique groups, and they can be extremely helpful.  If you listen to interviews with authors, or sometimes read the acknowledgements in the front of a book, you will see plenty of evidence that when a critique group works well, it can be gold.

But, the truth is that they don’t always work well for a variety of reasons. 

Here are a few comments I’ve heard from writers:

  • They give contradictory advice—different members of the group focus on different things, and they don’t always agree, so it gets confusing.
  • They give advice that isn’t helpful—even great writers are sometimes at a loss to explain how they do what they do. They may think that the focus needs to be on language, but early in the drafting process the focus needs to be on writing a basic draft, AKA Draft 0, so that you have something to work with. Correcting your grammar isn’t helpful until the very last step of the revision process.
  • They only see snippets at a time and never have the whole plot for your novel in their head, so they tell you to do things that won’t work in the plot of your novel, or that a character wouldn’t do. Or they try to get you to fix non-existent problems or throw in extra stuff that doesn’t need to be there.
  • They encourage you to rewrite the opening for the 500th time.  Just don’t.  I will tell you a secret…it will probably change by the time you get to the end and you will rewrite it anyway, so move on and stop trying to perfect the opening before you have a completed draft.

If you’ve experienced any of these, or maybe something else, send me a message, I would love to hear from you.  

If you are interested in discussing a small group coaching experience, schedule a chat.  Even if your critique group is wonderful, you might want more to make real progress on your novel.

New Podcast Episode: The Book Thief

Take a listen to hear Terry and I discuss the novel. Here are some discussion questions to use in your own Book Group.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How did the narrator change the way this story was told?
  2. Did knowing which people were going to die make it less interesting?  Why or why not?
  3. Who was the hero of the tale? Why?
  4. If you were going to write the plot in a paragraph, what would it say?
  5. What message did you take from the book?  How did that message come through?

Join us in Galveston for a Novel Whisperer Writing Adventure!

Join Robin, your Novel Whisperer, in Galveston, TX for a week of writing with purpose.  You will be inspired by the beauty of the island, focused on writing by setting aside the time for your project, and supported by a book coach and editor who will help you get words on the page and make your story shine.
The retreat schedule includes coaching time, writing time, group discussions and activities like a Murder and Mansion tour and plenty of seafood.  There is group time, and time on your own to reflect, write or wander the historic district for ideas.
Galveston Island has a rich heritage and natural beauty that make it a favorite getaway for vacationers.  We will be there at the perfect time—no Spring Breakers, no oppressive heat, and no hurricanes.
Come and find out for yourself how great book coaching is and  get a ton of writing done while on vacation!

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Is Your Manuscript Fixable?

Back in June, I gave a presentation about revision at the Historical Novel Society Conference in San Antonio. 

One of the questions was very interesting—when do you think there is no hope?


The answer is complex.  I don’t believe a manuscript is unfixable, though I am also a fan of putting one away for a while if you can’t get traction on it and moving on to the next one.  As I say to clients, every big name author I’ve ever heard interviewed has a drawer book.  An early novel that is in a drawer and has never seen the light of day. 
Sometimes those books come back out again once you have more experience writing and enough time has gone by, and sometimes they don’t. 

But as I thought about this question, I wondered if what this person was really asking is something closer to , “What are the mistakes you see in manuscripts over and over?”  


This question has a more concrete answer. Besides my work as a book reviewer and editor, I also review manuscripts for writers as part of coaching work that we do together when they are revising.  As you might suspect, there are patterns. 


Here are the top five mistakes I have seen in manuscripts and sometimes in published novels…

  1. Loss of Narrative Drive/Lack of tension
  2. No plot arc—just a series of events
  3. Starts in the Wrong Place
  4. Not enough conflict/stakes are not escalating, or even present
  5. Too many surprises thrown in to try to hide the fact that the story is sagging in the middle.

The good news is that these are all fixable, which gets us back to the original question.  It may not be an easy solution, and it will likely involve cutting swaths out of your manuscript and adding new scenes, plus a rearrangement of the whole thing, but it is possible to fix them.  🙂

Would a diagnostic service from me help you identify the issues and brainstorm solutions? Get in touch to find out.

Book Review: Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

Act of Oblivion is upmarket historical fiction at its best. Harris has taken an interesting event from the past, used real historical characters who disappeared from the record and made up others, to craft a story that is gripping and thought provoking. 
Edward Whalley and William Goffe were real officers for the Cromwell side during the English Civil War and both signed the death warrant of Charles I. After the Restoration, the pair fled to North America, where many Puritans were sympathetic to them and helped them survive and evade arrest.
Harris’s book fictionalizes the details and offers an interpretation of what might have happened.  He also ratchets up the tension by inventing a vengeful agent of the new king’s court, Richard Naylor, who is determined to capture and kill all the escaped regicides, Whalley and Goffe in particular.

For fans of historical fiction of the Early American period, this book is a treat, and for readers who enjoy a layered story that asks questions about the nature of freedom, this book is an excellent choice—you won’t be disappointed.
For writers, notice how the POV switching becomes more frequent as the pace speeds up and we approach a turning point/decision point.  Then Harris slows it back down after the turning point—masterful.
Harris delivers on the premise—take a peek for yourself!

If you decide to discuss this book with your book group, try this cake, a favorite of B&B guests back in the day and a nice English style treat for your tea.

ICYMI: my guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog

In my quest to help writers learn from what they read, imagine my joy at having a guest post on this topic accepted by Jane Friedman, a giant in the industry. I love her site, her ethos, and her advice, so it is with gratitude that I am associated with her in this tiny way.

Take a look, and please like, comment, and what have you. I would love to make her newsletter as a popular post. 🙂

Outlining is a valuable tool at any point in the writing process: just getting started, revising your novel, or writing your summary to query.

Get your free copy of the Beats of the Heroine’s Journey with examples here.

Title List for Fall Episodes of the Read Like a Writer Book Club

This season, we will discuss even more books!

We are exploring three elements that writers have questions about: Narrators, Agency and Power dynamics, and Secrets—how to keep and reveal them at just the right moment. Take a listen to the shorty episode for booktalks on the titles and get thee to a library or bookshop! New Episodes begin mid-September.

Book List for Fall 2023:


Narrators:  The Book Thief/Zusak and Nutshell/McEwan

Naughty Girls:  Vanity Fair/Thackeray and The Power/Alderman

Secrets:  The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Dutch House/Patchett

Besides discussions of these titles, be sure to check for bonus episodes and author interviews.

Do you need more than a critique group?

Do you need accountability and some guidance  to have a breakthrough? 

Sometimes, just a little bit of positive peer pressure is a good thing.  Critique groups can provide this, but frequently they are more focused on “workshopping” pages for members.  Nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t the kind of accountability that will spur you on to write and hit your goals.

Have you joined writing groups, but felt like they offered you harmful or unhelpful feedback?  

Some critique groups are great! And others, well, they aren’t.  The members pick on grammatical and spelling errors because they don’t really know what else to say.  The group members may not have read more than a few pages of your work in progress, because according to the group rules, there just isn’t time for you to get more pages in front of eyes.  The group may be stuck in a cycle of submitting revised pages of the opening chapter over and over and over again.  Maybe you get comments from one member about how to fix something that are contradicted by someone else.  Maybe they don’t have any more experience writing or editing than you do, so you wonder whether their advice is actually helpful or based on anything other than “feelings.”

Do you feel lost in large writing organizations or like they give conflicting advice, or advice that is out of date or doesn’t apply to you?

Writing organizations are wonderful!  They provide writers with resources, conferences, webinars, all kinds of really helpful things.  I am a member of several myself. But.  Sometimes large writing organizations are focused on what the largest percentage of members need, or what the loudest voices need, or they are working on a specific agenda for their organization that doesn’t address your needs. They cannot be everything to everybody, and that is okay.  They provide valuable insight and resources, but they are not a one stop shop for everything that you as a writer will ever need.

Sometimes you need more.

If you find yourself wondering what  “more” would look like, it might look like small group coaching in the Readerly Writing Circle.  The next enrollment period begins in November for a January start date.  The group is limited to ten writers—will you be one of them?

Find out More

Schedule a Chat with Robin to find out if the Writing Circle is for you

Book Review: My Mother’s Secret by Alina Adams

This followup novel to Nesting Dolls is basically strong, and the setting is a place that many American readers may not be familiar with, the Soviet attempt at creating an “autonomous” Jewish homeland.  

The novel opens with Regina, our heroine, on the train escaping from the Soviet secret police by traveling without papers to Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region set up by the Soviets.  The year is 1935 and Regina is a true believer.  She believes that the communist government has the people’s best interests at heart. She believes that the communists want to be fai. She believes that Birobidzhan will be a land flowing with milk and honey, as the propaganda promises.  
Adams does a good job setting up a naive heroine, while letting the reader in on what is really going on.  Regina’s parents, for instance, do not share her illusions. She also does a good job weaving in the backstory and giving the reader an emotional payoff, all well done.


Where the novel falters a little is in the heavy-handedness of Regina’s misbelief/insecurities and the message about trusting yourself to make choices.  While insecurity is fine as a motivation for a character, the delivery is a little blunt and telly.  Rather than let the reader figure it out, which by the way, they could have, because the story is very good, Adams chooses to hit us upside the head with it.  
Likewise the message.  A more subtle approach that respects the reader would have made the book more enjoyable.  When the daughter has to tell the reader through interiority that she is hitting her mother where it hurts by invoking her insecurity, I was annoyed.  Of course she does, that is what daughters do!  Trust the reader, trust the reader, trust the reader.  I promise you do not have to spell it out in every character’s thoughts and dialogue for us to get it.  Have the message in your mind and it will get to the page through the story, as it should.
The story and characters are well drawn, and the setting is impeccable—I could almost feel the mosquitoes biting me during the harvest.  It is unfortunate that it goes a little overboard on the message, otherwise, it is a wonderful novel.