This post is specifically about writing groups to give each other feedback. I have a general post on writing groups including other kinds here.
A writing feedback group is absolutely transformative, both for you and for your writing. As I said in my Top Ten Tips for My Students, other people can do something we can never do for ourselves: tell us how our vision is coming across on the page. We know the effect we want to create, but we need other people to tell us the effect they’re experiencing: how characters are coming across, if a poem is clear or inscrutable, and so on. Bouncing ideas off other people also works better than working alone. We solve other people’s creative dilemmas more easily than our own, and in return, they can do the same for us.
The group helps us, as well as our writing. Having readers and feedback is motivating and keeps us going when we hit a hurdle or a dry patch. If we’re having a bad word day, or struggling with a plot problem, we know we’ve got people to ask for help. And we’ve got companions, in the strange wild worlds we invent and the strange wild process of doing that, who also know what it’s like, celebrate our steps forward, hug us when we cry. (And when we finish a first draft, they’ll throw a party instead of asking “When can I buy it in the shops?”! They get it.)
For all of this, we need a consistent, long-term, suitably sized writing group, which can read each other’s work over time and build strong bonds. We need to trust them, because we’re showing them the early drafts, the imperfect work – even if we’ve got it as perfect as we can make it on our own. They can only give us the support of bouncing ideas if we feel safe asking for help. Having them as readers is only motivating if we feel this is a good place to share our writing.
So here are my suggestions for how to assemble and develop a group like that, some extra feedback tips especially for writing groups, and how to find those lovely people in the first place.
Assembling a group
Who’s a good fit
In my experience, having the exact same level of experience and the same genre isn’t that important. Different genres teach each other good things and a mix of poems and fiction can also work well.
What matters most is...
- You read each other’s genres / forms, even if not devotedly.
- You have a similar-ish level of output.
- You have a similar level of commitment.
Practicalities fit
The basic practicalities are just as important: for the group to last, it needs to fit well in our lives.
- Are you looking for an online group or in person?
- Do you want to be geographically close? (Eg ours meets online but we keep it to Oxford so we can also meet up socially in person.)
- How often do you want to meet? Once a week? Once a fortnight?
- What times and evenings work? Agreeing a set day is much easier than trying to juggle multiple calendars, which often leads to a group petering out. Our group sometimes shifts for a term, because of my teaching, but then we stick to the new day for that term.
Group size
4–5 people is a really good cohesive size long-term and means everyone can get feedback each meeting. That said, groups often shrink for all sorts of non-bad reasons (babies, job changes, evenings available shift, all sorts of Life Stuff), so it’s fine to start larger.
Developing a group
Agree the rules
Having clear rules up front helps prevent a lot of social stress and potential frustration. The rules should cover:
- How much you can send in each time. Our group has a 4000-word limit.
- When it’s sent by. We’ve recently moved this to the weekend before, to accommodate work schedules.
- How many is quorum to meet if various people can’t make it. (For us, quorum is two.) This also helps prevent the calendar-juggle, which can lead to petering out.
- How long to spend on each person’s feedback. 20–45 mins is often good, depending on how much people are submitting. Allowing too long can be unhelpful, as people start trying to find extra things to say. I find that 20 mins is great for 2000 words; 40–45 for 4000. We put the person getting feedback in charge of watching their time, so they can move the discussion on if they need to.
You can always adjust the rules as you need to – eg if someone’s finding the word-limit too high, and struggling to read everything, you can discuss it in the group and change the rule. But having clear rules makes everything smoother.
Allow time for chitchat and social meetings
This is essential for bonding, to build that trust and relationship: ruthless efficiency doesn’t build bonds. It’s important to respect everyone’s time, so the group stays viable long-term, but also to allow 5–10 mins to chat at the start, and a bit of space to chat between people.
High trust, high honesty
This is something that builds. Our writing is close to us, dear to us, and something we’ve made. So sharing it is quite vulnerable, especially at first. I’ve got lots in my Top Ten Tips for Giving and Receiving Feedback about how to approach feedback well, and some extra feedback tips below, to help with that.
The other aspect of high trust is to be honest with your group about where you’re at. If you’re feeling fragile that day, they need to know. If you need extra buoying up, tell them. That doesn’t mean they say anything false (that’s unhelpful) but they remember to prioritise the stuff that’s working well. Everyone in my group has, on at least one occasion, burst into tears. And this is an incredibly safe very bonded group! Not because anyone was cruel, but because the person getting feedback was overwhelmed by whatever else was going on. Sometimes we don’t realise that until we’re crying and then it’s, “Wah, sorry, this is kinda about where I am right now, not what you said.” We’re all allowed to be vulnerable, hence being honest, and trusting.
Celebrate!
Part of being a group is celebrating each other: if someone creates a chapbook of poems, or finishes a short story, or the first draft of their novel – rejoice with them and celebrate with them. Sometimes (in fact often), they’re struggling to celebrate at that point, so rejoice for them, throw celebration at them!
I love cooking, so I love making a dinner party based on the food in someone’s story: I had enormous fun devising nettle pies with vegetarian hot-water crust and a fey foraged salad, for one. In January 2026, when I finished a huge rewrite, my group threw me a pirate party, complete with menu and decorations based on my story’s world. (I’m not the only cook in the group!) For someone else’s completed first draft, we had a lunch out at her choice of spot and ordered custom LEGO mini-figures of the characters in her novel. We also have extra celebratory rituals – eg if someone submits the final instalment of their story, we give them the whole session for feedback, just them, with plenty of time to go through “yellow bits” (phrases / words we’ve highlighted as especially good).
Whatever celebrations, rituals, and festivities work for your group, celebrate each other.
Extra feedback tips
Absolutely read my Top Ten Tips for Giving and Receiving Feedback: there’s heaps of essential detail there on these ten tips:
- Ask questions
- Say what's good
- Say what could be improved
- Listen and consider
- Feedback should help people write more
- Think growth not talent
- Set time and length limits
- Be careful who you ask for feedback
- Avoid group-think in writing groups
- Have multiple feedback sources
Different patterns emerge when we work together over a long time, so I have five extra tips specific to longer-term writing groups.
Don’t worry about spoilers
Your writing group is so you can help each other: share each other’s worlds, spot the things you can’t, be a source of motivation and encouragement, and so on. So you need to share what you have with them, for them to do that.
It’s fine to try avoid spoilers, when you’re trying to work out how something plays out, but in the end there are inevitably “spoilers” – when they’re seeing a rewrite of a chunk, or you’re working on a full redraft. That’s where beta-readers come in: they can see the much more polished draft (thanks to your group) and answer those questions. Your writing group helps you create and improve it, so they need to see what you’ve got.
Offer problems not solutions
That seems wild but it’s the right way round. We’ve spotted something that’s not working for us in the poem or story. It’s in our remit to say what’s not working, and why (ie exactly where in the text we’re getting that from). But it’s not in our remit to give the “fix”.
The writer knows their own work much better and once they understand the issue, and if they agree, they’ll have a wider repertoire to draw on for changes. (In a 2014 FantasyCon Editor’s Panel, the professional editors said the same.) In fact, jumping in too quickly with our own ideas can stymie their process: before they’ve had a chance to think, we’ve already sent their thinking a particular direction.
Similarly, never lead with just suggestions. It might feel like flagging up the problem is “negative”, so we start with the suggested fix. To them, without the problem being identified, it feels like we took a perfectly fine story or poem and started trying to write our own on top. If they want suggestions, they can ask or we can offer.
A few years ago, when everyone was getting too excited about suggestions and new ideas, and overwhelming each other, our group instituted a “no suggestions unless asked for” rule. We absolutely still ask for and offer suggestions. Bouncing ideas around and getting advice from each other is a beautiful part of the process. It’s wonderful when a group stepping-stones their way to a perfect fix: one identifies the issue; another suggests a fix and flags up an issue with the fix; a third uses that to suggest an alternative that works; and so on. But we need to keep really clear boundaries on that and make sure, at every stage, the writer still wants ideas and isn’t having them rained down.
Before giving suggestions, ask:
- “Would you like a suggestion?”
- “I have an idea for how to resolve that, if you’d like.”
- “Do you want more ideas at this point?”
And if you don’t want other people’s ideas at this point, you can say:
- “I’d like to think about it more myself first, thanks.”
- “Actually I’m fine for the moment.”
- “I need to process it on my own a bit first.”
- “Thanks, but I think I’ve got plenty to explore.”
It’s fine not to give all your feedback
It’s the writer’s job to say what they want feedback on. We need to answer what they’ve asked, ask if they want anything else, and stop there. It doesn’t matter how brilliant our edits were if they didn’t ask for edits.
The temptation to give exhaustive feedback is always there, and only grows stronger when we get more invested in each other’s work. We’ve got great ideas! We’ve got very useful edits! We love the piece and want to make it better! We need to resist that temptation. Exhaustive feedback breaks people. Remember the original Tip 5: Feedback should help people write more.
Beware the “Actually, now I think about it...”
It wasn’t an issue. Some of us flagged it as something we liked. But now we think about it, as the conversation goes on, it’s really a problem actually? And maybe they could do this, or that, or the next thing… And increasingly, the suggestion would throw their story or poem out of kilter, tone, voice.
This can be a result of allowing too much time for feedback, so we scrape for more to say. In a long-term group, though, it also crops up as a result of good bonds. Agreeing with each other feels good, in a group! And we need to beware of that, in our writing groups. (That’s the original Tip 9: Avoid group-think in writing groups.)
It’s fine for someone else to pick up on something we didn’t and for us to agree. We can just say, “I didn’t notice that, but I agree.” If we start extemporising on it, having only just thought about it, we risk creating a pile-on.
We’re the readers
As we get more engrossed in each other’s stories, and feel deeply invested in them, it’s easy to start speculating “what a reader might think”. But they’re testing it on readers, right now, right here: we are the readers of their poem or story. In a past writing group, we had this exchange:
“A reader might be confused by X.”
“Were you confused?”
“No, not at all.”
We don’t need to hypothesise readers: we are the readers. Likewise, if we’re seeing a rewrite, we can’t be a first-time reader and guess what they might think – that, again, is where beta-readers come in.
The only reason we forget we’re the readers is that we’re so engaged with each other’s work, and that’s beautiful. In fact, all these extra tips come in to play precisely because it’s a fantastic, long-term, supportive group. And that’s what exactly what we need, to know our writing’s effects, to bounce ideas, to motivate each other, to ask for help, and to enjoy the company of other writers!
Finding your people
So where do you find people to create a group like this? The best way is to meet other writers, in person or online – a chance to chat to them, live. That’s one of the reasons I create as many opportunities for that as I can, in everything I run.
If you’re in the Writers’ Greenhouse Community, you have the chance to chat to each other in the monthly Writing Boosts and to follow up those connections in the online group chat. When I run online workshops, including the freebies, I always include time to work together, to meet each other. If you’re in Oxford, everyone’s welcome to the Summer Drinks, plus the Summer of Writing workshops are fantastic for meeting other writers and chatting about writing.
And in the multi-week courses, whether online or in person, you really get to know each other well – pretty much every course I run goes on to create a writing group for those who want one and don’t have one yet. Some of them now running for years! The next multi-week courses are Immersive Fiction this May–July, and if poetry’s your thing (or could be), Meddling with Poetry in October–November.
May your writing group be a joy and a boon, may you help each other, trust each other, and celebrate each other. And happy writing!
