What’s The First Rule of Critique Club?

Talk about the writing, not the behavior — it’s elementary

The fourth member of our writing group joined the meeting over a half-hour late, with no apologies. She sent an email prior to the meeting, saying she had to take her dog to the vet.

“No worries,” we told her. “It’s all fine.” And it was, until she crossed the line.

I had laid eyes on this woman, who appeared old enough to be my mother, only once before — in the previous week’s meeting. We got acquainted then, an assembly of strangers gathering on Zoom for a professional critique group facilitated by a women’s writing organization.

The projects we were working on varied, and each of the four participants in our group had their own style and voice.

In the kickoff meeting, we critiqued two essays — one by a lifelong athlete who wrote about her experiences with pregnancy, the other by the woman who was late the following week. We reviewed the athlete’s blend of poetry and memoir, snippets of memories she planned to turn into a novel of sorts. The group member who was late, I’ll call her the Critic, submitted a piece about her mother’s death.

If it’s terrifying submitting work to a bunch of strangers, it’s downright petrifying to look those people in the face after you’ve laid bare your innermost feelings in written words and asked them to tell you what they thought.

My piece examined traditions and inside jokes in my family of origin. In a series of stories about how my relationship with my family has evolved, I conclude that I was too close –in an unhealthy way — with my parents and needed to establish boundaries.

Over the course of a nine-page essay, there was a single paragraph discussing my teenage cats, which set up a larger story involving my mom and dad house-sitting for me over a long weekend.

After showing up more than halfway through the hour-long meeting (and entirely missing the discussion of the first essay,) the Critic decided to share some of her thoughts about my piece.

“I know you talk about being enmeshed with your parents. But to me, it seemed like you had an unhealthy relationship with your cats,” the Critic told me, without batting an eyelash.

I pretended my face was immersed in a bowl of ice water. Over the years, my facial expressions have gotten me in trouble. I clung to any pretense of professionalism that I could exhibit in the moment.

“Why would you need someone to house-sit for you?” the Critic continued. “I’ve had cats before; you can leave them alone for days. It’s no big deal.”

A shouting match erupted inside my brain as my heart raced. I wanted to fight this woman. I wanted to hug her poor, lonely cat. I wanted to rescue the 11-year-old dog she took to the vet that morning.

What is even happening right now? I wondered as I stared at the faces of the other participants in the group. She’s not even talking about my writing.

The facilitator broke the awkward silence. “I think that’s all the time we have for today. Let’s set some goals for next week,” she said, rescuing me from my thoughts of dog-napping.

Once the group leader wrapped up our call, I closed the Zoom window and sat at my desk in the quiet. I clicked over to my essay and re-read the section about my trip. It included everything I remembered — comments about the age of my cats, their individual medication requirements, and their need to be lavished with attention.

They’re old cats, I thought. Who does this woman think she is? She’s not a therapist.

The first time I participated in a writing workshop, I was so nervous about receiving feedback from my peers I almost threw up. The vomit rose in my throat that morning as I sat in my desk chair, pen at the ready to take notes about recommended changes to a personal essay. But the leader said something that’s been critical to my work ever since.

“Remember, you’re looking at the style, and the narrative,” the workshop facilitator instructed. “Not all work being shared is autobiographical. We talk about the narrator and the choices the narrator makes. The writer may not be the narrator. The narrator is a character, not the person sharing the work.”

It was awkward, my first few sessions, progressing from, “It’s interesting how you chose to ______” to, “The narrator does x, y, z, and here’s why it’s interesting or unhelpful to the story.”

Because the Critic was late to our second meeting, she missed my large, orange cat being introduced to the group. He barged into my office, pushing the door open like the Kool-Aid Man, and demanded attention with loud, plaintive cries. I stepped away from the desk and picked him up, his front legs tucked across my left arm, and sat him in my lap, where he faced the screen like a proper businessman.

The group leader’s eyes brightened when she saw my beloved cat, my 16-year-old golden boy, an absolute jewel. Here’s the thing: if the Critic had ever gotten a glimpse of my social media, she would know that I am, indeed, very attached to my cats. They are my children, except they are not human. They are my fur babies. If they were people they would be learning to drive.

The Critic also did not know that one of those cats, to whom she so adroitly speculated I am overly attached, had recently died. I was gutted by his loss less than three months prior. The wound began to scab over, but still, I felt my heartbeat in the place where I was hit. Then, she sucker-punched me where it hurt.

Written feedback was required after each virtual workshop session. As I clicked through each participant’s comments, I found tips to strengthen my story. The group leader had said it was “basically publishable” as submitted, a comment which made me proud and sick to my stomach at once. This was a vulnerable piece. Did I really want to share it outside of a safe space?

When I clicked on the Critic’s feedback, I found additional commentary on my life choices, instead of how I described my experiences after the fact. In one of her notes, the Critic wrote, “Sorry — former English teacher here!”

How sad, I thought. Her poor students.

The Critic vanished from the writing workshop after this session. She never appeared again, despite enrolling in (and presumably paying for) a six-week critique group. It’s not helpful for me to reflect on the quality of the single essay she submitted, which discussed her relationship with her mother. All I will say is that commenting about how she described the bond between herself and her mother was appropriate, within the setting of a writing group. Providing feedback about the choices she described making about that relationship was not.

The first rule of critique club is this — talk about the writing, not the writer. If you don’t follow that rule, the other writers are allowed to fight you.

At the very least, they may conspire to kidnap your pets.