When you join an Internet critique group, you are grouped with strangers, so it will take time to know the strengths of each person in your group. Some may be experienced or published writers and some fairly new to writing, but everyone has something to add. Each is a writer or better yet, a reader.

In the first few weeks, each writer will send everything s/he has ever written. Why not? It’s human nature to test the waters and see how other writers react to your words. As time goes by, many run out of ammunition, and the group slows. Some groups die at this point for these reasons:

1. The writers run out of material. If you have only one story, you don't need a critique group. You need to pay for a professional critique.

2. A few writers get their feelings hurt because they can’t see their manuscripts objectively. Also, without facial expressions, online can be colder than face-to-face.

3. The more experienced writers may feel they are working too hard and depart.

Everyone needs to know that online writing groups all go through this initiation, so as a protection, start with a large group, say seven to ten members. After everyone has exhausted the old writing, the new writing appears. Small groups tend to run out of material to submit, but larger groups have more, so they last longer. If you can hang on for six months, the group will be well established.

Copying and pasting to e-mail works better than attachments. Not everyone can open attachments. Some refuse to open attachments because of viruses, but everyone can read straight e-mail. Also, you can turn it around easily by hitting REPLY TO ALL, so everyone gets the experience of your critique just as if you were all in the same room.

Don't read anyone else's critique before doing your own, but if you are stumped, read what you need to, but admit it to the group.

I suggest reading through the e-mailed work on your screen and letting it settle for an hour or a day. After that, you are ready to make comments. Standard operating procedure is to critique within the text in CAPS. The CAPS stand out so everyone can see where you made comments, additions, corrections, etc. Another response is to hit return and put comments after *** or ###. They stand out well. Also use brackets, such as [ADD blab, blah, blah] [comment, comment] particularly for punctuation or small things like a change in words.

To take out words or parts, you can use (( )) or [[ ]]. Brackets are prefered because they don't use the shift key.

Discuss the following details with your group:

1. If your e-mail program does HTML, you can add color, but if color is printed out in black and white, the color disappears, and not everyone can receive color on their screen. Caps continue to stand out.

2. You need to agree on the number of MSs (manuscripts) or parts of MSs you will allow each week per member. Some groups are strict about a minimum to critique each week, and others welcome all works that are ready. This again is a consideration for your individual group.

3. If you configure the subject line the same way, each member can assign it to a subfolder. This takes it out of regular e-mail traffic. Here is a subject line format that works: Online Critique Group:Sub:Over the Moon. When you critique the MS named "Over the Moon," you change the "sub (submission)" to "crit (critique)". This is another thing to discuss. (Decisions, decisions)

Now the important stuff. Always say something POSITIVE. Every work has something good about it, and ending on a positive note is a nice touch, but honesty is the key. Don't flatter because you want to be nice. The truth sometimes hurts, but we all need the truth to improve. You don’t have permission to be cruel. Try commenting on a good word or turn of phrase. This helps the writer see what is working and balances the negative words.

Not everyone who critiques your work is going to say nice things. In the worse case, everyone but your husband/wife/best friend will think it stinks, but do you want to be led astray? No! These are your new friends, and they want what is best for you.

You will soon discover that some people help more than others. YOU get to decide. If their comments are negative, instead of getting your feelings hurt, decide if the comments helps you improve. Decide if what they say rings true for YOU, and if it is mentioned more than once, this is a definite area that MAY need improvement. Soon you will discover which critiquer's comments will help and which critiquer's will not. Take what you need and leave what doesn't work for you. YOU are in charge!

After everyone has critiqued your work, it’s a courtesy to thank everyone for their time. If you are late with your critique, tell the group you are too busy having gallbladder surgery and making cupcakes for three kindergarten classes but will try to get to the critique next week, or maybe you have to pass on this one because of time constraints. But if you make that a habit, you don't have time for a critique group.

Joining an online critique group is fun, work, and time consuming, but the reward is learning from each other, polishing your work, and making a connection with other writers. An online critique group can become family while they help you grow as a writer. The best part is, you don’have to leave home, and you can critique at noon or in the middle of the night wearing jammies.