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THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTENDANCE
RSVPing in a timely manner is a courtesy to the generous members who host the meetings so they can plan for how many people will be descending on their home. It also maintains limits on who can attend a meeting based on the practical limits of our critique format. If you are unable to attend, change your RSVP as soon as you know. If there is a wait list and you don’t change your RSVP, it prevents other writers from attending. The writers who have submitted their work deserve a thorough and diverse critique. It’s also a courtesy to the meeting's host, so they can prepare for the meeting. The Organizer(s) reserve the right to remove a member from the group if he or she "No Show's" more than 3 meetings without informing at least one of the Organizers. This policy applies only to the critique meetings, not to the social events. If you can't change your RSVP, please leave a message on the event page for that meeting or email the Organizer in charge of that meeting as soon as you know your availability. You can also use one of the following options: Brad Parks *Call or text: 512.350.4521 Email: [email protected] Cameron Roberson Call or text: 585.200.6202 *Email: [email protected] *indicates the preferred method of communication Thank you, Your Organizers The Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers is an inclusive writing group and strives to be a safe space for all. Writers are vulnerable when their work is being critiqued, but even when it is not, writers are still human and deserve to feel respected and supported.
While freedom of communication is encouraged, abusive or harassing communication will not be tolerated. We may disagree on many things in and out of the context of critique, but that gives no one permission to lash out at or be disrespectful of another writer. We are all individuals and personalities will not always blend. Above all, aim for tolerance and understanding in all group-related interactions. Meetings frequently take place in the homes and apartments of members. Never at any time should anyone be made to feel unsafe where they live as a result of any activity related to the group. BSFW has a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for harassment of any kind, which can include, but is not limited to:
Anyone can report harassment and or behavior of the kind listed above. If someone’s behavior has made you uncomfortable, whether in the context of a meeting or in electronic communication outside of a meeting, or if you witness something happening to someone else, you should immediately contact one of the BSFW organizers.
Harassment reported to a BSFW organizer will result in an in-depth investigation. BSFW reserves the right to remove members from the group, without a reason given. If a member is felt to be a danger to others, they may be reported to Meetup.com or to the police, as appropriate. At each short story critique group we critique selections from up to four short stories using the Clarion, or Milford Method for our critiques.
As a reminder, this is a speculative fiction group. We don't define what kind of stories you can submit, since many of our writers defy genre classification, but the stories you critique will include science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal. More details about BSFW can be found on our Members Page. HOW DOES A CRITIQUE SESSION WORK? We use the Clarion, or Milford Method for our critiques. A full guide to how to give and receive critiques is available as a PDF on our Members Page .
HOW DO I JOIN? You can attend any short story meetup without submitting a story, but you MUST critique the stories for that meetup. This group polices "no shows." If you repeatedly RSVP Yes but do not attend, you may be removed from the writers group. If you RSVP Yes but cannot attend change your RSVP to No before the meetup. If at the last second you cannot attend a meetup, then please contact the organizer so that the missed meeting will not count against you. WHICH GROUP DO I JOIN? You can attend any short story meetup, but as meetups are often full we ask you to only attend one per month so that other writers have a chance to submit their work. HOW DO I SUBMIT A SHORT STORY FOR CRITIQUE? Each submission should be up to 7500 words. If you want to submit over 7500 words ask the organizer, who may allow it with the proviso that you may be asked to cut it back if there are a lot of submissions for that meetup. (Special exception: stories under 1500 words may be read aloud and critiqued at the meetup, if the writer wishes and the organizer thinks there is enough time). Sign up for a meetup of your choice then email your submission to [email protected] SUBJECT: The Title of the group you're submitting to, Name, Word Count,. EXAMPLE: Cam's Novel Group December 8th, Spidercam, 7,000 words MESSAGE: Name, Title, Word Count, any additional info. EXAMPLE: Spidercam, Glory Chapter 2, 7,000 words. This is a rewrite. Attach your document. RTF and DOC are preferred. Please, NO PDF's or DOCx. Send to [email protected] What to Expect: Nine days before the meeting you will receive an email from Meetup with links to download each story for critique from our Dropbox account. Click on the link and download the stories. Remember to include your email address on the title page so people can email you critiques. At the end of the manuscript you may list questions that you would like readers to answer in their written feedback. For example, you might want to know whether the pacing is right, whether a certain character is sympathetic, or whether they found some piece of science fiction technology believable. WHICH STORIES DO I CRITIQUE? After the submission deadline, one week before the meetup, the organizer will announce which stories will be read by sending an email to the group. The email will be duplicated on the message board. Be warned that you will have to do a lot of critiquing! Each meetup critiques up to four stories with a combined total of up to 30,000 words, although the typical meetup is closer to three stories and 20,000 words. You will have about a week to read all of this and prepare your critiques. HOW WARM AND FUZZY IS THIS GROUP? BSFW tries hard to create an environment where writers can get along and trust one another, because it's easier to take criticism from people you know, and we often have get-togethers outside of the critique sessions. We have a firm policy of keeping our critiques about the story rather than the writer, and of trying to help the writer create the novel they want to write rather than the novel the critiquer might want to write. That said, the critique session itself isn't a support group; we focus on honest reader reactions. Please understand that even published stories would never appeal to everyone in a diverse critique group, and I have never seen a piece show up at its first critique ready for publication. Even when people think your story is great they will still spend a lot of time telling you about ways to make it even better. A full guide to our how to give and receive critiques is available as a PDF on our Members Page. BSFW has multiple novel groups, each held once a month, to allow novels and novellas to be critiqued by the same group of people over multiple meetings.
At each meeting we critique selections from up to four novels using the Clarion method. As a reminder, this is a speculative fiction group. We don't define what kind of stories you can submit, since many of our writers defy genre classification, but the stories you critique will include science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal. More details about BSFW can be found on our Members Page. HOW DOES A CRITIQUE SESSION WORK? We use the Clarion, or Milford Method for our critiques.. A full guide to our how to give and receive critiques is available as a PDF on our Members Page.
HOW DO I JOIN? You can sign up for the next meetup without submitting a story, but you MUST critique the stories for that meetup. This group polices "no shows." If you repeatedly RSVP Yes but do not attend, you may be removed from the writers group. If you RSVP Yes but cannot attend change your RSVP to No before the meetup. If at the last second you cannot attend a meetup, then please contact the organizer so that the missed meeting will not count against you. WHICH GROUP DO I JOIN? If you are new to BSFW, choose the novel group that has openings, but be aware that some of the novels being critiqued in that group may have been in process for some time. Back reading may be required, or an outline will be supplied. If one group clearly has less people attending please join that one. Ideal critique group size is 6-10 people and if one group is too full the organizer may ask you to join the other one. Once you choose a group, please stick with that group. Consistency is better for you, better for the writers being critiqued, better for BSFW in general. HOW DO I SUBMIT A PORTION OF A NOVEL OR NOVELLA FOR CRITIQUE? Each submission, including the first, should be 5000-7500 words. If you want to submit over 7500 words ask the organizer, who may allow it with the proviso that you may be asked to cut it back if there are a lot of submissions for that meetup. We recommend including previously critiqued chapters in each submission to make it easier for people to refer back to them. For example, if you are submitting chapters 6-7 submit your entire story from chapter 1 to 7. Identify where the reader should start critiquing, for example by changing the color of the old text to blue and/or including a note on the title page to start at a certain page or chapter. If you've significantly edited the previous chapters since they were originally submitted, you may insert a note before the new chapters letting the reader know what has changed. Also, we hope you're revising as you go, so every manuscript you upload is better than the last. Submit your material by the due date, so everyone has enough time to look at your work. a. Email your submission to [email protected] b. SUBJECT: The Title of the group you're submitting to and your name. EXAMPLE: Cam's Novel Group December 8th, Spidercam c. MESSAGE: Name, Title, Word Count, any additional info. EXAMPLE: Spidercam, Glory Chapter 2, 7,000 words. This is a rewrite. d. Attach your document. RTF and DOC are preferred. Please, NO PDF's or DOCx. What to Expect: Ten days before the meeting you will receive an email from Meetup with links to download each story for critique from our Dropbox account. Click on the link and download the stories. The organizer will normally pick the first three or four stories that were submitted, and leave others to the following months (sometimes they may schedule extra meetings to deal with a backlog of stories). Submit in proper manuscript format as shown in the example here. Your file format should be ".doc", ".rtf", or ".txt". Don't use ".docx", the latest Word format, because some people can't read it. Save As .doc (Word 97-2003) format instead. We recommend that you include a brief summary of any previously submitted chapters to remind the reader what is going on when they critique the new chapters. Remember to include your email address on the title page so people can email you critiques. At the end of the manuscript you may list questions that you would like readers to answer in their written feedback. For example, you might want to know whether the pacing is right, whether a certain character is sympathetic, or whether they found some piece of science fiction technology believable. We also strongly recommend at least a one page synopsis of what your overall story is about. At its simplest a synopsis is just what you'd tell someone if they asked you about the plot, setting, characters, and other interesting points of your story. We also accept longer synopses and outlines, and an outline template is here. WHICH STORIES DO I CRITIQUE? At least nine days before the meetup the organizer will announce which stories will be read by sending an email to the group. Be warned that you will have to do a lot of critiquing! Each meetup critiques up to four stories with a combined total of up to 30,000 words, and the typical meetup involves at least 20,000 words. You will have nine days or so to read all of this and prepare your critiques. DO I HAVE TO READ ALL THE CHAPTERS OF A NOVEL IN PROGRESS? If you join the group and someone is submitting chapter 6 of a novel, you're not required to closely read all of the novel, although it's strongly encouraged. However, you need to have read enough to be able to deliver a good critique, and you should have read any synopsis or outline provided. Once you are attending, you are expected to read all submissions even if you miss a meeting. If you've been critiquing a novel but can't attend a meeting, we encourage you to do a written critique and email the author if you feel you have anything valuable to say. WHAT IF I HAVE A NOVEL ALREADY WRITTEN AND I WANT TO CRITIQUE IT FAST? The novel groups can only critique each person's work at about 7500 words per month, usually less because there will be other people who want to submit. However, our experience is that by the time we've critiqued about 1/3 of a novel, we've often found most of the major issues and the author may have enough feedback to start a new draft. You may be able to make individual arrangements with other members of the group to critique each others' work faster. HOW WARM AND FUZZY IS THIS GROUP? BSFW tries hard to create an environment where writers can get along and trust one another, because it's easier to take criticism from people you know, and we often have get-togethers outside of the critique sessions. We have a firm policy of keeping our critiques about the story rather than the writer, and of trying to help the writer create the novel they want to write rather than the novel the critic might want to write. That said, the critique session itself isn't a support group; we focus on honest reader reactions. Please understand that even published stories would never appeal to everyone in a diverse critique group, and I have never seen a piece show up at its first critique ready for publication. Even when people think your story is great they will still spend a lot of time telling you about ways to make it even better. A full guide to our how to give and receive critiques is available on our members page. WHAT IS A BETA READER?
The term comes from the software industry, where a "beta" version of a program is released to a group of testers, who work the bugs out. For our definition, the writer is the "alpha" reader, doing a thorough critique before releasing it to the beta readers, your fellow writers who will give you the feedback you need to hone your work to publication quality. It's a lot faster than chapter-by-chapter critique, and is reserved for novels that are complete. You get your very own Meetup to talk about nothing but your book. How exciting is that? HOW DO I QUALIFY FOR A BETA READ? To qualify for a beta read, one of the following criteria must be true.
OKAY, I'VE MET ALL THE CRITERIA, WHAT DO I DO NOW? Step 1 The novel must be completed and should have undergone at least one editorial and proofreading pass. Step 2: You contact a BSFW organizer that you know and who knows you. The list of organizers is on the Meetup page. Request that they sponsor your beta read. If they say yes, submit your manuscript to them. If they believe the manuscript is ready for a beta, then we move on to the next step. Step 3: You and your sponsor organizer will find a place for your meetup. It could be virtual if you want. You specify the day and time. Give people a fair amount of time to read your work. Submit your first chapter to your sponsor and they will make it available for prospective beta readers. That chapter will be available for any member to read before they commit to reading the full manuscript. Give them the information they need to understand your work so they can decide if they're the right critics for your manuscript. (this is information that will go onto the Meetup calendar event): Title Word count Genre Sub-genre if any Brief description - the equivalent of the back cover blurb, 500 words or less. Specify any questions you have for your critics as they read, and what type of feedback you’re after: pacing, characterization, plot, when they became engaged or what scenes failed to hold their attention, etc. You can also tell them what feedback you are not looking for as well. Be as specific as you can. Step 4: Let people know that you have a Beta Read scheduled by entering it onto the BETA Form on the BSFW Members Page. The form is on the side panel. Just scroll down the side of the page. As people RSVP to your meeting, you provide them with your complete manuscript. The ideal number of beta readers is up to you, but should be similar to the number needed for any good critique. We suggest between three and ten. If you’re not getting the numbers you need, talk to your sponsor organizer about how to get the word out, or reach out to individual members of the group whose feedback you value. It might also be wise to send out reminders once or twice during the critique period, since it is so protracted, to remind them of the upcoming meeting. Your sponsor organizer can help you do this. Then critics read your manuscript and you meet for your critique! IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT BETA READ:
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