We have read your suggestions from your emails and your comments to our blog post and have decided to allow the creation of personal writing groups. We are quite excited about this feature which will allow everyone to get exactly what they are looking for from a writing group. This will also allow writing groups, for whom it is hard to meet regularly, to move online for those weeks they can’t seem to get their schedules to match.

Just as we asked for your suggestions on what features to work on, we would also like your help on making sure we implement those features correctly. We have put together the following list of important aspects of personal writing groups.

• Groups may be public or private. Private groups will require a password to join and will not be visible on the list of writing groups. Public groups will have the option to allow all to join or to require each member to be approved by the group owner. The group owner will be able to remove members at anytime.
• When you submit an item for review, you will be able to choose where to submit the item. If you choose to submit to a personal writing group, then all your review assignments will come from work in that group and all your reviews will come from that group as well.
• The group owner can specify how many review assignments are required. For example, a group owner may say that for every submission the member will do and receive 1 review.
• Group owners are allowed to specify a title and description that will be visible to our members looking for writing groups to join.

Please let us know what you think about these features and if you have any additional ideas of things that would be important for you.

steve

In the Americas, writing groups originated during the 1700’s, during which time the majority of the population did not complete elementary education and less than 1% of Americans attended college. These early Americans where not content to wallow in self pity, lamenting their educational plight. Instead they found way to help themselves, by forming mutual improvement groups. Writing groups formed primarily to educate, but also to entertain. Mixing these two elements together formed groups that where remarkably effective at helping each other achieved new heights in writing, reading and other scholarly pursuits because the people enjoyed the educational process.

Benjamin Franklin was amongst the first to initiate literary groups.  With only two years of formal education Mr. Franklin knew he needed more. After evaluating his educational options he formed a reading and writing group called Franklin’s Junto. The Junto met frequently to review original works composed by the members by sharing ideas, criticisms, observations and corrections about the works. The ideas and education gained in Franklin’s Junto significantly helped shape him into the great man he would become.

In the mid 1700’s writing groups became popular on university campuses. A significant portion of the student’s educational experience came from reading and writing together in small groups outside of the university setting. During the 1700’s underclassmen where banned from the library making these groups their major access point for literature. Writing groups helped the students learn as they helped each other discover what constituted great literature and how to produce it in their own writing.

Since the 1700’s writing groups have been the primary method authors have used to improve their skills. A writing group needs dedicated members with a passion for learning and improving to succeed. Unlike traditional writing groups the Review Fuse community is always in session ready to help meet your writing group needs.

Jacob