Are writers' groups really good for you?

To me there's always been a tension between belonging to a writers' group and getting their feedback on my  work and writing what my heart desires.

Throughout my long writing career I've had a love/hate relationships with writers' groups.  When I was a beginner writer learning my craft I did learn a huge amount by getting feedback from other writers on my stories.  But even then there would always be one arrogant individual in the group who would proceed to tell me that my story was offensive, or would would never sell, or that I'd written it all wrong.  These people would then go on and re-write my story into the format and subject they wanted.

As I've grown as a writer I've found that most public groups and workshops don't meet my needs any more. I get little useful feedback from them.  My pet hate as a science fiction writer is the critiquers  who tell me my story is "interesting".  That's absolutely useless feedback.

Another pet hate is critiquers who try and re-write my main character into someone they're more comfortable with.  This often happens with stories with strong feminist characters.  And sadly, just as many women as men seem to be threatened by them.

I've been involved in Havant and District Writers' Circle for around thirty years, and I've judged short story competitions for the Circle.  My approach to evaluating other authors' work is this: it is the author's choice what story to tell, and what genre to tell it in.  As a person critiquing that story, I have no right to question those choices.

All I as a critiquer am entitled to assess is whether the story works in the terms of general craft, and within the conventions of the writer's chosen form or genre.  I would never choose to write, or read romances, but if someone wants to write one then it must critiqued using that genre's conventions.  For me that usually means raising a point in the form of a question.  I end up asking the writer whether that convention is normal in their chosen genre.

That's the sort of writers' group an experienced writer needs.  We need people who accept our choice of genre and story subject without challenge.  We need people who can tell us whether our story works, or doesn't, within the terms of our chosen genre.