Ever feel like you’re writing in a vacuum? You send out your work, and very seldom do you get any explanation why it’s rejected (or even accepted.) Participating in a critique group or workshop (often the words are used interchangeably) can give you the feedback you need to improve your writing. And for science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers, it’s crucial to find a group that specializes in (or at least allows) your genre. Fortunately, several well-respected speculative fiction writing workshops thrive online these days.
Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
The name of the workshop—The Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror or OWW S&F— pretty much sums up what the group is all about. It’s an online community of speculative fiction writers, aspiring and published, who help each other improve their work. The workshop boasts a respectable number of success stories, including Hugo Award-winning writer, Elizabeth Bear.
The review process works on a point system. Members need to review four stories for every one they submit. Submissions can be short stories or novel excerpts under 7500 words.
Once a month, the Resident Editors review outstanding submissions in the workshop newsletter. The editors include, among others, Jeanne Cavelos, a writer and former senior editor at Dell Publishing, and Susan Marie Groppi, the editor-in-chief of Strange Horizons. Jeanne Cavelos is also the founder and director of Odyssey, an annual six-week writing workshop held on the campus of Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.
OWW S&F requires a low yearly fee for participation ($49).
Critters Workshop
Critters Workshop is a free online critique group for science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. Dr. Andrew Burt (a.k.a., the Critter Captain) and his army of software minions run the workshop. Members—or Critters—must maintain a certain level of participation in order to have their own work critiqued. (The posted rules make it sound more complicated than it is. Basically, you need to contribute a substantive critique of one 2000-word or longer story per 75% of the weeks you’re a member.)
Submissions can include short stories or novel excerpts under 20,000 words. Critters also has a special program for critiquing entire novels, something notoriously difficult to accomplish in most workshops.
Other Worlds Writers’ Workshop
Other Worlds Writers’ Workshop is a free online critique group strictly for science fiction and fantasy writers. (They don’t allow horror or mainstream submissions.) Other Worlds is an email-based workshop with members of all writing levels. The group offers a structured program for beginners to teach the basics of speculative fiction writing.
Members must complete two critiques a month to stay active and must critique two stories for every one they submit. Members can submit any length story in any phase of completion, from draft or work in progress to polished story. (Most workshops encourage submitting only completed work.)
Hatrack River
Hatrack River Writers Workshop is a free online forum that includes peer critiques of short stories and novel fragments for writers of science fiction and fantasy. The workshop is part of Orson Scott Card’s official web site. Writers can post fragments (up to 13 lines) of their short stories or novels in the appropriate forum area and ask for feedback and/or volunteers to read and critique the entire story.
Zoetrope Virtual Studios
Zoetrope Virtual Studios is an online workshop for a wide range of fiction, including short stories, novellas, poetry, and screenplays. Although it’s not dedicated to speculative fiction, the Virtual Studio allows science fiction, fantasy, and horror submissions. Bear in mind, though, they might not be reviewed by writers familiar with the genre.
Participation requirements vary per length or type of story. For instance, participants in the short story wing must review five stories for each one they submit whereas in the novella wing, members only need to review two novellas for each one they submit.
The Virtual Studio is associated with Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios and All-Story magazine. Exceptional submissions to the workshop may be selected for publication in All-Story.
Note: One of the better known online workshops, Clarion Virtual, an offshoot of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, was discontinued as of September 2008.
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