The Writer Who Will Help You Finish Your Novel is on Facebook

 

Hundreds of writers keep up with their readers on Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking site; Paul Harding is on Facebook, Susan Orlean is on Facebook, Jericho Brown is on Facebook. We writers have been told that having a presence on Facebook will help increase our readership, but will it help us hone our craft?

 

When a reader imagines a writer at work he may call up the image of a gentle genius alone in a rickety garret, candle flickering against the damp. But the writer’s vocation requires less of a sudden stroke of solitary insight than it does perseverance, collaboration and community.

 

Performing artists pool their skills to produce a performance. From lighting design to choreography, costumes to continuity, a project’s success depends on its collaborators. Literature is likewise woven from the weft of a writer’s language drawn through the warp of his community. Two or three dedicated readers and a shelf of annotated novels with broken spines may be the quietest jewels in the writer’s crown, but they are his most precious.

 

Putting words to the page may happen in solitude but the volumes of correspondence from one writer to another are evidence that ideas incubated in the writer’s mind are warmed by conversation with a sympathetic reader.

 

“Almost immediately, it seems, after Coleridge’s arrival [at Wordsworth's home], Wordsworth was reading aloud his new poem ‘The Ruined Cottage’ (with which Coleridge seemed ‘much delighted’), and after tea Coleridge recited two and a half acts of his tragedy Osorio.” (“The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge” by Adam Sisman, page 177.)

 

If online social networks are an extension of our real-life community, could Facebook become Wordsworth’s cozy hearth? What if we use friend lists, privacy controls, and a “secret” group to discuss works-in-progress?

 

How To Create a Facebook Writing Workshop in Nine Easy Steps

1. Use the “Edit Friends” feature to curate a group of “Writing Buddies.”

2. Elect one group member to administer a “secret” Facebook group. (Note: The group is considered secret because it won’t show up in Facebook searches or members’ activity feeds). Send an invitation to the Writing Buddies list; approve members.

3. Ask each workshop member to create a Dropbox account for sharing files. (Note: All content posted on Facebook is subject to Facebook’s changing ownership rights so its prudent to keep original creative work off the site.)

4. Create a Google calendar with a reading schedule and feedback deadlines; share with Writing Buddies list via email. (Note: Each group member should commit to these deadlines. Without that commitment the group may falter.)

5. Share work-in-progress with Writing Buddies via Dropbox.

6. Use the group’s “Discussions” feature to post feedback about work-in-progress.

7. In between critique deadlines share questions, ideas and insights with the Writing Buddies list through private wall posts.

8. Between deadlines, use the “Chat” feature to instant message members of the Writing Buddies list.

9. Use the group’s “Events” feature to plan real-life get-togethers: a mini-reading of finished work, a special dinner critique, a party to celebrate recent publications. These real-world activities will enhance the group’s sense of community and reinforce members’ commitment to each other’s work.

 

Starting a Facebook writing workshop is just one way to create a virtual writing group; there are more. Do you belong to a virtual workshop? Tell us how you keep the writing flowing.