Writing.Com General Discussion

This site is a place to start, it's literally designed for critiquing writing. Those groups will help connect you to people in your genre.

In the real world, here's how I do it:

Ask friends you know are readers if they want to beta-read. You'll get more yeses than actual results, but it's a start. I've got 10 beta-readers. About 2 read anything I put in the channel at any given time. That's better than none.

Make writer friends on social media/WDC, etc. You're looking for someone in your genre, at about your level (unpublished vs. published, understands the craft and isn't spouting nonsense that people don't understand their artistic vision). Volunteer to read something for somebody. You've got to give in order to receive. This also creates a debt that they'll feel to repay you by reading your work. This works better than shouting"will anybody critique my work!"

Get on google and type in "CITYNAME writers" or "CITYNAME writing guild" or "CITYNAME writing group" Plug in the name of your city (or town) obviously, and if there's a few neighborhing cities or burbs, try that, too.

In about 2 seconds of doing that I learned of the Woodlands Writing Guild, the Houston Writers Guild, WriteSpace, the Cypress Sci-Fi group and so on. Pretty easy in a populated area. I grew up in a tiny 400 person town, so probably won't work there. 10K and above, you've got good odds.

Check the local colleges as well, they may have a writers group.

From here, they'll probably have a critique group. Attend those, make friends. See who knows their stuff, who's in your genre. That who you offer to trade work with outside of the critique sessions (because it is faster).