Advice to Writers New to Critiquing

I've been in several writing groups. One of them lasted over two decades. It can be a little nerve wracking to start editing someones writing. I will offer this one piece of philosophy that helped me in critique groups.

At the end of the day you own your writing and I own my critique. I'm offering an opinion based on my experience with reading, writing, sitting through classes and being critiqued. It's still just my opinion and it may not be correct. Treat them as suggestion, but I warn you, a wise writer carefully ways advice before tossing it out. Discerning good advice from bad is a skill we need to cultivate just as much as our writing and editing. In fact, sometimes people just don't get what you wrote. That's fine, not everything can reach everyone.

By the same token when I put my stuff up there for critique, I'm looking for you to help me make it stronger. Take that as an opportunity to gain experience editing. Read my work with your editor glasses on. It will change how you think when you write your next challenge. No one writes a perfect draft. Expect me to make the same mistake I just told you not to make. That's not me being a hypocrite it's just that none of us see the mistakes in our own writing unless we employ a technique to try to see them, and still things will slip through.

Last but not least, tell me what I did right, not just what I did wrong. There's only two kinds of critique I don't like. 1) when they tell me what they think I want to hear. 2) when they trash it for the pure joy of feeling better about themselves. As long as your motive is to make my work stronger, you'll probably succeed.