Writing is lonely and I’m trying to find a way to make it less lonely for myself.

That is a very good reason to join a writing group. Many writing groups I have joined did not do much of anything for my writing career in terms of the "professional development." But the reading group did force me out of my house once a week and give me a reason to eat ice cream with friendly people who shared some of my sensibilities.

The most relevant thing that reading groups did for my "creative development" was providing me with a weekly deadline, which got me to write, and practice is the only thing that has ever reliably and consistently improved my skill. The social pressure of "I need to have this emailed out by Monday morning so people will have time to read it and give feedback by Thursday" was a lot stronger than any arbitrary self-imposed deadlines.

For a lot of "aspiring writers," the biggest thing holding them back is that they don't actually write, and if you are one of those people, I would encourage you to join a writing group!

Can you actually discuss your ideas with people and have someone to bounce ideas off of or are writing groups supposed to be more of a motivational thing?

The main "function" of the writing group is to read and critique each other's work. (Again, that is why they are useful: the need to "submit work for critique" creates a recurring deadline, which forces you to actually write.)

After people critique your work, you might ask them for creative tips. That being said, if you are thinking of joining a group of people just to have "brainstorming partners," I think that you are one of the "allegedly aspiring authors" of whom I speak: if you want to improve as a writer, you need to actually write! Have you actually written the first few chapters of your novel? If not, your problem is probably not "insufficient ideas." Ideas are not the key to unlocking better prose. That problem can only be solved by sitting in a chair with your hands on the keyboard.

Do you ever worry about other writers in these groups stealing your ideas or writing?

I have two general responses to this common worry from novice writers. The first is the more general point that most of your "original" ideas are probably not as original as you think they are, and so you should be very glad that other writers cannot "own ideas," because it means that you can write your own book about an orphan boy going to wizard school without worrying about getting a letter from Rowling's lawyers. This is also why copyright does not protect ideas, it can only protect the expression of ideas.

Again, this is to your benefit, because there are literally over 10 million books on the Kindle store, and whether you realize it or not, "your original idea" has probably already been done before. People have been writing novels for hundreds of years. Other writers have probably already "beaten you to the punch" for whatever type of story you intend to write, but that's fine, because those authors can't own those ideas that would prevent you from writing your own version.

The other recommendation I have is to exercise just a tiny bit of theory-of-mind for the would-be-plagiarist that you fear. Suppose I'm a dirty, dirty plagiarist who wants to steal other people's ideas and profit from them. Who do you think I am more likely to steal from:

1. The amateurs in a writing group, who have zero writing experience and who have demonstrated zero talent or aptitude for picking good ideas, who personally know me and would notice if I copied their ideas, or:
2. the thousands of professionally published fantasy novels that already exist on the Amazon store, which I have infinite plausible deniability about copying, and many of which I am legally permitted to copy in their entirety because they are in the public domain and unprotected by copyright?

I want to emphasize that last point: if I were a dirty plagiarist who didn't give a rip about original ideas, I could take the text of Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, copy it verbatim, and be 100% legally in the clear. Maybe I add some magic to it or something. Or maybe I take Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and add zombies and sell a million copies and get a movies, which is something that everyone is legally permitted to do with works that exist in the public domain.

Or, heck, hop onto one of the podcasts or livestreams where Brandon Sanderson, the number one most commercially successful author of our era, will just give away his ideas for free. He literally will just go on his podcast and say, "I think this is a cool idea for a fantasy setting, or a cool idea for a plot and characters, but I have no time to write this story, so someone else please take this and write it so I can read it, please."

In a world where the most successful fantasy author in the world is giving his ideas away for free because he lacks the time to write them himself, why on earth would an "unoriginal ideal stealer" go to the effort of joining a writing group to read work from unpublished amateurs who have never proven themselves to have a single commercially successful idea? Why would they spend 3 hours of their Saturday sitting in a critique group to "steal" ideas from the 5 amateur writers there when, with a single Google search, they could get literally 100 ideas for a new novel in minutes? What is so precious about the ideas in your head that someone would take those over the millions of concepts that are already out there on the internet and in bookstores and in the public domain?

I understand the impulse to be precious about your ideas, because they are precious to you, because that "simple idea" probably exists in your head with a high level of fidelity. But I see posts like yours on this subreddit maybe once a week, and notice how it's almost always the inexperienced writers who have never written a single book who are worried about "having their ideas stolen." It's almost never the experienced authors, because experienced authors understand that ideas are cheap and abundant, which is why authors like Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells just give them away for free. Ideas do not get "used up" in the course of writing a story; your ideas will generate more ideas as you start to write your story and actually think about how those ideas will be executed.

And yes, I know that the same idea can be written very differently by different people but is this a worry for anyone else?

What exactly are you expecting to happen if you write a book and publish it one day? Are you hoping that everyone who reads your book will just erase it from their memory and not allow it to ever influence anything they do creatively for the rest of their life? That sounds like a sad fate. I feel incredibly fortunate to have written stories that have inspired fanfiction. When someone else sees my ideas and gets inspired to put their own creative spin on them, that's wonderful! That's a huge part of why I want to write and publish! It's certainly not for the money; I would spend all my time writing for my copywriting clients if all I cared about was money. When I write stories, it's because I want my ideas to inspire people. Why would this be a bad thing?

Please feel free to also drop any suggestions for writing groups that you’ve heard or experienced are good

If you want actually useful answers to this question, you should probably tell us where you live. You'd probably have more success asking on the subreddit for whatever city you live in, or going to Meetup.com to find a nearby group.

Is in person an option? I’m in an in person and a digital group. 

The in person we use paper copies so no worry about theft. 

It’s all of the above. It’s nice to chat. Nice to bounce ideas around. Nice to get feedback. 

I specifically joined critique groups so we get and give feedback. You can and should hold back parts of your story and not share in sequential order at first. 

1. Folks in writing groups are not going to steal your ideas because they're already in love with their own. There's minimal risk of that. If anything, your ideas might inspire them or vice versa (protip: this is a good thing, the whole point of interacting is to gain mutual benefit of your combined wisdom).
2. The folks that are actual thieves in writing groups aren't going to steal your writing, they're going to try and trick you into paying them for publishing, publicity, advertising, etc. (protip: get ready for it, especially as you move closer to publishing and have a social media presence).
3. Edit: the style of the group varies. Some are motivational, some are bounce ideas around, some can be a little acidic (remember, we're all in love with our own ideas first - and - everyone's a critic - but that's ok). I've seen some interactions be taken either to DMs or another medium, like discord.

1. I don't really worry too much about my stuff getting stolen (in part because the most I share is a paragraph or two at a time). If you're worried about it, just speak about your story in general terms (like "the story is about this person who needs to do that" instead of getting really specific) and don't post large chuncks of your story.

2. Depends on the writing group. The larger the group, the more "motivational" it tends to be. Smaller groups tend to me more for accountability, like "let's convene every week and tell each other the progress we've made."

The one group I'm a part of is called Bookdun. It's a big writing group on Discord. They have everything from Monthly events to writing sprints, daily questions to their "6 months til bookdun" challenge (all optional, of course). They're also a very "strict" group, and don't like it when people say "is this good" or "should I write XYZ". Not that you can't ask for advice... I think the best way to phrase it is "Bookdun doesn't want you to ask for help writing your book, they want you to ask for help to become a better writer." Hope that makes sense.

If you're interested, you can reply or shoot me a DM, and I'll send an invite

1. Overall as a whole, no. Most writers already have their own ideas they’re planning to bother with yours.

But this is also not a 100% no. A group I was in a few years ago had a person who did LARPing kind of stuff. At one point she showed me character sheets for an events she’d attended using my main character as her LARP identity. She also made some worldbuilding stuff and included features from my story (eg. Town names) into it.

At the time she was studying creative writing at uni and it sat in the back of my mind that if she was doing weird fanfic stuff with my draft was it possible she was using my drafts in her writing assignments too? Eventually she started sharing her own stuff which was Ai generated “original” stories. I never said anything. But while it was nice she liked my draft that much it also made me uncomfortable to keep sharing.

1. Depends on the group. A couple of discords I’ve been in have had separate channels for different things so if you want help with X go in the channel for X or if you want a hug go to the hug channel. Unfortunately these groups end up being a flop for me and die down. Either people don’t get replies and stop talking, or people don’t like a critique they get and stop talking. The most active one I’m in is people just talking about stuff. No writing discussion at all which is a bummer because that’s what I joined for.

So I run several writing groups on discord.

Most are aimed toward more novice writers and serve a variety of functions. The one is more about community, motivation and idea bouncing with little to no critique. Another is for skill development. We run mini exercises, track work counts, have flash fiction contests weekly and hold discussions. Feedback is meant to be on there but I have discovered that most writers at that level want feedback and then never return it so I'm not pushing that right now and I'm thinking about making another more feedback based group but that's a future me's problem to deal with.

Anyway, most of the people in my writing groups have been writing less than 5 years. Why would I, with 20 years writing experience, a fully written series, two more ready to be written, five stand alone that need rewriting and a professional editor steal the idea of a novice?

I'm certainly not going to steal their writing when I'm there teaching them how to write XD

Our ideas are previous to us, we spend a lot of time with them and they feel so personal but the truth is they're useless. A idea in your head has no worth. You have to get it onto paper for it to mean anything. Even then, it takes a lot of hard work and time to make it something worth stealing.

Not that I would steal anyone's anything XD but you get my point.

Perma-planner is what I call people who never write the story but have it planned. I've had a few of those in my groups. Some left because they never wanted to write but most got inspired in the groups, either by other members or the exercises and discussions.

The reason I ended up making the groups was because I kept helping novice writers here on reddit and I got annoyed trying to remember who was who and who was writing what so I set up the servers.

One has space at the moment, but I'm making some changes and seeking another mod to help with it before I do anything there.

The other is closed to members for now.

Different groups have different purposes. Find one that meets your purpose. My open group is always less than 20 members and we have channels for brainstorming so it's very welcome there. I'm in larger groups too but I find it harder to make connections in them. Probably personal preference.

Anyway best of luck to you. I hope you find the perfect group

Hi OP, I am also looking to form a writing group to develop a consistent writing habit. I am looking for people who are equally passionate about stories, with an inclination towards traditional publishing. Your post felt genuine, and I saw some of past me in your post. I have made some progress and am going to make 2026 the year I become a professional, and would be happy to take that next step alongside other people

Anyone else who is serious about publication is welcome to join.

I attend a couple of different writing groups, both in person. One is (loosely) university affiliated and the other isn’t. My experience of writing groups is that they are not giving you a time or space to do your own writing - there is normally some sort of writing prompt and then an opportunity to share (if you want to - I’ve never experienced a writing group that forces you to share). Sharing is often limited to 1000 words, so you’re not really sharing enough work for anyone to copy it. And if someone is dedicated enough to go to a writing group, it’s because they care about their writing, not because they want to steal someone else’s.

I find writing groups help motivate me to actually do some writing - I don’t want to be the one at the check in saying “I didn’t do anything this month…”. My writing groups are very supportive, so no one would judge me, but I would judge me.

The university affiliated group is a bit more conceptual, in that we often talk about broader ideas rather than just the piece we shared. The other group focusses more on the piece shared - though that might be about the change as the sessions have become a lot longer. Writing groups can also help you build connections with people who may be happy to bounce ideas around with you outside of the meeting.

My experience with writing groups has been overwhelmingly positive and I would definitely recommend them. You can always try and not go back if it isn’t for you!