I’m taking the side of a sometimes unpopular opinion. I listen to enough podcasts to know that there are writers who never set foot in an MFA program let alone a critique workshop. They may avoid going to workshop-based writing conferences and don’t have writer friends who know the craft well enough to form their own group.

So they go it alone.

And then find a few friends or family members as beta readers.

Or maybe they put a call out on a Facebook writing group looking for strangers willing to s...