Different drummers

Just got back from a writers group meeting. Sigh. It's taken me this many years to train my cohorts in comprehending the basics of fantasy fiction (they all write mainstreamish thriller or historical fiction). Much as I appreciate their efforts (they're good people and they try), I'm well aware they're not helping me as much as I need; they're simply unaware of the conventions (and the cliches) of fantasy fiction. I need people familiar with my genre, both so I don't have to explain that things are sometimes done supernaturally and so that they can help me with avoiding cliche. They often are stumbling so over the trees that they can't look at the forest. Sigh ... I expect in return I'm not much help in their genres, for the same reason. Cross-genre reading is good, but I'm not sure it's not better overall to critique and be critiqued in a group of like-genre writers.