How do Draftsgiving groups work?

Groups let you do Draftsgiving alongside other writers. You can sit at an official table with everyone aiming for the same goal, or make a group of your own and invite your friends. You don't need a group to take part. Your Draftsgiving goal works the same with or without one.

Two kinds of group

Before you start

You need to have joined Draftsgiving, and you can only create or join groups while the event is running. Once the event ends on 30 November, groups stop accepting new members.

Join an official table

1. Open the Draftsgiving page.
2. Opt in to the table for your goal.

You can leave the table at any time by opting out from the same place.

Create a group

1. Open Writing Groups.
2. Choose Create group.
3. Give your group a name of up to 40 characters.
4. Save it.

You're the owner, and your group gets a group code made of eight letters and numbers. Share it with friends so they can join.

Choose who can find your group

As the owner, you can change these two settings whenever you like:

• Public or private. Public groups appear in the All groups list. Private groups stay out of public lists. Writers can only get into one with its code.
• Open or approval required. If approval is required, writers ask to join and you accept or decline their request. If you later switch approval off, everyone with a waiting request joins straight away.

A private group that requires approval suits a small circle of friends. A public group that's open to everyone suits groups with lots of activity and a variety of goals.

Join a group

• From the list. Open Writing Groups, find the group in All groups and choose Join. If it needs approval, choose to request a place instead, and wait for the owner to accept.
• With a code. Choose Join a private group and enter the eight-character code the owner gave you. You'll see the group's name, its owner, and a few members before you confirm. If you enter the wrong code too many times (20 in an hour), you'll need to wait before trying again.

Once you're in, the group appears under Your groups on the Draftsgiving page, alongside any official table you've joined.

What you and your group can see

Each group shows a ranking and an activity feed.
The ranking lists each member with:

• their username and profile picture
• the title of the project they're using for Draftsgiving
• their goal and how many words they've written towards it
• whether they've reached their goal, and whether they've written today
• when they last wrote

Groups you create rank members by how far through their own goal they are, so a writer on 10,000 words and a writer on 50,000 words are compared fairly. Official tables rank by words added. A member only gets a rank once they have written at least one word.
The feed shows when people join and when they hit milestones. You can react to feed items with 🎉, 👏, 🔥 or 👋.
Members can never see your writing itself, only the numbers above.

If you own a group

You can:

• change the group's visibility and whether it needs approval
• accept or decline requests to join
• remove a member
• reset the group code, which stops the old code working
• hand ownership to another member

If you leave, ownership passes to the member who has been in the group longest. If the last member leaves, the group closes.

Leave a group

1. Open the group.
2. Choose Leave group.

Leaving a group doesn't change your Draftsgiving goal or your progress.

Report a group

If a group breaks our community guidelines, you can report it to the Novlr team via the Report link at the bottom of the page.

Updated on: 02/11/2026