Excellent post. I joined this forum to learn how others write. I have my style. For now it's free style but leaning toward a structured (abc-123) writing. Have a new idea about changing my style as well. pljames
I'm with jazzabel here and would never dream of rewriting someone else's work into my own words as I would find this insulting and demeaning if someone was to do that to my writing. Re-writing is not critiquing and sometimes reads like an ego trip and almost always (I'd argue) discourages the original writer. Far better in my mind is to try and get into their heads and try to understand what were their intensions and why they used the words they did. Making alternative suggestions is fine but in my opinion that is as far as I would go.
To be honest to me it usually inexperience rather than arrogance. Here as well as learning to write we are learning to critique. When I include an answer that involves showing it in someone's work -- it is because I haven't progressed to a stage I can explain what I mean any other way. Likewise it takes a little while sometimes to learn how precious a voice is to an author.
Yes, you are right, however, there's a remarkable variety in response to any piece of writing. If we are speaking about baseline reasonably well written paragraph, something you will read in one go and fully understand, i might have to re read. There are all kinds of reasons for that, including unfamiliarity or disinterest in the topic. Agreed, but I wasn't really referring to "bad writing" I was more thinking about reasonably written pieces which get needlessly pulled apart in critiques that do reinforce someone else's style, I think most of us can tell the difference between that and genuine delusion that our work can't be faulted I think this is a particularly interesting one because I have seen examples of this also. The thing is, with just a chapter or a couple of paragraphs it is difficult to judge which style, pacing and rhythm would fit in with teh larger body of work. With short stories and complete poems it's ok, but often the critic doesn't see the whole picture, so it's always useful to try and imagine how something might fit into something bigger, than just critiquing on face value. The bottom line is, the critique is meant to be helpful, so presumably we should try to do justice to the artist. Ay Sorry, again, totally have an example (or a dozen) where this is not a case. For example, Iain Banks latest novel. My husband - riveted, me - throwing the book against the wall. And I love sci-fi, but his style put me to sleep, read as completely bleak, boring, gah! I was really upset, most definitely didn't work for me. I can say the same for most Stephen King novels. All really successful authors, but their storytelling didn't work for me at all. I think once you are accomplished enough in any art, regardless of whether you are yet making a living out of it or not, you'll find that vast majority of random critiques are quite useless. If you have the basic skills (which take some time to hone, sure) it all becomes about artistic vision, but that's just my opinion
Yes, it's important to respect other writers' styles. I recall hearing an interview where a writer said she wanted to edit everything she read. Sure, there are published novels out there that have been written poorly. Still, it never hurts to show respect. With that said, I'm guilty of wanting to edit other people's writing. Overall, if it's not an actual mistake, consider leaving it alone.
All critiquing is opinion. That should be a given. That's why it's important to give your reasoning along with the suggestions. It gives the writer more to work with when evaluating the recommendations. Also, the critiquing guidelines on this site specifically request critiquers not simply rewrite the writer's work, in whole or in part. That isn't critiquing, it's an ego trip.
Hey Jazzabel, After further consideration I'm willing to concede a few points. One, I agree that a critic, especially another aspiring writer, who rewrites your sentences can come off as condescending regardless of his or her intentions. Two, I agree that two different writers, or aspiring writers, will often have conflicting visions. With that being said, I don't think it is in the best interest of an unpublished, aspiring writer to ignore other's criticisms in the interest of his or her own artistic vision. Here's why. 1. Basic skills in writing are not the only skills in writing. This applies to much more than just writing. 2. An unpublished author has not yet proved himself. This means, objectively, he is in no position shrug off other's complaints. You might be willing to stake your life on the skill of your own novel, but you have to be willing to admit you might be deluded. This is the only way you can progress. 3. Success is not just about being good, its about being good and conforming (to some extent) to a standard. Do I hate to say this? Absolutely. But this applies to nearly everything. Can that standard be broken or changed? Yes. But that, I believe, is something you can only attain at expert level. And you can't reach expert level until you've gone through all the hoops. One such hoop or standard an aspiring writer has to go through, is putting aside artistic vision in the interest of getting the reader through the story. This applies to one of the points you made, because while we as critics do not understand the entire scope of another's novel, we can still point to the flow, coherence, and readability of individual sentences and paragraphs in an excerpt. Enabling the reader to get through your reading is just as important as the work in its entirety, especially for writers who have not yet proved themselves. If you're interested in this argument, I point you to Gary Provost's work on finer points of writing. Now, how do these points apply to this forum? Real editors have more authority than fellow aspiring writers. And of course, when someone else on this forum criticizes our work for us, we have to ask ourselves how right he really is. If a reader says he found the flow of the writing rocky, or things were hard to understand or follow, I personally would take that as a bad sign. Now, maybe only one person will say this. That might not mean much. If four or five people all agree, the complaint means a little more. I agree that almost any other complaint, let's say a critic doesn't like your character or how you described a setting, can potentially be taken lightly if that critic has not proven himself either. Even if the critic has proven himself, he might find your work shallow, cliche, or boring; that doesn't mean its not good by some other standard. However, complaints that pertain to readability, meaning how easy the reader found it to get from A to B, should be taken a little more seriously no matter what. A reader does not have to prove himself. In the interest of your original post, I will say this also. A critic who has not proved himself does have a responsibility to treat your work as an intelligent reader. If I'm critiquing your work, I should ask myself, how well does this writing work for me as a reader? I should not be asking myself, how would I write this person's work differently? That I agree is vanity. If a person then critiques your work by rewriting something of yours, because he found it to some extent unreadable, yes he is being vain, but he might also be onto something. It will still help you to consider how readable your work really is. And again, until one has proven himself objectively, its hard to know oneself how readable the work really is. Rule of thumb. If the critique is about readability, consider it regardless of your vision. If its about anything else, your arguments apply.
I'm with shadow on this one. A critique IS a personal opinion and you simply cannot pretend otherwise. Whether you agree or disagree with how the reviewer critiqued the work is entirely up to you. You may agree or you may not but there is no point arguing about it because in all likelihood you are approaching the work from two very different angles. Even well respected authors get trashed by some reviewers and lauded by others - it just points out, once again, that we are all different. The question that the writer needs to ask themselves when receiving a critiques is - do they believe the reviewer is being open and honeslty trying to help or just binning everything? Some people are going to be blunt, some people are going to be vague, some people are going to be unnecessarily patronising and so forth. I don't think it harms anyone to accept the reality that some people are going to read your work and trash it - not everyone likes the same things - question is do you value that reviewer's opinions or not? I guess as a reviewer I still provide examples of what I think might work better IN MY OPINION which is what has been asked in a general review section. I prefer to be detailed than vague. A vague review which says, "overall a good story but you might want to take a look at your dialgoue beat" means nothing because it doesn't say anything. Providing examples of where and when you think they succeeded, and where and when you think they failed, and how you think they can reconcile the two - that's better in my opinion. I think that both reviewer and reviewee need to differentiate between a 'harsh' reviewer who may be fair with an 'unfair' reviewer. I think the two are commonly mistaken but are miles apart. I try to follow the site guidelines as best as I can and I hope that's enough. At the end of the day, my opinion is only that - my opinion - and I'm not forcing anything on anyone, but if they post a public piece of work and ask for anyone's opinion, then they might have to gauge each opinion seperately and see which resonates with them and which doesn't. Arguing with a reviewer is not helpful to anyone.
Absolutely agree Of course this is true. But what I was getting to in my post is that not every review or a critique is useful. I see a lot of critiques delivered by people who themselves can hardly spell let alone write a decent narrative, who have very poor grasp of different types of literature because they read only a small range of it. So while it is only polite to thank everyone for the time they generously spent giving you feedback, some of it must be disregarded as personal opinions which are not of much use to you in crafting this particular story. The true art of receiving a critique is to know what to take and what to leave
Is that dear old Steerpike slipping back in? I believe it is. Welcome back. So much touching naïvety in this thread. As per the stated goals of the workshop, I critique in order to help myself, not to help the writer.
Bearing in mind, of course, that not all readers are writers. And readers can give as useful critiques as the most gifted writer. Possibly better.
Of course, that is sometimes true. But you have to admit that there are critiques which not only miss the point, but give advice which is so absurd, that to take that to heart would simply lead to a break in a time-space continuum Forgive the hyperbole, of course I agree with you, the education or age of the reviewer is not relevant, the quality of the critique is. It's just my opinion, having spent some time in the art world, communicated with many artists, famous and not, that as the artist becomes more proficient in what they do, the usefulness of critiques diminishes. Obviously, critique is vastly different from feedback. Feedback is welcome from everyone, useful in it's entirety, because it gives the writer an idea of how different people reacted. Critique, however, is something all together different. It is essentially an assessment of someone's work and not many people are capable of assessing correctly much beyond spelling, grammar and their own reactions. If this sounded harsh, I didn't mean it in that way, I'm just speaking in absolute terms for argument's sake.
I'm not sure what you mean by "assessing correctly" though. Spelling and grammar are, yes, pretty fundamental. But "beyond... their own reactions" - what else is there? Without the re-writing business, I mean. A crit says "I don't understand this part.". They don't have to say any more at this point. I know something I wrote is not clear to them. They say, "I don't like this character.". Was that my intent, as the author? Once they've stated their reactions, the ball is in my court. I can question them further for clarification, and then decide whether or not to make changes. I can ignore them. I can see that they've expressed the same doubts I had before posting. A critique is feedback, to me anyway. I want to know where the problems are. And for that, I don't care what the person's credentials are. They're reading it, they see a problem, they tell me about it so I can at least be aware of it and "fix" or not as I see fit.
Well, I think it is well established in the art world that there is a vast difference between a feedback (or a review) and a critique, and for a good reason. Here's a rather lengthy explanation with which I mostly agree, because I am not in the mood for writing a long answer. In any case, I think we agree, I too am always grateful for anyone's feedback of any kind, and I will use it or not as I see fit. But I thought to open a discussion about it for the sake of new writers to whom all this might be new, and rather painful, if they are faced with someone's opinion, but feel embarrassed to dismiss it if it isn't useful to them, that's all
Okay, I think we're looking at semantics then I see a review as nothing more than someone telling everyone what they think of a story. It doesn't have to be solicited or nice or helpful. A critique is meant to help the writer. Feedback is in both - nothing more (or less) than the giver's response to a story.
Critique, as defined on the site, is focused feedback on a work in progress, to help the writer improve. Reviewing is a much looser term that we moved away from because it is closely associated with rating or grading a released work's overall quality. We discourage applying a rating to a work being critiqued. It doesn't matter what the quality of the draft is currently. What matters is what the writer can ultimately do with it. The latter is limited only by how much work the writer is willing to put into it, and to learn along the way.
@Cogito: ah, I see, thanks for explaining that about reviews vs feedback @shadowwalker: I agree, it is a bit of a semantics thing, but I used it to try and differentiate, but ultimately, it is what any one person finds useful in any given moment, that matters
I'm a little lost by the overall point of this thread. I agree it is obnoxious for a writer to rework someone else's sentences and apparently against forum rules. But how does this change how someone posting their work should receive criticism? I'm assuming people post their work because they want honest feedback. If their work needed no improvement that could be offered here, I'm assuming they would be saving it for elsewhere. Most works I've read posted in the critiquing section, despite their level of skill, could stand to be improved in some area that I wouldn't categorize in basic writing skills or in vision. Flow, coherence, and tension are such areas. My own work could stand to be improved in all such areas, hence my attention here. One could say, it is not in my vision to create a tense work, but if the critics are finding the motivation to read lacking, the writer in question must address the complaint if he wants to improve. One could say it is my vision to have lengthy prose, but if readers are complaining for lack of flow, the writer in question must address the complaint if he wants to improve. If the reader says, your work is long winded which is bad, ignore him, he does not share see your vision. If the reader says, your work is hard to follow, maybe because it is long winded, perhaps you are not achieving your vision even though you think you are. I think it is dangerous for aspiring writers to take honest criticisms lightly. It's going to cause stagnation and delusion. Obviously I have not read all the works submitted on this forum, but of the ones I have, I have not seen many, if any critiques that pertain to different visions. I haven't seen many people, if any, tell the writer they didn't like the character, or disagreed with the plot line.I have not seen many, if any, criticisms that were not backed by at least two different people. Most issues have been about readability, and how that writer can improve their technique. These are all good things and should not be ignored.
@123...: I think you and I are talking about two completely different things. You seem intent on disagreeing and you keep insinuating things that I never said. I am sorry you see no point in this thread, it seems that quite a few people found it interesting. But by all means, if you are finding this discussion unsatisfactory, you are under no obligation to participate
I never said I don't see a point in this thread, so who is insinuating now? I said I'm confused as to what the point is. You said " But I thought to open a discussion about it for the sake of new writers to whom all this might be new, and rather painful, if they are faced with someone's opinion, but feel embarrassed to dismiss it if it isn't useful to them, that's all" It's that last part I'm disagreeing with. How can a new writer know for sure if someone else's opinion isn't useful?
Just because they are new doesn't mean they can't differentiate between what is useful and what isn't. In my experience, most of us have a gut feeling about these things, but when we are new, we try to do the best we can and that includes listening to all and any advice even though, frankly (and I say this with confidence of my own and others' personal experience) a lot of advice is "take -it-or-leave-it" rather than gospel. But not uncommonly, the ones giving advice would like it to be accepted as gospel. I am sure you know what I am talking about . Since I know how it feels (as I am sure you do as well) when you know someone's opinion of your work is missing a point, when we can't use it but feel obliged or conflicted to follow our inner voice just becuase we feel we lack experience. I've been in the art world long enough now, but once upon a time I was new and lost. It took me all this time to gain confidence to admit that yes, some advice can and should be ignored and I am the best judge of what is helpful to me and what isn't.
That's interesting you feel that way. I think our disagreement lies in our different experiences. My first serious attempts at prose were always criticized by people close to me. I definitely did not agree with their complaints, but still I was bothered. These were intelligent people and I wanted them to like what I wrote. It took me a long while and a lot of grief to finally accept their advice, but looking back on my older stuff, I can admit my writing has improved dramatically. More importantly, the stuff that matters, the vision was better received by my critics. In the beginning, they never got what I wanted them to from my writing. Now they do. I felt like they were missing points in their complaints also, but in retrospect I think it might have been myself who was missing the point. I decided to trust in others, and not just myself, and I admit that is a difficult thing to do. You might be very right in what you say, and probably the aspiring writer could take your advice first. However, if time passes, and they realize they are not where they want to be, I suggest they consider my advice instead.
I think, whenever we put something out for critique, there will be people who don't 'get it'. The question then is not deciding whether or not the critique itself is useful, but to look at why they don't get it. Certainly there will be cases where they don't understand the genre or the conventions within or there's some other 'deficiency' in the reader. But that shouldn't be a given, or the first conclusion jumped to. If someone isn't getting it, maybe (probably) it's because we didn't present it so they could. That's not something to be ignored. We have almost a mantra in my beta group - if you have to explain something outside the story, there's a problem within the story.
@shadowwalker: of course you are right, and "not getting it" in a sense that the reader is confused by a sentence(s) is most definitely worth paying attention to. I was referring simply to the reviews where the reviewer doesn't get what we are trying to do and then re-writes our work in a way that we go "no, no, that's not at all how I wanted it to look". I am not sure if I am explaining this well, but I see this time and again. I'll give you an analogy with photography, it's easier. Ok, you wanted to show movement in the photo, so you exposed it for a few seconds, which resulted in a blurry movement of a child on a swing and everything else stationary is sharp. A reviewer with a very concrete mind and litttle knowledge of photography starts to criticise you for "taking a blurry picture" and proceeds to explain to you what you need to do in order to make a child on a swing sharp (decrease exposure time to something like 1/250 of a second instead of 2 seconds etc). He/she out of their own ignorance assumes that you yourself are ignorant, and that kind of a review is hurtful because it is negative, frustrating because you are dealing with someone with more arrogance than knowledge, and ultimately it is useless to you. If they simply said "personally, I am not keen on these kinds of pictures" it would be perfectly ok, but to say "you don't know what you are doing, you posted a mistake" is a completely different cup of tea. With stories, yes, as long as the reviewer gets to read the whole story. But with snippets, it might as well be entirely fitting with the rest of the story to write a portion of a narrative in a certain way, but if the reviewer isn't seeing the whole picture, it leads to the same kind of "missing the point" to criticise the style whilst making assumptions about the rest of the story, which might be wrong. For example, you post a couple of paragraphs from a second act. The reviewer has no idea about the characters or their purpose, because it is just a snippet. But they proceed to tell you that you need to explain their purpose, mention their names etc, reviewing a snippet as if it was a stand-alone short story. Most of such feedback will be pointless but since we all feel a bit rotten every time someone doesn't like what we have done, it will hurt unless you can distance yourself and say "ok, this feedback is useless to me because they didn't get what this is at all".
