Err... Kind of just skimmed, but I guess good advice from a Staff member. Kidding, I should critique more. It's just hard to justify critiquing when I myself am not writing as much as I want to. I'll add it to the list.
Well, I won't argue with you on this. You make a good point. If I asked what the person is trying to achieve and they told me to react as if I was reading 'cold,' I'd certainly respect that. It all depends on what you're looking for, I suppose. If you're just looking for a reaction to what you've got, that's a good way to approach it. Don't give anything away. Let the reader tell you what they got from it. However, some writers already know they have some kind of a problem, and I find it easier to shape a helpful feedback if I know what the writer wants the end result to be. I also don't respond (well) to people who say things like: "I know this character is obnoxious and I don't care." I meant I prefer to get a response like: "I was hoping to show that character A is developing feelings for character B, but he doesn't want her to know." That kind of response helps me direct feedback. In fact, it's exactly what I ask myself when I'm trying to fix a part of my story that's not right. What am I trying to achieve here? What do I want the reader to take away from this scene? I do emphasize that I would always read the piece through first, however, before asking that question. The only question I might ask before reading is: "Is this the start of your story?" I will react honestly to what I originally thought the piece was about. However, if my initial response was not what the writer meant to happen, then I can brainstorm suggestions for how to fix it.
It is my earnest and unflappable conviction that if you approach a critique with a thought process something to the tune of, "What can I learn here? What can this piece teach me? I see some issues over here, but, ooo, look at this clever little bit of dialogue. Me likie. Now why is it so clever?" then everything else you mention will automatically follow.
The problem is that writing isn't engineering. It's way more subjective. And that means it's pretty damn difficult to even determine if a structure DID fall down, or if it's just not playing the role the individual reader wanted it to. I think the entire critique cycle is too often an exercise in cementing pre-existing ideas. The crit-givers, as @jannert suggested, too often are trying to rewrite the piece in their own style. The crit-asker is often actually just asking looking for encouragement or positive feedback, and ends up getting defensive and frustrated. If I want a critique that will actually be useful to me, I'm very unlikely to post my work on a general writing board. Reading the comments of someone who doesn't like or read romance really doesn't help me write a better romance. Reading my comments on hard sci fi isn't going to be useful to someone who's trying to write that, because I don't like the genre, I don't know/care about the conventions, and the only way they could produce a piece of writing I would like is to change what they're trying to do. So, for useful critiques, I find readers of the genre in which I'm writing. They aren't authors, so they won't try to rewrite the piece in their own style. They know the genre, so they know what's a cliche and what's original. etc. Critiques on a general board like this one? I think they help the crit-giver if the writing is at an appropriate level. It's hard to learn much from a piece that's generally incomprehensible or totally garbled. I generally learn most from pieces that I really like, so I can break them down and figure out why they're so effective. But then... why wouldn't I just skip the sorting-through-the-chaff stage and "critique" a successful published piece? I think I learn from my own mistakes, sure, but I'm not convinced I learn from other people's mistakes... I don't know. I think I do mostly critique here as an effort to help the community or the author, not myself. But at the same time I agree with @Wreybies that it may not be a very effective way to help them. So... hmmm. Why DO I bother?
I know it's a hard religion to sell, and I certainly do not expect everyone to see it my way. It is the religion that held sway here at the beginning and was eventually ousted by the easier to engage religion that has one looking down the opposite end of the spyglass. I think part if is that when I preach what I preach, people think the resultant critique will look and feel completely self serving. But that's not the case if you engage it with a genuine eye to self improvement, not self gratification. My crits don't really look much different to any other well-considered crit. I do pass knowledge forward. I simply hold to a mindset that the only person I am guaranteed of helping is me myself. I hope that others are helped by what I offer, but there's no guaranty of that, so my focus is not there, it's not the dynamic driving my paradigm. The odd thing is, that I get messages and PM's all the time from people who at least give my thought process a try and they find it very rewarding, or members like @doggiedude and @Wayjor Frippery who confirm time and time again that giving a well considered critique leaves them approaching their own respective works in progress with clearer lenses in their eyes. This is why we have no rule against critiquing older pieces and why we won't be installing any sort of "close the thread after X amount of time in the Workshop". The entire canon of work within the Workshop is intended to be at the member's disposal to use as lessons. When the forum was set up, this was the driving mindset. It's also why I never "get into it" with members who don't know how to take critique. Depending on how the person engages, I may elaborate what I said in the critique, put it in plainer words, give examples, etc., but if the person is just argumentative then I flat-out ignore it. Sometimes the best reply is no reply. It's a lesson all mods and admins must learn at one point or another. Every once in a blue moon we get a member who treats getting critique as an exercise in fending off and arguing away anything they don't want to hear. Chronological age notwithstanding, such a person is not sufficiently mature to engage in the critique process. That person simply isn't ready and may sadly metamorphose into Writer Freaks Out Over One-Star Review™. Regardless, I don't really care if they told me to sod off after my critique. The crit was for me, not for them.
I don't think the genre makes much difference when a critique is asked for. I suppose it all depends on what the writer is looking for in a review. When I post something I'm looking to find out if I've made myself unclear, obvious disasters with switching tenses, descriptions that are lacking or too detailed, words that don't need to be there, or anything else that I'm blind to. When I look at someone's else's writing that's usually the items I focus on. I admit that there have been a few times when I've pulled up a piece that was posted and found it so horrible I couldn't say anything without it sounding disparaging, which I won't do. Of course, that makes me worry even more when I post something and a few days later there's 50+ views and no responses. There's an old trick that my high school teachers got me to do in a few subjects. When I was having a difficult time with something, they made me teach it to someone else. Nothing forces a person to learn more than being required to teach. (Assuming they take the process seriously.)
Really?! I'm not sure I've even been there...and if I did, I'm pretty sure I didn't masturbate. Sorry, my eyes were drawn to this and I struggled to concentrate after that. It's my dirty mind. I really feel I can relate to @BayView's comments the most. I don't learn from critiques here, I don't learn from other's mistakes. What I do get out of critiques, if I am lucky, is exposure to new ideas that interest me, but that has nothing to do with the writing mechanics. I do critiques simply because I want to be helpful and give back to the community or to people I enjoy. But as @Wreybies said, the writer isn't going to thank you for it. If I want to critique to learn, I should really be analytically reviewing passages from published authors that I do love. I treat critiques as a way for a writer to get another reader's point of view, so they can compare. I sometimes rewrite a bit because the poor author has no idea what I am talking about, but I make it clear it is to my preferences. It feels like it is just more work trying to explain rather than demonstrate my logic. I'm lazy. And since I have only posted one piece publicly online ever, I will say that as the 'object' it was very useful the feedback I did get. I had sent the same piece to the range of people privately and I had gotten nothing by positives, which in itself was stressing me out with even more self doubt. Some of the most useful feedback was from this forum. So I'm not sure what the critiquers were thinking or what their motivation were, but it was extremely helpful.
I think the clarity and tense-switching stuff could be caught by a crit-giver regardless of genre, sure. But those seem like things you could catch yourself, too, don't they? Or maybe not, but I really don't think I'd be learning anything about my own writing by pointing out where someone else was messing up verb tenses. That's more like proofreading, to me, rather than critiquing. And then once we get to "descriptions that are lacking or too detailed" I think we're absolutely into subjective territory and that absolutely varies by genre. One of the things I can't stand about a lot of SF/F writing is the endless damn descriptions and exposition. But those seem to be pretty common in the published SF/F I've read, so my critique, based on my own preferences, would be directly contrary to the genre standards (as I understand them). So, I agree, it's possible for someone to point out clear errors like verb-tense issues regardless of genre. But once we get past absolute errors (which I think the author should be finding for him or her self, if at all possible), I think it's subjective and genre conventions come into play.
That's sort of my point. To YOU those things are absolute errors. I had no idea it was even considered an error until I started reading through this forum, other critiques, and other writings. Because of all the time I've spent looking at these things, I can now spot them easily in my work.
Well, what the member does in the privacy of his or her home is none of my business and they certainly don't need my say-so. I was referring more to the content of the writing within that area than the actions of the member (so many entrendres...)
Well, I think they're absolute errors to pretty much everyone, but fair enough, if someone doesn't know they're errors, they wouldn't notice them. So maybe critiques at that level are useful to the crit receiver rather than the crit giver, and then once we're past that sort of stuff critiques phase over and become more useful to the giver than the receiver? Still, though, I don't think I learn as much from analyzing amateur-level writing as I do from analyzing really good stuff... Maybe we should start a tradition of posting our favourite pieces of pro writing and inviting others to join us in critiquing/analyzing them! that'd have the community-activity benefit of the current crit structure, and maybe be more educational for the crit-givers? Anyone interested?
Yeah, that sounds like a cool idea! I just don't know if it is allowed to just take passages out of a published work (and I assume you mean that with 'pro writing') and post them here for dissecting of what works and what doesn't. If it is legal, then I am all for it! Maybe make threads for different genres?
We have talked of this in the past, and I think it's an excellent idea, obviously, since it completely fits with my personal philosophy. My only trouble with this is that I have not found someone willing to take on the task of running it for the long haul. It would require a bit of tending in that such a feature for the forum would have to abide by copyright and fair use dynamics.
@BayView I see the metaphor was lost, a bit there. I knew I should have gone with: If you don't know, ask someone smarter than you for help/answers. I don't try to rewrite someone elses work to fit my style. I do however make mention of how I feel about what I have read, but that is just part of being a human. The point that I fail to follow is that reading someone elses work will somehow improve my own. I think some of the best stuff I have read so far, has come from members who don't post their work on the forum. Not sure what that says about those individuals, but it is an interesting thing to note. Then again I try to read a little bit of everything, but somethings the way they have been written are kinda bad, to the effect that I just can't bear to read them or offer suggestion. This is something that I myself have been apart of according to some, so it all balances out. Not a single person here can say that they haven't looked at something posted in the workshop, and after a minute or two promptly backed out for their own reasons. So I am going to say this, the smartest individuals are the ones that don't post. Reason being they have a knack for being self aware of what the hell they are doing, and they do it well. And on an aside. @Wreybies Pornhub really? I think I will stick to my own wacky niche when it comes to such matters on this one. (Then again I have odd tastes)
Put it in a forum shielded from search engines and it isn't likely to be found. I suppose you could add some rules relating to amount of a work used, though fair use doesn't have a concrete rule about that.
Having genre readers can certainly be important if you want something beyond proofreading. Having a critique from a reader outside the genre won't hurt, but having readers from within the genre is a big benefit.
Agreed on both points. Easiest thing would be to simply make it part of the Workshop that is already shielded from internet trawl. But as your own comments already illuminate, it needs someone to make choices on these matters, and I already personally have way too many little pet projects in my corral.
Honestly, I don't find critiquing excerpts useful. It was in the early days (she says, as if she's been writing forever) when it was the kind of mechanical things @doggiedude was talking about. Now that I'm comfortable with my grasp of mechanics, I still learn a lot from beta reading and from being beta read but not from 1,000 words out of a 100,000-word novel. It's the big picture stuff I like, personally, and I can't get that from a single chapter or scene.
I had some detailed feedback and help when I was starting out as a writer and finished my first novel. I hadn't bought a single how-to book at that point, so I didn't know any of the tricks of the trade. My only claim to knowing how to write was that I know how to read. I had been an avid reader all my life, and also got a BA in English. But I had never taken a creative writing course in my life. I had always wanted to try writing a novel, though, so I did it. When the first draft of my novel was finished, I knew I 'had something' worth pursuing—something that was exciting for me to have produced myself. A friend's sister is in a long-term relationship with a writer with several novels under his belt. That writer offered to critique my novel, in return for me reading and giving feedback on his latest. What a great time that was for me. I learned SO much about writing, not only from reading his, but from what he told me from his own experience. It meant so much to me to have that kind of one-on-one editing help and I learned so much. I have always felt the urge to pay that kind of help forward whenever I can, however I can. I'm not in his league as a writer, but I try.
As well as writing forums being the only place where I interact with other writers, what I also appreciate is the first post of this thread made me think, "yeah, I agree" as well as the first post that offered a differing viewpoint made me think "yeah, I agree with that too". This also opens our minds to other possibilities and opportunities in writing as well as in our daily lives.
Oscar, your conduct and response to critiques is great. I really love that you LIKE every feedback whether you agree to it or not. Some people are more selective with their likes and that is for whatever reasons they rationalise in their mind. When you are in disagreement, you will separately ask for more information. You decouple the actual act of giving of the original critique. I prefer your approach because it always makes the reader feel their time was valued. You're giving them a token of appreciation in something more than just words that they can take away. Others may disagree, but I see it as good manners. Besides, as we've discussed, you have a big bowl of candy; it cost nothing to hit the like button and may even encourage people to visit you again. ;-) I think I only took exception to getting follow up questions because as I said, I am super duper lazy and resented having to re-read. Umm... you might have forgotten to say please too in follow up requests? Don't hit me or get mad, I am a stick in the mud about such things! It's because I find critiques chorey (yes, everything is a chore for me) and I do it because I love this forum. As I said above, I do critiques because I want to give back for some reason. In your case, I just decided Oscar was a sweety pie. I apologize for when I got abrasive, I realized later it was unfair to be such a meany pie because you really were unsure what on earth I was on about. lol Edit: I edited to say forgotten, because I believe you forgot and I was cranky at the time.
