For everything bad I have to say about a piece, I mention something good. I don't pay attention to anything in particular (unless the writer wants me to), but just point out whatever jumps out at me.
If not a duck... I don't typically like to acknowledge a writer beyond his work, I'm rather uncomfortable with it. 'Aye... But well done, though...' Things, to my mind, should stay technical than personal.
I definitely dish out good with the bad, because I want the person on the receiving end to gain something from my advice. And I am never dishonest, I don't sugar coat because I believe that would be doing disservice to the writer who wants to improve, not get their ego massaged. But I can't stand it when people post something for the critique and then spend the entire time 'proving' why every critical thing that's been said is 'wrong'. Sadly, not everyone actually wants to improve their writing, rather, they are fishing for compliments and they react offishly or badly when they don't get the praise they feel they deserve.
Cream rises, and like attracts like. I have found that excoriating trash results in blind vituperation. None are so blind that they will not see. Yes, a cliche, but consider the source. That said, we are all amateurs here; I have yet to receive a crit from either John Updike or Ernest Hemingway. And I am left wondering why that is.
Well it would be rather disconcerting to receive a critique from beyond the grave. More seriously, the tone of one's critique does seem to be a huge factor in whether the author takes your ideas on board. People can be very precious about their writing. I find it much more helpful to view one's writing as a kind of bodily excretion that you can chisel away at in hopes of finding a purified core. Your mileage may vary, of course.
The smart thing to do is to glean all the information you can from every critique. I once posted a short story for critique, and one person created an account for the sole purpose of posting a hostile critique (it was his or her only post on the site - at least under that name). But within all the venom, he or she found and pointed out a legitimate issue that every other critiquer had overlooked. That person was digging for anything he or she could use against me, and in the process, ended up helping. So be smart and consider every recommendation on its merits, not on the critiquer's intentions or social skills.
Besides, it's not like the industry will treat a noob with kid gloves, so in a way a few rude crits might even do good for an aspiring writer Not that I'd try to be super rude on purpose...
Constructive critique always. Seldom do I find something that needs to go entirely into the fireplace. If it does, then I'll vomit up something to show I actually suffered through it and say just that. If it needs a gentle exfoliation, I break out a long luffah sponge and go to work.
I consider myself a "Brutally honest" critiquer. If something is awful, I'll point it out, but I will mention what good things you did as well.
I would probably try to get a feel for what kind of person the author is. I'd come right out and ask if they just want to work on one flaw, a few flaws, or if they'd like to hear about as many as I can find. I tend to be generous with compliments.
I can only talk about plot holes, the logical part of the narrative (I don't know all the rules of a language to show what's wrong with the writing itself). I like to catch continuity errors And I show to the author what's wrong, and what is working very well. We need to know what we are doing right, not only wrong.
This was essentially my experience submitting a chapter for review here. It's hard to place a chapter in context without knowing the backgrounds, motives, etc of the characters therein.
I do try to stick to the principle that a constructive critique should never be hurtful. It should be honest—and I'm certainly not advocating sugar-coating—but should also offer enough pathways to get the writer thinking and working through any problems. A constructive critique offers insight, and always sends me away inspired to do better and to fix whatever is wrong. A contemptuous one doesn't. I think a critique should always be respectful towards the writer. People work hard on their writing, and this needs to be kept in mind, even when it's very flawed. As a critique-giver, just see what you can do to help them fix it.
I try and find the good and the bad in things. I believe I can find something good in everything I read in one way or another.
I come from a dark place, where critiques make baby seals cry and everyone who touches a keyboard is actually preparing acid for a gust of firebreath. Some of it might have rubbed off on my thick skin, but I try to not be evil. I do always end up pointing out the bad, and rarely the good. It might be wrong, but I'm like that in life as well, and people actually like to come to me for advice or just a general opinion. People are masochists.
This depends on if I am asked to critique a piece or if I'm doing it for my own sake. I try to give myself a space between reading and writing a critique. This is because I've learned people sometimes jump the gun and don't allowing things to set in. They miss important points because they're too concerned with lambasting the writer. I've been on every step of writing below where I am now. When I was younger a teacher told me I was the worst writer she had ever taught. By Senior year most of my class expected to read a best seller of mine one day. So, I'm very careful with my critique and try to offer as much help as I can whilst also resisting to 'fix' the story or piece myself.
...the nit-picky sort, who can't resist pointing out that 'sort of a' is poor grammar... ...but also a kind motherly sort, who will allow for the possibility that you realized it after you typed it inadvertantly and simply were unable to delete it in the thread title... love and hugs, mammamaia
This is an interesting post. I like it. The answer depends on my mood really. If I'm not that engaged, going line by line can be very tiring and time consuming. I like to be thorough when I can, but I generally don't put everything into one comment anymore. Sometimes I do though. When I write a critique I try to keep in mind that I am only learning, myself. Based on experience, I scarcely have a leg to stand on, so my commentary is not the be-all, end-all. Further, I try to remember that I can only provide my perspective, which is no more valid or important than anyone else's. With that in mind, if I decide to do a critique I will look for positives in the same way as I look for negatives. I do not think there is any piece that is so bad that it has no redeeming qualities, although tit seems so sometimes. So I don't limit myself to only critiquing the words on the page/screen. There are usually good and bad qualities about various elements such as content, intent, readability, word choice, voice, characters, "believability," order of information(i.e. presentation or progression) and so on, as they are all parts of what go into the story. I try to provide thorough critiques, commenting on what I think is or isn't working, and things that stand out to me that aren't necessarily problems. If, by some tragedy I can't find anything nice to say, I try to revise my tone. An editor/reviewer's tone is the most critical element in how writers will receive a receive his or her commentary. Instead of simply providing a list of flaws, I pad my language to include some levity (and I hope the writer picks up on it). Not everybody has the patience or the time to say more than their direct impressions, and that's fine. I doubt editors and agents will waste time or words on niceties, so writers should go in prepared for anything, even a tone they weren't expecting. Give people the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming critics are jerks trying to make one feel bad...unless they say some ungodly thing like, "This doggerel makes a mockery of fiction. Go read some books and learn to write." ... That is not okay. All this is to say, I can be thorough and rather opinionated, but I try to stay positive in tone and presentation. I If it can be found I list redeeming qualities. If things are bad I make suggestions that might help. In the end, I try to leave writers with a good taste in their mouths. Ya know? Make them feel hopeful or like they have a direction to try. And I don't mind if they decide not to take my advice. The only times I get annoyed are when the writers reply with comments like, "yeah but I want to do this so I can't change it without ruining everything," or "you just don't get what I'm trying to do because you don't know the whole story," or worse yet, "well you and I must just have different philosophies on what makes good writing." For me that's like saying, thanks but you don't know what you're talking about. Maybe it's true, but I find it kind of unappreciative because most of us are judging a section by it's own merits or even imagining the context it might fit in. Anyway, I'll shut up now...
I personally find critiquing to be much more valuable to me, the one doing the critiquing. That's the whole point, isn't it? Giving critiques teaches you how to critically analyze writing, spot what's wrong with it, and figure out the best ways to fix it. As such, to me it's worth going through an entire work, either line-by-line or at least paragraph-by-paragraph, and pointing out either why I'm having trouble with it or why I think it works. It's not about sugar coating or being brutally honest for me. It's about looking at a piece and seeing whether or not it engages me, whether or not it effectively pulls me in or makes me care. If it does, it's worth explaining why so the writer knows he or she is succeeding. If not, again it's worth explaining why so he or she can evaluate what might be done differently. And this at the line or paragraph level, as it's very easy to lose consistency over the length of a piece. It's easy to go in and pick apart grammar. It's easy to rewrite sentences in the style you'd choose. It's easy to find a list of things that break the "rules" we writers love to recite. But how much does that help the writer? More importantly, how much does that help us to evaluate our own writing? You're already writing in your own style, and you can look up grammar issues in a book or online. It's up to us to decide whether to follow rules or creatively break them. What giving in-depth critique does, at least for me, is force the critter to understand why something does or doesn't work (since it doesn't make sense to point something out without explaining why). I might read a passage that seems off or awkward or boring. But when I point it out, I'd better be ready to give a reason why I don't like it. And then I can apply that same explanation to my own work. So I don't like to identify as a "brutally honest" critter or one who "finds the good and the bad." Since I'm ultimately most interested in honing my editing and revising abilities, I just go through the text and comment on what is and why, what works and what doesn't, what issues seem to prevail and what strengths a piece has, or whatever. Anything I can use on my own work. I analyze and comment on the results. It takes a lot of time, a lot of thinking, and a lot of work. But that's the whole point.
I agree with most of what you've said, and as usual, your response is thorough and thoughtful. You are one of the human assets I always appreciate on this forum. I would like to comment on the statement I quoted, though. If a person has posted a snippet from the middle of a novel, it's entirely possible that you won't get what they're trying to do because you truly don't know the whole story. Readers of the entire piece WILL know the characters, what motivates them, etc. If the writer is asking for feedback about wording or something like that, it's not helpful to tell them you don't care about their character, and don't know why certain things are happening, etc. Of course you don't. Not because the writer is flawed, but simply because you haven't read the story to that point. A novel exists as a whole, with a slow buildup of character, event and theme over a great number of pages, but only gets critiqued in tiny snippets on this forum. I think it's very important to keep that in mind. If you're reading the opener to a novel, fair enough. But if it's an extract from a middle section, I think it's important to keep that in mind during a critique. If you picked up a published book and opened it to page 150 and read three paragraphs you might well not have a clue what's going on. It's perfectly valid for the author to say : but you don't know the whole story.
Hey Jannert! Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them. Oh no, don't get me wrong. I agree with that sentiment. What I'm referring to are situations when the writing is hard to understand or the situation is incomprehensible, yet when one makes a suggestion that might help the writer deliver their intent, the writer decides to "argue" your advice is useless. For example, say I want to write an intense action scene, but I use long, slow, complex sentences and get sidetracked into flashbacks. Knowing that it should be an action scene, one might suggest I try shorter, more direct sentences and save back story for another time. I could say, "oh, but all of this 2 page flashback in the middle of a fight is happening in the mc's mind really quickly, so it world defeat the purpose to move it. I want to show what's in his head at the moment." One might then say, "1. how important is the information to the action of the scene? does the mc gain anything from this? if not, why interrupt the action for it? 2. maybe you can shorten this two pages into a couple lines or break it up throughout the fight... just a thought that you might try. 3. shorter sentence help create the urgency you want in an action seen." I don't think it would be very appreciative of me to then say, "thanks @jannert, but I disagree that action scenes have to be written this way. You just don't get what I'm trying to do... I can't shorten or move the scene because it shows how this happened and readers need that info for the next chapter." You might then say, "you know, chapters are a little flexible. maybe this information deserves it's own section? If not that's fine, I just didn't feel the impact of your action scene because it read slowly. just something to think about. " It might be a little annoying if I then replied, "Funny... I didn't think it read slowly at all... thanks but I think it just depends on the reader. I'm going to leave it as is." Sure that's not really rude, but I find it a bit dismissive. I could easily say, "The information is important for the next chapter, and I don't know if moving the information would work. I didn't think it read slowly, but it might be that I know what it should look like. Or maybe it's subjective? Do action scenes alway have to be written this way? etc. etc." That might not really support my point, but I tried. In short, I agree, some things we just don't know and we have to consider that in our critiques as well. If someone says, "hey don't worry about what the characters are talking about. do their voices sound natural?" then that is what I'll focus on. I'd probably ask for some information on the characters to see if I could imagine characters talking a certain way, but overall I wouldn't push undesired critiques considering how much about the piece I just wouldn't know.
Oh, yeah, if that's what you meant, then I totally agree. I guess I'm referring to times when I've seen and experienced critique-givers who want to criticize every offering in the workshop as if it's a opening page to a novel. I say, no, you're not always going to know what's happened before if you're coming in in the middle. Sigh... I've got into arguments on the forum over this issue many times. Some people insist you should never ask the author what he/she is trying to accomplish—it should be obvious from the writing, etc. However, that's not taking into consideration that you might be looking at a middle part of a much longer piece.
When it comes to asking for insight before reading, I might ask for some background set up such as where we are and how we got there. If we're in the scene immediately after a fight or battle or argument, it may not be immediately obvious without the fight, battle or argument, so I think it's nice to get some details. As for author intent with a piece, I prefer to ask afterwards so that my reading can be impartial. In that scenario I get my first impression, and then what the author was trying to do, and I can measure how well it came across. If I know it from the start, then I know exactly what I'm looking for, which isn't really a bad thing. That's not to say you're wrong at all. Asking first can be just as effective. If a writer wants feed back on a specific element, then they can certainly narrow that scope, and it won't bother me. For me asking author intent is like the difference between a word search and a crossword puzzle. Asking first is like the word search in that we know exactly what we're looking for and it's either there or it's not. Not asking (or asking after the initial reading) is like the crossword puzzle, because we have to take what's there and see if we've reached the right conclusion or takeaways from the scene more like real readers actually might. I take no issue either way as long as the writer is respectful/appreciative and the reviewers remain respectful and conscious of their limitations.
