Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Some Heretical Remarks on Critiques

All---

Let me get this right out there at the front. I think critiques and comments are important and valuable. I find them helpful in not only improving my stories, but in improving my writing for the next go 'round. In fact, if anyone ever wishes to read and comment on a WIP (work-in-progress, for those of you not up on the jargon), they simply need to let me know, and odds are I'll give them a crack at it. I encourage all writers to seek and embrace critiques.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttt............

I do think that critiques sometimes get elevated to near-religious status by writers, especially by new writers, and I'd like to offer a frank assessment of some of the limits of critiques. I offer these thoughts not to dissuade any writers from getting their materials looked through, picked apart, and remarked upon. Ou mei! Rather, I hope to help liberate some new writers from the bondage that critiques can become. Let me elaborate:

1. The nature of the critique is that you will almost never get copy back without remarks for improvement. If you do, the reader probably didn't read. Even after you've edited once, if you re-submit, you will probably get remarks. In fact, if you use a different reader, I assure you that you will get remarks. Moral Number One: Don't wait for the all-clear on your story before submitting it, because the all-clear probably won't come.

2. A critiquing reader is not the same as a reader. Ideally, the comments in a critique will help you tighten and improve your writing. This should also enhance your story for readers. But when I'm critiquing a story, I'm looking at it differently than when I'm just reading it, and I think that's true for most people. Readers may subconsciously notice the impact on your story of the technical details the critiquer points out, but they will rarely fixate on them. Moral Number Two: A mechanic can always find something on your car to tune-up, but is your car safe and comfortable anyway?

3. Critiques reflect taste. Sure, there's bound to be some grammar. Some syntax. Some writing fundamentals. But there's also the sort of thing that a critiquing reader just doesn't like -- or just happens to love. Another reader may have a totally different opinion. "Good writing" is in the mind of the reader, and if we all agreed on that, we'd all have the same favorite authors, which we don't. Moral Number Three: It's okay to disagree with a critique.

And lastly (at least for today)....

4. A rejection letter is not cancerous. Once you get a critique or two, it's okay to send something off. If your submission or query is rejected, you will not die, nor contract a deadly disease, nor plunge into financial ruin. You will be disappointed. You will be frustrated. And then you will decide to either send it elsewhere or edit and revise, perhaps on the basis of a fresh critique. Moral Number Four: Send out your dadgum writing.

Too many new writers seem to get trapped in this thing where they work and work and work and work the same story to death. If this is you and you're reading this, break the cycle. Please, start sending some stuff off.

.Nevets.

6 comments:

  1. Some fantastic advice here, and I agree. Critiques are good -- useful, even -- but it's possible to pay too much attention to them. I learned the hard way when I took every bit of advice my English teacher threw at me in regards to revising an essay and it turned out so radically different from what I intended that it lost a competition.
    Awesome post. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. critique doesn’t hold any value to me unless:

    1.I know the quality of and respect the writer’s work. Why should I care what so-and-so thinks if he/she is a terrible writer?

    2.I know that he/she won’t lie to me. Sugar-coating is fine (I don’t need it), but lying doesn’t help me any.

    3.The person is interested in the type of voice and style that I write. If critiquer only like literary… chances are if he/she critiques me, it’s going to be a poor review.

    4.I will NOT critique w/ a person who rewrites for me. Rewriting is MY job, not the critiquer’s job. This drives me BANANAS. Can you tell?

    ReplyDelete
  3. He's a witch. Burn her, er, him!

    Nice entry for a nasty day.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's all well and good, unless of course, I'm the one doing the critiquing. In which case, you would all do well to listen intently.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Many years ago, I belonged to a writing group where one older, though not necessarily wiser, writer exercised a strange sort of power over those who gathered to receive advice that led more to failure than success.

    I don't recall the exact moment when I woke up and said, "This is all rot, and you have no clue what you're talking about."

    I agree with Heather: I accept critiques only from other writers or avid readers whom I trust. However, I do listen to what they say, and weigh the comments, considering which to accept, which to discard.

    A writer's humility -- the ability to accept and weigh a critique -- should also be balanced with confidence in his own work, else he won't know what to toss and what to keep.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kennan, that's a fantastic illustration. I also really like the opposition way you pair up humility and confidence. They're not opposites, but too many people think they are.

    Humility isn't self-depracation. If you truly think your writing is garbage, it doesn't take any humility to admit that. That's just honesty.

    Humility is being confident in your abilities but knowing that you're not perfect and that there are a lot of things you can still learn and a lot of ways in which you can approve.

    ReplyDelete

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