On Critiques
REVIEWS, CRITIQUES, AND THE PRICE OF WHEAT IN CHINA
(Originally published at writing.com)
What are we doing here? I am going to presume that the majority answer to
that is "...because we have to write!" If you're as I am, we're
addicted to laying our souls bare on paper the same as any street junky is
to his heroin. If this weren't true, we'd be out by the pool or at a
tailgate party with friends -- in other words, having a life. The fact is writing is as important to each of
us as breathing. Coinciding with this is that our writing isn't
just for ourselves, otherwise, we'd get a blog somewhere and just put down
words that have meaning only to us and the heck with the rest of the
world.
We are here, not just because we must write, but we must also communicate.
Writing becomes almost meaningless if it doesn't convey your ideas,
feelings, and emotions to another human. In conversation, we get visual and
aural feedback. In writing, we get reviews (critiques). There is no way we
can tell if we are "communicating" without this feedback. A good review
tells us whether we are making our point, or missing the mark. Reviews are
the only way we can ever hope to improve. As writers, the reading and
reviewing of another's work also allows us to not just spot things in someone
else's manuscript that we're guilty of ourselves, but also the process of
writing the review challenges each of us to communicate (a review is
writing, folks).
This is an addition that I forgot to put in
the other day, but was
brought to my attention by a reviewer! This person, being new here,
felt intimidated by the "professionals" on the board...horse puckey!! Those who are not yet as jaded as the "professionals" and haven't
had the formulaic "success in writing" courses beaten into their
still quivering bodies,
actually have more to offer in a review than a lot of the rest of us do.
They have the unique perspective of being readers --
they are the public we're trying to reach. I may sell two books to other
writers, but I want to sell a hundred to readers. The unseasoned author has a unique
point of view born of
naiveté to
bring to my writing. They know what they like and what they don't like. They
haven't been poured into the mold of formula writing that the rest of us
have because of years of editors, agents, seminars, and writing classes. They don't
know "how it's supposed to be", they just know what works for them. Give me ten amateur reviewers, and I'll give you one heck of a
saleable story! As a prime example, several months ago I had a short story posted
here and received a half-dozen reviews. Two "old-timers" found a couple of
typos and a grammatical error. The "newbies" had some great suggestions for
scenes and flow and let me know what didn't work for them. I incorporated their
suggestions (and fixed the typos) and the story sold to the first publisher
I submitted!
NEWBIES, REVIEW MY STUFF, PLEASE! Practice makes pathetic I was surfing
the other day on some other writing sites, and found a couple
of words of wisdom that are definitely worth sharing. While I say that a
good reviewer is diplomatic, it's also your duty to be honest.
Practice does not make perfect. Praise confirms habits, and if these habits
are bad, practice makes pathetic. If there is a stylistic, grammar, or logic error in a piece you're
reviewing and you don't point it out with suggestions for improvement, the
author will only be reinforced into that bad pattern. On the other hand, the good reviewer will be constructive and give
suggestions where improvement is needed and how it can be done. Your job is
to be a growth hormone, not a suicide pill. As much as I enjoy the perk and pat on the back from "I thoroughly
enjoyed that...", it doesn't tell me what about it you enjoyed. What
did I do that worked for you? This may have been a fluke on my part that
will never happen again unless you tell me. The same goes for "This piece
sucked, big-time...". Why? How come? What should I do different? What do you
think I should do to make it better? I belong to about a dozen professional and amateur critique groups
(what we do here {or should be doing} is critiquing, not reviewing. A review
is what you read on the back cover of a paperback or on Amazon.com). What
the writer needs (as much as writing) is a thoughtful, concise, and apropos
analysis of the work so future rewrites or new pieces don't make the
same mistakes (or that they do include things that are working). The word "critique" implies criticism, but it doesn't have to. Kudos
are just as important as finding fault...sometimes more so. I developed a brief template several years ago to remind me what to
look for in both short stories and novels (sorry, I don't do poems).
Briefly, a "review" (or whatever) should cover comments on:
Summary Comments: I'll go over these in a moment.
A good (and useful) review depends less on what you say, than how
you say it! You may be dead right, but if the author feels like you're
attacking, they're going to ignore what you said or worse, feel hurt by it
and throw the piece away.
We all put a lot of ourselves into what we write (they're our children); if
we feel you're attacking, we'll be defensive and that doesn't benefit either
of us. I have a tendency to put a really harsh critique away for a month or
two until I cool down. During that time, I may have re-written my piece a
couple of times before I take another look at the critique. Damn, they
had a point! Oh crap, that went out to the agent yesterday... While we all know that as writers and reviewers, everything we say is
our opinion. Since I haven't noticed Stephen King or J. K. Rowling on writing.com recently, we're all in the same boat. Even though we know
this, it's nice for a reviewer to stipulate it, too. "In my opinion...",
"You might think about...", "How would it be if you...", are all great
phrases to stick into a review to remind the author that we're all bozos on
this bus and you still get your point across as a reviewer. Again, it's not
so much what you say, as how you say it that makes the difference. Phrases like "You need to," "have to," "should," "must," "can't,"
"don't," "!", ALL CAPS, the imperative mood, are harsh and demanding.
Readers (especially authors having their babies appraised) react to the
tone, and ignore the message (and may try to shoot the messenger). Also, there are no authorities or rules of writing. I'll say that
again, THERE ARE NO RULES OF WRITING. If you read the Chicago Manual of
Style, the AP Stylebook, Strunk's Elements of Style, or Lynch's Guide to
Grammar and Style (I like that the best), you'll soon find they all disagree
about most things. There are no rules, just guidelines, so don't try to be
authoritative as a reviewer because the professionals know this. Besides, most
publishers have their own house rules about grammar and style that conflict
with all the rest of the "authorities". To get a full-length novel or a ten-thousand-word short story truly
readable takes multiple rewrites and multiple critiques. Accept that you're going to see goofs, often ones you could drive a
semi through, of which the author may be completely unaware. This is normal. Nobody writes a flawless first or second draft
(maybe God or Julie Czerneda, but doggone few others). The more experienced
you are as a writer, the more you know this is true. Try to respond with good humor. You aren't reading for pleasure,
though you may find it. You're not an editor deciding whether to publish the
novel or a New York Times reviewer passing judgment. You're plowing through what the author feels is less than final
material to ASSIST the author in getting it closer to completion. You're
giving HELP. NEVER comment on the author, his/her supposed character,
morals, values, judgment, intelligence, etc., just the work itself. A
manuscript may or may not fairly represent what its author believes, would
do, or even really meant to say. Here's an easy way to make sure you're doing your best in a critique.
Pretend it's your story and you've got to; a) identify and understand each problem
so you can fix it; and b) identify the successes so you know what text not to
change, what to do more of, and why. For each scene, write those two things
in your crit. Make concrete suggestions for improvement wherever you can. Comments on spelling, grammar, and punctuation are optional.
Word and Word Perfect do a halfway decent job of finding those anyway. You'll notice that in the sentence above, I put a comma before the
"and" in a list. Strunk's says that's a no-no, CMS says it's OK, and Lynch
says that nobody cares anyway, so do what you want. See? No rules - just write. :-) A crit (review) is meant to give a reality check, to give
information, perspective, to light the path, point the way, to give courage
and hope, so that the author has the knowledge, energy, and incentive to return to the
manuscript one more time and, this time, hit it out of the park. That's what we're here for! Nothing less. Okay, what do you look for? I said that there are no rules...well,
there are a few, but they're more rules of the game. If we want to play (and
eventually earn enough to purchase a six-pack), we need to play by
these rules. The problem is, these rules are written in Jell-O and change
publisher to publisher. Down deep, I don't totally agree with these, but editors, agents, and
publishers do, and they're keeping my lights on. The first is the (ugh)
three act structure: setup, confrontation, climax. This is what readers
expect these days and they're the ones forking over outrageous sums to buy the books, so just do it and grit your
teeth. Make sure that the author you're reviewing does it, too. Here are some of the things that should appear within these major
categories (but they don't have to):
Beginning - Sets up ordinary world of the protagonist. Same stuff,
different day.
As a reviewer you need to determine whether or not the story you're
reading loosely follows this pattern. Otherwise, it may be a nice story to tell your
kids at bedtime, but it'll never sell. Tell your author what's missing and
give a hand at helping them fill in the blanks. This becomes not just an aid to the author, but will help you
with
your future writing, also. I wrote a screenplay last year that I submitted to one professional
group and I still remember the best crit that I got back: "Where's the bad
guy?"
Now that one hurt...because he was right; I had a series of problems that were overcome, but no
major crisis event. Back to the word processor... I hope that you now see where reviewing helps everybody. I love
doing it, not just because when I'm critiquing someone else's work, I don't have to be rewriting my own books (which
I should be doing right now), but that the reviewer benefits as much as the
author from a well-thought out analysis of their work. WRITE ON!
Points for a good review
Plot:
Characterization:
Dialogue:
Mechanics:
Logic:
Nitpicks:
Work well and play nicely together
What's important?
A review, by any other name, would still smell...
Inciting Incident - 1st major event. Unexpected stuff happens.
Story up to midpoint - Protagonist is learning
that life sucks and then someone dies.
Mid-Point Crisis or Reversal - Link between problem
& solution.
Story to 3rd turning point - More stuff happens.
3rd Turning Point - Protagonist realizes full scope of problem and
contemplates just shooting himself.
Crisis - Point when things can't continue as they are...but they do.
Story to climax - Acceleration of action and reaction. The fan goes into
overdrive.
Climax - The action the protagonist takes.
Resolution - Ties up loose ends and foreshadows the future.
And finally, your honor...