As the Moon Climbs

One of the most difficult things to do, as a writer, is revise. It’s bad enough when we’ve only got the voices in our head telling us stuff, but add to that the opinions of our peers and it can quickly become a too many cooks situation. It takes a lot to make a stew, and you don’t want yours to end up a huge pot of yuck.

So what’s a writer to do when faced with a plethora of critiques? There are no perfect answers and no shortcuts, but there are some things you can consider when developing a plan of action.

1) Is everyone saying the same thing?

If most or all of the people who read your work have the same comment, you should probably give it more weight than a comment only offered by one person. That isn’t to say you should edit by committee, or that one person can’t be right when ten are wrong, but the consistency of a reaction can be a strong indicator of its validity.

2) Who is giving you the feedback?

Some people are better readers, better writers and/or better editors, whether from natural ability or extensive experience. Some people are more familiar with the genre conventions of whatever you’re writing, and some are new to the neighborhood. Some people are your friends and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Comments from a seasoned pro in your genre are likely to be more useful than ones from a buddy who doesn’t write.

That isn’t to say you should only seek out a narrow range of beta readers, or that you should always embrace a critique from an authority figure, or that you should immediately discard feedback from a friend, relative or perceived noob. Bad advice can come from anyone, and good advice is still good no matter the source.

3) Is the advice right for your work?

One thing I noted in my “how to critique” post is that readers should ideally summarize what they read to be sure they’re on the same page as the writer. If the summaries don’t match, either the writer needs to work harder to communicate better, or the reader’s comprehension level wasn’t good.

With that in mind, sometimes you’ll get advice that isn’t bad, but isn’t right for YOUR story or poem. Maybe it doesn’t mesh with the themes you’re trying to explore. Maybe it changes the tone in a way you don’t like. Maybe it introduces plot elements you don’t want to handle. It’s your job to set your own goals and work to meet them, not to change your story to make it what someone else thinks it should be.

Always remember: it’s your work, and you should only use feedback that takes it in the direction YOU want it to go. That direction can change, and that’s okay! Sometimes we want to go to bad places and part of the process is figuring out those places are bad and we should go somewhere else instead. But it’s always your choice in the end.

Also remember: as personal as it may be, your work is not you. A critique of your work is not a critique of you as a person. It’s also not an indictment of you as a writer to admit that you can do better. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has room to grow.

This is both easier and harder to nail down, because what can seem perfectly reasonable to one person may look petulant or rude to another. But as with all my diatribes here, I aim to simplify matters so you at least have some baseline from which to proceed. And while this is geared towards online groups, most of it is generally applicable.

1) Thank the person for their time.

Whether you are happy or sad or angry or indifferent to their opinions, you must acknowledge that this fellow human has taken the time to read your work and offer you feedback in an effort to help you improve it. This is Being Polite. It is a vital skill to have in the world of writing and the world at large.

2) Answer any questions that are specifically directed at you.

In certain workshop styles, the person whose stuff is being workshopped sits quietly while everyone else talks, taking notes and absorbing the conversation. Sometimes a reader will ask a question, but it will be rhetorical or directed at anyone else reading it. Sometimes, though, you will be directly asked to clarify something or provide essential information, say about your goals or some back story not included in an excerpt. So, do that.

3) Ask any questions you have about the critique.

If you don’t understand what someone is telling you, it’s not going to help you improve your work, so it’s reasonable to want clarification sometimes. You can also solicit more feedback that is specifically tailored to your own concerns–say, whether a piece of dialogue sounds natural, or a character’s choice seems reasonable. But watch what you ask and how you ask it: there’s a difference between “Was my theme clear and consistent?” and “Didn’t you see the part where I…?”

4) Thank the person again.

Seriously though, manners. Even if you think they are poop from a butt and you’re never going to listen to their advice.

That’s it. That’s all you have to do. Be gracious, be considerate and be open-minded. We’re all digging in the word-mines together, and we’re all dirty and tired, but we all want to help each other strike gold.

You may have a handle on general approaches to critique and what should be covered, but you may still need to work on your delivery. It’s not that your every opinion needs to be offered to the writer on a pillow accompanied by scented candles and chocolates, but you also don’t need to punch them in the face with your Knuckles of Wisdom.

1) Use “I think” or “I feel” statements.

Even if you’re a writing master, a ninth degree writing black belt, your opinions on someone’s work are still that: your opinions. They may be widely shared, but they’re still subjective, so own them. Don’t talk about how “the reader” or “the audience” perceive something; first, because you don’t speak for everyone, and second, because it sounds pretentious as hell. Save it for your college professor and your next review for the New York Times.

2) Do unto others…

Treat everyone with the same respect you believe you deserve. Look at what you’ve written and put yourself in the writer’s shoes. How would you feel if someone said this stuff to you? “I’m tough, I can take it.” Don’t be a silly goose. It’s not about proving your skin is thicker than anyone else’s, or trying to toughen them up. If it makes more sense to you, think about whether you’d say the same things to your mother, your grandfather, your boss at work. If you wouldn’t, because you’d get grounded, beaten up or fired, then don’t say it to people here, either.

3) Don’t be a doomsayer.

If you show up like a nasty protester with a critique that is essentially a sign reading “THERE IS NO HOPE” then you’re wasting everyone’s time. You don’t have to have solutions for problems you raise, but your attitude should convey that you believe the writer will be able to find those solutions. If not in this story, then in the next one. There’s a world of difference between saying “This is bad” and saying “I believe you can do better if you keep trying.” Because again, you may be a black belt, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little stronger, a little faster, a little more resilient. Progress is always possible.

4) Don’t make it all about you.

Many of us like to talk about our own work; it’s natural and normal, and often entirely inappropriate in the context of a critique. Maybe their story is like one you wrote; nobody cares. Maybe their character reminds you of one of your characters; nobody cares. Maybe you see a writer having a problem similar to one you’ve faced and solved, so you’re tempted to get all anecdotal and tell them all about how you journeyed through the Mines of Mediocrity to find the Sword of Sharpwits and answer the Riddle of Really Nobody Cares Why Are You Still Talking? Just give them the solution and how you think it applies to their story.

5) Don’t rush.

The writer probably took time and care to put their work together, so why would you think it’s okay to read it quickly and crap out a critique? First impressions are important, but so are second thoughts. Try to read each piece at least twice: once as a reader, once as a reviewer, or both times as a reviewer but reevaluating your initial reactions as you go through it the second time.

6) Don’t be dogmatic.

There isn’t one right way for anything to be written. Treat each piece as its own unique entity, and instead of trying to force it to conform to some predetermined idea of a Platonic ideal for story or poem, consider how it can be revised to become the best version of itself.

7) Don’t be offended if the writer doesn’t take your advice.

It’s their work, not yours. All you can do is offer suggestions, like offering delicious food to a cranky toddler. They may eat it, they may ignore it, they may throw it at you, but in the end it’s their choice what they do with it. If they are routinely dismissive of your critiques and you genuinely think they are being foolish or rude, great news! You don’t have to keep critiquing their work. Because unlike a toddler, you are under no obligation to care about whatever mess they make of things.

tl;dr? Be excellent to each other. Wyld Stallyns rule!

I wrote a few short essays on critique for a writing forum where I like to hang out, but figured other people might be interested in some help in this area as well. It’s geared towards online critique groups, but works in person just as well with minor tweaking where reasonable. Bon appétit.

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“You are insufficiently white and fluffy!” you scream at a passing cloud. The cloud pays you no mind. It is secure in its cloudness and has no interest in your opinions, but more importantly, your critique was not a very good one.

“But Valerie,” you ask, “what should I do instead, I who am insecure in my critiquing abilities but eager to develop them further on my path to writing the BEST THING EVER?!”

The simplest method I’ve encountered so far came from an Odyssey workshop taught by CC Finlay. Behold, the four-part critique process.

1) Summarize what you read.
2) Say at least one thing it did well.
3) Say at least one thing it did poorly.
4) Offer at least one suggestion to fix it.

Step 1: Summarize what you read. A couple of sentences suffices, and ideally you want to touch on any theme or subtext you noticed.

Example: “This story is about a puppy who goes on an epic journey to find the Slipper of Superpowers, but his best friend finds the slipper instead and in a jealous rage he becomes a supervillain and vows revenge. It’s an allegory for the inherently self-destructive nature of capitalism, the literal representation of a dog eat dog world.”

Why do this: If the story you read and the story the writer thought they wrote don’t match up, then either the writer needs to figure out where they went wrong, or you didn’t do a great job of reading. Possibly both! But it’s important to know up front that something is amiss.

Step 2: Discuss at least one thing you thought the story did well. Maybe the characters were fully fleshed out, or the imagery was vibrant, or the language took your breath away. Think about stuff like character, plot, setting, language, etc.

Example: “I thought the dialogue was clever and felt true to the experience of puppyness. I laughed out loud at the jokes about eating cat poop.”

Why do this: It’s good for writers to know when they’ve done something right, so they can keep doing it. We all want to fix our flaws, but it’s important to maintain our strengths as well. It also helps cushion the blow for the next bit.

Step 3: Discuss at least one thing you thought the story didn’t do well.

Example: “I thought the setting of the story was poorly described. I wasn’t really sure where they were at any given time. A castle? A cave? They were just sort of walking through blank spaces. Where did all the cat poop even come from?”

Why do this: Regardless of whether you tell a writer HOW to fix something, it’s good for them to know that a reader stumbled over a certain part, or couldn’t suspend disbelief, or found a particular character excessively gross. Just because I can’t fix a car myself doesn’t mean I can’t identify that it’s making a weird noise and smoke is billowing out from under the hood PULL OVER WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP THE CAR.

Step 4: Offer at least one suggestion for how to improve the work. Yes, I know what I said in step 3, but this is a different step, okay?

Example: “I would give more detail about the setting, maybe show us how they’re going through this maze of catacombs, which is why they keep finding cat poop (CATacombs, get it???).”

Why do this: While the writer is never under any obligation to use your suggestions, it can be helpful to see how other people would fix a problem. Maybe you have exactly the right solution. Maybe your solution helps point the writer in the direction of the right solution. And maybe your solution shows the writer what the obvious answer is, so they can go in an entirely different but still very satisfying direction.

So, one more time, the steps to a useful critique:

1) Summarize what you read.
2) Say at least one thing it did well.
3) Say at least one thing it did poorly.
4) Offer at least one suggestion to fix it.

While I tailored this to stories, it can apply to poetry just as easily. These are not required for any and all critiques offered here, but it’s a good template to start with.

Another simple method, reportedly proffered by Mary Robinette Kowal: the ABCD method.

Look for four things: Awesome, Bored, Confused, Disbelief. If something is great, say so. If there’s a place in the story where you find you’re getting bored, point it out. If something confuses you, ask about it. If some part strains credulity, note it.

The two methods mix and match together pretty well. Step 2 covers the awesome things, while step 3 lets you talk about the boring, confusing or unbelievable stuff.

Additionally, going further to describe WHY you feel bored, confused, etc. will help both the writer and you. The writer, because they can see into your thought process as you read, which gets them out of their own head to consider stuff from an alternate perspective. You, because the more you think about the how and why of other people’s work, the better you’re likely to be at doing the same for your own.

After an all-day binge preceded by a two-month marathon, this afternoon, at about 3pm, I finished my novel.

It started as a joke that turned into a short story. The short story became a list of chapter ideas, and then last November I wrote the first 50,000 words. Ten months later, it’s at 111,276 words.

It’s not my first novel. It won’t be my last, god willing. But it’s the one I’ve poured the most time, energy, and self into.

Now it’s off to the workshop and the alpha readers and I start the slow descent into madness that is the revision process. Maybe it’s more like an ascent, a long, arduous climb up to the tippy-top of Mount Doom, except it doesn’t end with me throwing my book into hot lava. Or maybe the querying process is the lava in this scenario. This analogy is getting away from me.

The point is, it’s done, and now I can go back to being a Real Person again. Until it’s time to write the next one, of course. Which will be… *looks at calendar*

Aw, crap.