A Question About Giving Crit

mirandashell said:

I always remember starting out and someone offering to crit a chapter for me. I was pleased and grateful and sent it to them.

They sent it back with 80% of it struck out and a recommendation that I start over.

I nearly cried. But luckily, a couple of other people had critted the same chapter and given me both criticism and encouragement. And I'd had crit on here about previous chapters. But if I'd only had the first crit, I'd have probably given it up.

Be careful with new writers. Try not to crush them.

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This is an example of why it's really a good idea to get feedback from more than one person, especially when you're just starting out. Some established writers say they don't let anyone read until the next to last draft and have only one or two betas (presumably people whose judgement has proven reliably useful), but this approach doesn't work for everyone, and definitely not for new writers. Sometimes the very thing one person hates will be what another person loves. If multiple people are having the same issue with your story, however, it's likely something to look at long and hard.

It's also good to keep Neil Gaiman's advice in mind:

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”

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I wouldn't suggest someone scrap a story because if their work is that rough then that story isn't the point, learning to write is. And then why would the next story be any better if they haven't learned anything from this one? Maybe better to just pick out the top couple or few problems that stand out to you, and leave it at that. If they can learn a couple of things on that piece, their next story will be that much better, and they can continue to improve from there.

I do a lot of critique. 98% of those are honest and the writer never responds in any way -- and after a few years of this, I began to feel like a dope. Why waste my time and effort critiquing for someone who ignores what I have to say?

People will tune you out. You can hurt them. I have seen writers be so hurt by one single thoughtless comment they almost stopped writing at all.

I have learned to pull back a little from my brutal honesty. I have learned a bit more about how to phrase some things so that it's clear it's just my opinion and everyone will have a different view. I have learned to encourage rewrites and suggest the writer may want to try something different, even as just a writing exercise. I now praise more -- even the tiny things -- because it softens the blow some people feel from even the gentlest suggestion.

But that 2% that does listen and does give me news about how their work was changed by what I offered? That is amazing and rewarding -- especially when it means a sale. I live for that. It's super fun -- and if you like positive reinforcement of your efforts, you will figure out a way to get that instead of alienating a ton of people. Honesty is awesome. Diplomacy is an acquired skill.

Karen Junker said:

I do a lot of critique. 98% of those are honest and the writer never responds in any way -- and after a few years of this, I began to feel like a dope. Why waste my time and effort critiquing for someone who ignores what I have to say? I have to admit, I don't pay much attention to whether they thank me or not, though I appreciate it when they do. However, I critique - and advise others to - because I find it helps ME with my own writing as well.

People will tune you out. You can hurt them. I have seen writers be so hurt by one single thoughtless comment they almost stopped writing at all. Honestly, if someone does get thrown by one comment, there are likely other issues that person needs to work on. I dunno if it's stickied or not, but all newbies really should stick their toe in the shallow end and test the waters - at least by reading other critiques first so then can anticipate what sort of feedback they'll get. IF they ask to be gentle, I do try to be. A couple of times I've posted in the opening line of a crit asking if they really are looking for feedback, or just approval-seeking. And if the latter, not to read further.

...
But that 2% that does listen and does give me news about how their work was changed by what I offered? That is amazing and rewarding -- especially when it means a sale.

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I've also tried to couch things as nicely as I could (like for Beta requests) but I think sometimes a person will be 'hurt' by anything that isn't assuring them of hidden genius. I've seen the odd poster here really lash about even genuinely constructive, how-you-can-make-this-work feedback that makes me a bit leery of anyone with a really low post count.
Also, some people have mental 'filters' and it wouldn't matter how many positive things a critiquer puts, they will only see the one negative thing, or will zero in on that, while others will filter things the other way. So I just accept that I can't control for that, and cross my fingers that they understand 'sarcastic' comments aren't out of rudeness, but to make a particular point (usually a vague term that could be interpreted in myriad different ways) glaringly obvious.

I can be a pretty sarcastic person, but there have been some sarcastic comments on AW that even I would consider rude. And for people that aren't used to sarcasm, the line between funny and rude is a lot blurrier. I just err on the side of caution and tone it way, way down until I get a better feel for the person.

chompers said:

I can be a pretty sarcastic person, but there have been some sarcastic comments on AW that even I would consider rude. And for people that aren't used to sarcasm, the line between funny and rude is a lot blurrier. I just err on the side of caution and tone it way, way down until I get a better feel for the person.

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^^^This!

I wasn't going to bring it up, but since chompers did -

I've noticed some comments (crits) mostly in QLH that made me wonder if AW hands out an annual award for "Snark".

It's especially rude (to ME) when other critters come back in to basically congratulate the "snarker" on how clever they were. It's not violating any rules, but it's not very nice. The sarcastic comments may be quite amusing to other readers, but they're often not particularly helpful to the OP, who's probably already feeling nervous about the quality of their query. Tough, constructive crit is good and helpful, even if it's hard to hear. "Crit" for the express purpose of being funny isn't.

OK, end of rant.

paddismac said:

I've noticed some comments (crits) mostly in QLH that made me wonder if AW hands out an annual award for "Snark".

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Yeah.

The first crit I got here on AW was and will always be my last. It's a fine place for general writing information, but when the first to critique your piece comes back with "I would rather bash my head against a brick wall than read any more of this," it tells me what I should have already known--strangers on the Internet are not the people to turn to for constructive advice.

Myrealana said:

Yeah.

The first crit I got here on AW was and will always be my last. It's a fine place for general writing information, but when the first to critique your piece comes back with "I would rather bash my head against a brisk wall than read any more of this," it tells me what I should have already known--strangers on the Internet are not the people to turn to for constructive advice.

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Wow, that's a horrible thing to say to someone. I'm sorry that happened to you.

Yeah, I think betas are better without snark. The more I do it, the more I think that the best betas are professional and emotion-free, like you're at work and doing this for a client you want to keep. It makes the beta dry and kind of dull, but that's fine. This should be more like a workshop than MST3K.

I don't know.

I think there is a difference between getting a story and realizing it has a ton of unfixable plotholes, uninteresting prose, and a cliched story, and getting a story and realizing it's terribly bigoted in every way possible.

The first may be a delicate flower who needs encouragement to improve. I may be nicer and not say much besides "keep writing." The second I am not likely to be so kind to.

If someone said to me in a crit something like the remark that was quoted above (rather bash my head into a brick wall than read more of this) I would likely discount much of that crit, because anyone who has to use such clumsy and rude language isn't likely to be able to instruct my writing toward improvement.

But, yeah, it would hurt.

I hate it that this kind of remark passes for critique, frankly. But I also have the personal take that such is the exception, and not the norm here. Most who offer crits impress me with their care and their willingness to offer so much time and mental energy to helping another writer improve -- and that is true even if I think the content of the crit is off by a mile!

I'm not widely experienced in internet critiques by any means but I did, as an exploration, post a couple of things in another forum not long ago, and most of what I received as crit I privately concluded was nowhere near the quality of that offered at AW.

I'd also like to comment that historically, writers of note have often not been at all kind or respectful toward one another in public crits. At AW we try for a standard of mutual respect, and that gets defined individually, and sometimes we disagree. And sometimes people posting are new to the table and not really that used to our ways.

Reading crits and giving crits to other writers is a much more important part of the package than it might seem, too. It's not only exchange of favors involved; much is learned just by reading numerous crits. I can personally attest to this in my own writing.

(Just a reminder, too: if you feel a post is rude, please report it. Reported posts are read and taken into account.)

Not to derail the thread in any way, but I'm curious as to the etiquette of responding to crits within a given thread.

As I read submissions (queries, chapters, etc.) and the crits, many times I will see a crit that makes no sense to me at all. But rarely do I ever see the original poster question or ask for clarification.

Is it considered bad form to ask for clarification within the thread? Do most folks ask through PM? Or is everybody else just a lot less dense than I am, and they understand everything that has been pointed out?? (most likely.)

I'm a "question asker", and I want to be sure, when my time comes to post something, that I'm doing things correctly!

I'd think the crit myrealana cited would be grounds for mod intervention on AW. I've rarely seen anything quite that rude n any of the sites I've ever used for critique. It is not, in my experience, representative of critique on quality writing forums such as AW.

The most important thing to remember when responding to a critique is that you shouldn't argue with the critique. (Critiquer?) If you don't like what was said, thank them for their time and move on. If you think they were rude, report the post. If you don't understand what they advised, however, it's perfectly reasonable to ask them to clarify what they meant.

chompers said:

I can be a pretty sarcastic person, but there have been some sarcastic comments on AW that even I would consider rude. And for people that aren't used to sarcasm, the line between funny and rude is a lot blurrier. I just err on the side of caution and tone it way, way down until I get a better feel for the person.

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Tone is never 100% online. Ever. So, people who rely too heavily on sarcasm are probably going to be on a lot of peoples' ignore lists.

There's always going to be that rude critter defending themselves: "I like people to rake me over the coals because it helps me, so I do the same."

These are people who do not understand the difference between constructive critique and being a d-bag. And they kind of just need to come to that realization on their own (if they ever do). I tend to only see rude critters entrench and dig in for the long fight because in their minds, they can justify it.

All you can do is repeat yourself and hope something sinks in. The most basic proverb being that we all have our own style of learning. There is no one-size-fits-all method. But, research weighs in heavily on the side where a balance of positive and critical are blended.

I've held workshops with inmates, so trust me when I say that there is a necessity to be diplomatic with these writers--especially given that most have had tremendously negative experiences in the classroom. (I call it the "fear of the red pen.") But it sure helped me learn how to give that hard critique thoughtfully. Even when every sentence is a train-wreck, you can find a way to say, "Okay, you need a little help on some fundamental grammar," without sounding like a jerkbutt.

Someone probably would have called my work 15 years ago unreadable and certainly unpublishable. The thing is, I can go back and read that and know how to fix it. I see the hints of promise there. And there's often enough breadcrumbs so to say that I can jump right in.

In short, I'm not a fan of telling anyone to toss away work. I've found a few bits and pieces in old work that have served me well today. Revised, of course.

amergina said:

There is quite a difference between, "This doesn't hold my interest because I find the description confusing [etc.]" and "I'd rather stick a spoon into my eyeball than read more."

Please report the latter.

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One thing I have noticed in SYW is that some very new writers (and I'm speaking generally here) will read words into a critique that aren't there.

The critique might read: "This was very painful to get through because of X and Y and Z", but the writer sees: "I'd rather hurt myself than read this piece."

Going back to the original question, I was wondering what everyone thinks about a bit of critique that says (very nicely) something like, "there are character/plot/structural problems here and I'd like to see if you want to re-write it before I look at grammar/sentence flow/etc." I tend to do very detailed critiques, perhaps even nitpicky, but sometimes I find things that could use a bit of a rewrite and I don't want to waste my time looking at prose that will be scrapped. Thoughts?

cruellae said:

Going back to the original question, I was wondering what everyone thinks about a bit of critique that says (very nicely) something like, "there are character/plot/structural problems here and I'd like to see if you want to re-write it before I look at grammar/sentence flow/etc." I tend to do very detailed critiques, perhaps even nitpicky, but sometimes I find things that could use a bit of a rewrite and I don't want to waste my time looking at prose that will be scrapped. Thoughts?

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If I think it's absolute crap I won't bother critiquing it. I couldn't care less whether the writing will be scrapped at some point, though. I critique because it hones my writing/editing chops and hopefully helps the writer learn something new (whether it's about characterization, plotting, dialogue, gestures or avoiding cliches). In that sense, my critique is never "wasted" even if the writer deletes the critiqued portion in its entirety.

I utilized many and varied beta readers on my most recent MS. One in particular was a 'fail'. The MS itself has a word count of only 41k and it took this one beta reader over a month to give me an update on just the first three chapters. Keep in mind, I'd had four other betas (w/thumbs-up opinions and helpful feedback) get back to me in the interim. Though I should've resisted the temptation, I couldn't help myself...I shared the partial feedback with my original beta (a reader of target age with a sharp tongue and strong opinions on all things everything). The following is her email response. Note: There is some [paraphrasing]:

"Yeah I think she's kind of stupid…A lot of her criticism is just absolutely ridiculous. It's honestly like she has the memory of a goldfish. She can't keep it in her head that [MC] is a MENTALLY ILL PERSON, and she can't keep any of the details of the story in line with her criticism either. She just misses the whole [f-ing] point a lot of the time, too. Her criticism honestly isn't even good. Her most ridiculous criticism in the entire thing is "Why is she sharing such personal stuff with him?" BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT VULNERABLE, HIGH TEENAGERS DO WHEN THEY'RE STUCK IN THE SAME PLACE FOR TOO LONG."

So, the point I wanted to make is...opinions/critiques vary. Such is life. I'd add that, before any writer makes a final decision, find a well-planned consensus and go with your gut.

Devil Ledbetter said:

If I think it's absolute crap I won't bother critiquing it. I couldn't care less whether the writing will be scrapped at some point, though. I critique because it hones my writing/editing chops and hopefully helps the writer learn something new (whether it's about characterization, plotting, dialogue, gestures or avoiding cliches). In that sense, my critique is never "wasted" even if the writer deletes the critiqued portion in its entirety.

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You make a really great point here. I'll keep it in mind, thanks

Crit is a tricky thing, and every writer will take it differently.
I was the unofficial editor in a team of writers for a while, and I had to work VERY hard to make sure that everyone understood there was nothing personal in any of my edits. I only cared about the words, and how they would read to our audience. I also encouraged the team to go all-in on anything I wrote, which gave them all a chance at revenge

There were times when I tore my hair out over early drafts, but I found most people are receptive to criticism if they understand where it's coming from (For example: Newbies to our team would often use jargon to show how much they knew, with little to no regard to how much of it would be understood by the people we were writing for). If someone really is interested in improving their work, they'll take criticism well once it's delivered constructively. The trick is knowing how to be constructive, and what each person will think of as "constructive" may vary wildly.

Find the biggest flaw/problem/issue, and hit that one first - gently. Sometimes a ground-up revision can happen as a side effect of a single change. People can be surprising, work can improve drastically from draft to draft.

That said, and adding my voice to the chorus here, if it's not your job and you're not being paid to care, then you don't have to offer any advice at all. From what you said in the OP, I'd be inclined to ask them if they might consider a narrower scope so that they can give more attention to their main themes. That's me at my most diplomatic, bear in mind that there may have been a reason for me being called "the shotgun".

CrastersBabies said:

In short, I'm not a fan of telling anyone to toss away work.

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I'm not either; ultimately it's their choice as to what to do with it. However, I have seen a few writers who appear to very much underestimate the amount of work it can take to go from having problems with nearly everything from grammar to character motives, to something that's genuinely publishable.
It doesn't have to be perfect - nothing ever can be - but a handful seem to treat the craft as something they can cram for as if it was an overdue term paper. Either they get frustrated too soon in the process, or they try to find shortcuts beyond genuinely 'getting' what needs to be worked on and making the same mistakes over and over again. It's a matter of learning to walk before running.
There have been times when the only thing I've had to offer is, slow down with your revisions and try to absorb more.

I don't think you should stick with your original remark because it is too subjective.

The first thing you can do is to ask them what their story is about. Holly Lisle says you have to be able to condense it into a single sentence. But at the very least, you need to be able to put it into a single paragraph, because that's what we supposedly get when we query.

Then you go through and write an outline of every single chapter. Everything that's not in the story has to go. It's another story.

Anyway, that's just one approach, and it may work for them or not. But at least it's a simple, nonjudgmental approach.

I think it's a good idea to point out things we know are flaws like punctuation, isn't part of your story, and even I-don't-like-your character-here.

But people have published a LOT of stuff that I really don't like, and it sells. I don't eat pepperoni pizza either, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to make a good one.

Myrealana said:

"I would rather bash my head against a brick wall than read any more of this,"

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One should always give people what they ask for, hence the correct response:

"Oh, no problem. I have this cool spike-studded brick wall right over here. Go for it."

Bad stuff is bad for one or more of three reasons:

1) The writer hasn't written enough, and has mechanical issues at the level of phrase, clause and sentence: grammar and syntax, vocabulary and usage.
2) The writer hasn't edited enough, and has style issues at the paragraph, beat and scene level: repetitive action, extraneous verbiage, superfluous stage direction, banal dialog, repetitive action.
3) The writer hasn't read enough, and has storytelling issues: unengaging characters, lack of tension, unconvincing plot, monotonous pacing, et al.

If someone is stuck at 1) there's little point in spending a lot of time critiquing 2), and no point in discussing 3) at all in a critical capacity--though if someone has a cool idea, I think it's always good to say so, if only to encourage them to learn how to develop it better.

A writer stuck at 2), on the other hand, can almost always be helped by critique, ideally not just in the specific instance but in learning how to self-edit more effectively. Throwing in notions on 3) won't hurt, since often storytelling issues have their roots in style issues.

Someone who's stuck at 3) often benefits from the "what were you going for here?" approach mentioned upthread. And another draft, of course.

All of this can be presented in a charitable, yet professional fashion. We were all new once.