Writing 201: Understanding Critiques
Greetings and speciesism! ...You know, I strongly disagree, given I am an alien myself. Others are important, too! Anyway, as creative people peron thingies, we like to show our stuff to others or have help fixing our creation so they suck less. Well, that requires critique, and that means ego is gonna cry, so here is Anne to help you! The best critiquer I could have!
The Big Picture
Vivian always likes to start with a definition or two, and I like to start with an overview of what I’ll be covering! This might be because my posts tend to go on a little more than zhis, but they don’t call me Lady Verbosa for nothing! (I actually did really well this post! …for me)
This is the first in a three part series. This post will be about understanding critique, next post I’ll talk about giving critique, and the final post will be about surviving critiques. So what will I cover this time? I actually will have some definitions–if it works for Vivian, it can work for me!–and then I’ll get into common types of critique. Next, have you seen authors get blasted for how they react to reviews? Yeah, I’ll cover that, and how to avoid that fate. Finally, since I know a lot of people are looking to create positive relationships with critique partners or writing groups, I’ll have some advice on nurturing those relationships. That’s about it for our first post! Simple, right? Oh ye of little faith! I manage to write quite a lot about this topic. It’s one I care a lot about, after all!
What is Critique?
Vivian always starts with a definition or two, and I’m going to follow that strategy, as it helps to know how I’m using certain terms. The word “critique” tends to have several associations, mainly that it’s negative feedback, but this isn’t the case, and it isn’t how I’ll be using it.
Critique is the act of giving feedback of any kind about a given piece of creative work.
As a writer, I tend to focus on critique for written works, but this all applies to anything creative, and by creative, I mean nonfiction, too! I guess I need another definition…
A creative work is the deliberate expression of a person’s thoughts, emotions, or other abstract ideas through a means chosen to communicate with a specific audience.
I’m going to be using the shortened term ‘work’ to represent creative works for ease of use. As you can see, this encompasses all sorts of things, including non-physical creative works like arguments and speeches.
In addition, I’m going to talk about how you need to be critical of the works that you create as well as the critiques and feedback that you receive. Unfortunately, the term “critical” has gained a negative connotation, but I’m going to be using it in its original form.
Being critical means approaching a subject with an open mind, taking in multiple viewpoints, looking at different information on the subject, and coming to a logical conclusion based on everything gathered.
And because I’m using ‘critical’ in a slightly different way than most people associate with it, I’ll tend to specify the type of criticism using the following definitions:
Destructive criticism: Criticism not intended to help but often insult the work and/or creator.
Constructive criticism: Criticism intended to help the creator make the work better.
Null criticism: Something that is phrased like criticism but offers nothing critical about the work, often framed in an exaggeratedly positive manner.
Now, did any of those surprise you? Because they’re all just accurate definitions of the terms. However, because language is always evolving, critique and critical have gained very negative connotations. Why? Well, as Vivian puts it, it’s evolving “because of people’s egos and how they are bruised.” Actually, why don’t I let Vivian talk about this a little?
(Vivian:) Bah! Fine, my point is primarily that when it comes to everyday speech and such, being critical of what someone says is often perceived as distrusting the person because they are lying. So, being critical is to accuse the person of being a liar, and thus is always a bad thing. This is despite the fact that even when you say someone is wrong, it only means they are wrong, and lying is only one of multiple explanations as to why a said statement might be wrong. This one drives me up the walls like a cat.
(Anne:) Thanks, Vivian! It’s always important to take common usages of words into account, and I’ve run into problems talking about giving critiques or being critical where people misunderstand my intent, because I’m referring to a broader understanding of the terms, and people tend to have fairly narrow views and prejudices about the terms. Hopefully, now that we’ve established how I’ll be using these terms in this post, you’ll be able to embrace the terms on their own and start using them as well!
Basic Categories of Critique
While there are all sorts of places and people you can get critiques from, I’ve created five basic categories that encompass almost everything and everyone. Now, with all types of critique, some are invited, and some are given regardless of what you want. Both invited and uninvited critiques can come from all of the following categories, and you want to know how to handle anything.
For each category, I’ll go over the benefits, the drawbacks, and some tips on handling them. If you publish your work, you’ll probably go through several of these, possibly all. I’ve ordered them the way most people go through the creative process, with increasing levels of scrutiny because presumably the work is more and more polished.
Friends/Family
Let’s start with the basic category that most people turn to first. Whether it’s asking a friend to glance over a page or two or asking your sibling to read your manuscript, turning to family and friends is an easy way to get feedback. However, in many ways, it’s also the worst.
People in this category tend to fall into one of three groups: offering fawning null criticism, giving harsh destructive criticism, and very, very rarely providing genuinely good, constructive, unbiased criticism.
“Oh sweetie, it’s wonderful, the best thing I’ve ever read!”
“So this is what you’ve been wasting your time on?!”
As you can see, it’s pretty rare that you’ll get something that can help you improve your work. However, maybe you’re not looking for that. If you’re just looking for an ego boost, maybe you do want to show it to friends and family, since they’re really the only group willing to give uncritical feedback like that. I’ll talk later about how to understand and set expectations, but this category is good if you just want encouragement.
However, if your goal is to feel good about your writing, then friends and family have the potential to ruin entire relationships. If you share your life’s work to a friend and they flood you with destructive criticism, you may resent them. Here you bare your soul, and they scorn it. How dare they? Well, that resentment may extend from the isolated incident of critiquing your work to the relationship overall, and a bad critique or destructive criticism can end a friendship or estrange a family member. Again, I’ll go over how to set those expectations and choose your critiquers, but just be aware that probably 95% of the time, you won’t get useful critiques, either because they’re null or destructive.
It is possible to find a good critiquer in this group, though. I’m lucky in that my mom offers genuinely constructive feedback on my work. She doesn’t always phrase it well and doesn’t offer advice, just points out errors, but it’s all constructive criticism and usually helps me a lot. Unfortunately, she’ll only read something when it’s essentially complete, and she won’t reread anything once published. I usually ask her to read things at the very, very end of the process even though I’d love to get her feedback earlier.
When I get critique from friends and family (and I do), I generally just ask for a thumbs up/thumbs down on it. Aside from my mom, I don’t want any specific feedback or detailed comments; I just want to know if I’m on the right track in a general sense. That’s a good level of feedback, and it usually prevents you from getting your ego bruised if you do happen to ask someone eager to heap destructive criticism on you. The worst they can do is a thumbs down, and if they’re the only one, well, you have to have a grain of salt, which I’ll talk more about in the next two posts in this series as well. It’s an important concept!
Critique Group/Writing Workshop
Once you move beyond your immediate sphere of friends and family, many people reach out to critique groups or writing workshops. It can be hard to find these, depending on who you are and where you are. If you’re in a writing program or associated with a university that offers these, it’s a little easier. You might also join a writers association that offers networking opportunities.
I’m so grateful to have found my critique group through the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA, I’ll come back to them!). During the pandemic, they started offering Zoom critique sessions where you could attend and be randomly assigned a group of 2-3 other writers. You’d read a very short selection of your work, they’d give feedback, they’d read theirs, you’d give feedback, and then, after a set time, you’d leave the group and get assigned to a new group with new people. If you clicked with anyone, you could exchange contact information to meet up outside of this Zoom session.
I was in a group with three other women, and it was wonderful. We exchanged contact information, and we’ve been meeting ever since. This entire thing was only possible thanks to the pandemic, as I’m in Texas, one of us is in Washington state, another in Alaska, and one in Hawaii. Finding times to meet was a hassle at first, but we’ve worked it out. It’s helped my writing so much.
Opportunities like this are a great way to do it, and if there are any writers organizations, university classes, or university workshops open to the public that offer something like this, definitely do it. It might cost money, but it’s almost always worth it if you can afford it. And definitely see what these groups offer for free! They almost always have free offerings that can be equally valuable.
However, take this advice with the ever-important grain of salt, because a lot of people just suck at giving criticism. They’ll be destructive, they won’t know what to say, or, if they have constructive criticism, they won’t know how to phrase it so it’ll come off as null or destructive. In the next post in this series, I’ll tell you how to give feedback so that you’ll be a desirable partner in a critique relationship, but just be aware, many people are really bad, so you have to work to find and form good relationships.
Beta Readers
So, your friends and family gave it the thumbs up, your critique group lovingly tore it to shreds and helped you rebuild it stronger than ever, and you feel like you have a complete draft that you’ve self-edited at least once. Or you may have skipped one or both of the above categories. That’s fine, too, but please don’t skip self-editing! Before you hand something over to a beta reader, you want it to be complete and as good as you can possibly get it.
Beta readers can be paid or unpaid, and there are a variety of ways to find them. Basically, though, they read your work as if they were a reader of a final product and give you feedback. The amount and type of feedback varies wildly. It’s generally recommended that you have multiple beta readers partially because of this variation, and also because beta readers tend to be readers, not editors and often not writers. They can’t offer the same kind of criticism and feedback (well, many of them can’t).
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend paying for a beta reader unless you know you’re going to get high quality feedback. A common way to find beta readers is to exchange work with another writer, but this can be tricky if you know the person for some of the same reasons that family and friends get tricky. I highly, highly recommend giving your beta reader(s) a chapter first so you can see what kind of feedback you’ll get and if it’s helpful to you.
I found my beta readers on Twitter as part of the writing community, but this was back in the days when there was a really vibrant community there. Sadly, social media in general has become a less useful place for writers over the past few years. For me personally, most of my community has left except for the people who just spam their books for sale. Social media can still be your friend, however, and there are some websites for people to exchange beta reads or where you can buy beta reads. Just be really careful to make sure you can work with them before you fork over money.
Some beta readers will want a google doc, so you can actually watch as they go through and leave feedback. Personally, I find this really weird and voyeuristic, and I hate when people watch me write/edit, so even if you prefer this, be prepared for some beta readers to say no. Some want pdfs, some want Word documents. Make sure it’s a form you’re both comfortable with and can easily use.
One of my beta readers didn’t really give good feedback. Most of it was null criticism, actually. Things like “nice job” and “I like this” can be good boosts to self esteem, but that’s not what I’m after. The beta reader who I still rely on heavily gives me detailed, specific mistakes that I make as well as overall thoughts.
I personally don’t like beta reading for people just because the one time I tried it, the story was an absolute nightmare of typos, spelling errors, logical inconsistencies, plot holes, and structural flaws that made me want to tear my hair out. (Vivian: Phew, for a moment I thought it was my story! I know for a fact I haven’t made her go bald!) I gave SO. MUCH. FEEDBACK. Far more than the average editor, let alone beta reader. I made it three chapters, then sent what I had to him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t looking for genuine critique. He wanted to be told it was perfect because he was ready to publish. I was supposed to be a rubber stamp. So, he sent an incredibly snippy, rude, and passive aggressive response and said maybe I shouldn’t read the rest (for which I was so grateful; I couldn’t figure out how to tell him that there was no way in hell I could stand another sentence). This is why knowing what you want out of your critiquers is so important, as I’ll cover below.
Overall, beta readers are hit and miss, but they can be an extremely valuable tool if you find good ones. They provide a glimpse into what actual readers will think, and many give constructive feedback you wouldn’t get from any other group.
Editors
This is the first group that you should always pay. You might not pay them in money per se, but they need to be paid. And no, under no circumstances should you pay them in exposure! I’m sure other creatives can appreciate how insulting that is, and if you want an editor worth a damn, you’re going to have to pay. Sometimes a lot. Well, usually a lot, unless you know them personally and can trade or give something valuable other than cold, hard cash. Rates are usually per word, with $0.03/word at the extremely low end of what I’ve seen for a single type of editing (usually reserved for specific discounts such as for friends/family). And because you’re usually paying hundreds of dollars or more for editing, you have to be absolutely certain the editor is right for you. (Vivian: Wait… What am I paying you? 😮 Shit… My tab is getting big)
First, let’s talk about types of editors because this is VITAL to understand. Not all editors are alike, and it’s not due to individual variation! Let’s look at the main types: developmental editor, line editor, proofreader, and hybrid.
Development editors look at big picture stuff like plot structure and character arcs. Line editors are the ones who are going to point out stylistic details on a line-by-line level, and they’ll also usually do consistency edits, like if your character’s eye color changes halfway through, but not all of them do this last part. Proofreaders are even more focused than line editors. They’ll only look at things like spelling and grammar. Some will do a bit of line editing, but not all. Hybrid editors will do a combination of the above, usually for cheaper than having the two edit types separately. The downside is that you’ll usually get a little less on each than you would doing them individually, but if you feel decent about what you have, it’s a good option.
Some people prefer different kinds of editors, and some people need different kinds of editors. They all have their value, and if you had infinite time and money, I would say get all of them. But we don’t always have the luxury of waiting for editors or affording multiple editing passes, so do the best that you can. If you do want to publish, though, you really need to devote the money to getting an editor of some sort if you plan on being taken seriously and selling any books.
AI
Now, this isn’t one of the five categories I’m really counting, but you may be thinking, why bother finding the above groups when I can just run a scene through ChatGPT and get immediate, neutral feedback? To some extent, you actually can get good feedback from various Large Language Models like ChatGPT, but you really have to know yourself, your own writing, and have a good sense of what is already working and not working. Vivian talks about some of the intricacies of using AI in creative situations in zhir blogpost on AI, so I won’t cover what LLMs are or how they work, but their use is pretty limited. Within that, though, it can help.
(Vivian:) I know, for example, that I am very bad with descriptions because of my aphantasia, so using ChatGPT to find some good spots helps, but the suggestions of how… They can be hit or miss.
(Anne:) I can say as Vivian’s editor that it generally works out well, but every so often, I’ll be reading zhir work and there will be randomly specific descriptions for things that don’t matter at all. A big part of this is a weakness of LLMs overall, which is that since they don’t understand the importance of things (since they’re not human), they only rely on their training. Again, this usually works, but not always. Know yourself, and consider any advice you get with a very, very large grain of salt.
What about Reviews?
I don’t count reviewers in the categories of critiquers above because REVIEWS DO NOT OFFER CRITIQUE. This can be tricky for a lot of writers. Personally, I strongly recommend not even reading them. You might not have that kind of self-control, but it’s really for the best.
Image generated by ChatGPT, edited by humans.
With all of the above groups, even AI, there’s a back and forth possible, and there’s obviously room to improve. If someone points out a mistake, you can fix it. This is not the case with reviews, which brings me to the first of three rules that Vivian strongly seconds:
Reviews are for readers, not writers.
Reviewers are looking at the book critically, yes, but they’re not looking to improve it in any way, and you shouldn’t take their feedback as any type of criticism. If they note something wrong with your writing, you can try to fix it in future works, and if you self-publish and there’s something minor and specific, you actually can fix it, but the reviewers are not talking to the authors! They’re talking to other readers and sharing their personal opinions.
This brings me to my second rule:
Reviews are not for writers to engage with in any fashion.
Because reviews are not aimed at you, do not respond to them! Luckily, many review forums don’t even allow the writers to respond. If you, for some strange reason, are absolutely driven to respond to reviews, limit it to “thank you.” Seriously, even if it’s a bad review, even if they totally misunderstand your book, do not challenge them or argue with them. You can’t argue with someone’s opinion, you’re not going to change their mind, all you’ll do is look like an asshole and turn off future readers. There are so many scandals and such drama when authors argue with reviewers, and it can definitely get you canceled. Just… don’t respond. Ever. And if you can prevent yourself from reading them in the first place, do.
Finally, the third rule is a rather sad one:
People almost never write reviews.
This includes friends and family. My mom has yet to write a review for any of my books even though she loves them, even though I remind her. You should always ask for reviews, but do not push it. I only pester my mom when a new book comes out. Otherwise, there’s no point. It’s not an insult when people don’t review your book. A lot of people have weird relationships with reviews. They’re scared of them, or they don’t want it on their account for some reason, or they just have a policy of no reviews. In addition, many people won’t leave reviews if the review they would give is below a certain threshold, so it might actually be a good thing they’re not leaving a review. Personally, I don’t like giving under 3 stars unless there is something really problematic that I feel I have to mention because I want to warn other readers.
(Vivian:) I can say, as a reader, the only time I bother leaving a review is if it is really great, or really annoys me in some aspect. And that is in general with all people, if it falls in the middle, people don’t do more.
(Anne:) If you do get reviews, again, do not take negative reviews to heart, even if they’re from people you know. That’s the big problem with asking for reviews from people you know. When you ask for critique, people are trying to help you (or insult you, or flatter you). But there’s always the knowledge that you can change any issues they see. With reviews, there isn’t. And a lot of people are brutally honest. So again, do not respond. Thank the person, and move on.
Developing and maintaining critique relationships
As you can see, receiving critique can be tricky. The third part of this critique series will be about surviving critique, so I’ll go into a lot more detail on how to interpret and survive critique. However, if you have a good working relationship with your critiquers, then you can reduce the sting.
There are a few things you can do to create a positive, useful relationship with the people who critique you, no matter which of the five groups of critiquers they fit into. Even AI can fit with this to some degree. Reviews, however, are completely out of your control. It’s not a relationship.
Your expectations
One of the most important things you can do when establishing a relationship with someone who will critique your work is to know what you want out of the critique.
It’s perfectly fine to be at a point in your writing where you just want compliments and positive feedback. However, you need to recognize this and make that crystal clear to the people critiquing you. Most of the time, when a person asks for what you think of something, you assume they want actual feedback that covers what isn’t working, not just what is working. So, if all you want is the positives, you need to know this, choose people who are willing to give you a one-sided critique, and make it clear what you want. Otherwise, you’re going to end up with a bruised ego and, depending on how you react, you might burn a few bridges.
If you want some genuine feedback but you’re still insecure about your writing, make it clear to your critiquers that you’re looking for positive feedback on what’s working for the most part, but you’d appreciate constructive criticism as well. You can adjust how you say that, obviously. Maybe you’re ready for mostly constructive criticism.
However, maybe you’ve survived some rough critiques in the past and your skin is diamond. Well, then you can ask people to rip you apart. I’m in this category. I’m even fine with some destructive criticism as long as it’s based on something legitimate in the writing and not just insults. Getting a graduate degree in creative writing with a group who despises genre fiction and views it as “lesser” gave me some really thick skin fast, or I wouldn’t have survived. Now, I actually appreciate really honest critique, though I’m still happy when people compliment what’s working.
The other thing you need to know is what kind of comments you want based on similar categories to editors. Are you looking for big picture stuff only? Do you want people commenting on your writing style? Do you want to hear about spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Don’t waste your critiquer’s time with things they don’t need to do. If your critiquer realizes you’re not paying attention to the things they’re saying, they might feel betrayed, useless, angry, taken advantage of, or all sorts of other negative emotions.
Honesty and trust
Offering your work for critique requires a lot of trust. You’re sharing something that has been yours and yours alone for a long time (usually). At the very least, you’re sharing a piece of yourself, some reflection of how you see the world, your imagination, aspects of yourself that you might not share ordinarily. So you need to trust your partner, and that requires honesty.
When I say honesty, I’m not talking about the kind of bullying that people claim is “brutal honesty.” I’m talking about actual honesty. Because you know what? Giving critique requires trust as well. You have to trust that the person will respect your opinion, and, assuming you’re a somewhat decent person, you have to trust that the person won’t be offended by the critique you give. There’s nothing worse than offering your time and effort to give critique (often for no pay) and then the person flies into a rage and lashes out.
Setting expectations will increase trust and allow people to be more honest. Be honest with yourself about what you want, be honest with your critique partner about what you want, and if you’re giving critiques, be honest with what you think. Posing critique in a useful way is vital in increasing trust. You need to be honest, but not destructive.
If you only have negative things to say, and the person requested positive feedback only, you may have to turn down the request for feedback. If you have to refuse to give feedback for this reason, it helps to say something like “I don’t think I’m the right person for this” so that you’re not accusing the person in any way. Saying something like this requires trust.
One of the women in my critique group has told us that she won’t read certain topics involving sexual violence. It’s come up a couple of times, but because she was honest and upfront, I know to warn her if that content is in my work, and she trusts that I’m not going to blindside her. One of the other women in my group, however, included a fairly explicit scene of sexual violence in one of her stories with no warning. The group member who doesn’t read that lost trust in her, at least for a while. We reset expectations, and the group has regained our overall trust.
Once trust has been established between two or more people, you can start to give more comments about flaws in the writing, though be careful to always craft it as constructive criticism so that you’re actually helping them. You can trust that they’ll take it in the spirit it was given: intended to help. One reason my critique group works so well is that we trust each other to have our best interests in mind. When they told me one of my chapters just wasn’t working and had quite a few specifics of what was failing (QUITE a few), it definitely stung, but I didn’t take it as an insult or a critique of me as a person. They were helping me so that I could fix and improve the story.
Knowing how to give good feedback matters a lot, and I’ll go into detail in the next post in this series. If I try to fit it in here, this post will never end! But just remember to be constructive even when giving feedback about flaws and weaknesses.
One night rule
(Vivian:) 😏
(Anne:) No, the one night rule isn’t recommending a one night stand with your critique partner! It has to do with receiving critique. I’ll go more into this in the post on surviving critique, but it also is a huge part of maintaining positive relationships.
Basically, this rule says that whenever you receive critique, you should sleep on it before responding. Now, this isn’t always possible, as often in critique groups it’s face-to-face, but even then, don’t respond in real time. Accept what they say, don’t respond, sleep on it, and really think about what they said.
(Vivian:) I apply this rule to anything that is even a modicum of importance that can wait in my life.
Summa Summarum
(Anne:) That wraps up part one! Hopefully you now have some idea what kinds of critiques exist and how to figure out what you want, and when you do get someone (or multiple someones) to critique your work, you can form a positive relationship.
And whether you feel overwhelmed, insulted, depressed, or extremely happy about the feedback you get, take a night before you act on it! And on that note, I’m off to bed!
(Vivian:) I swear she’s sleeping so much I am starting to suspect she’s preparing for hibernation.
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Copyright ©️ 2024 Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as editing types fit under common knowledge (even though you may not have known about them) and can be used freely. Advice on positive critique relationships is copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific ideas such as Anne Winchell’s personal experiences and all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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