Writing 202: Giving Critiques
Greetings and siffilate! You know, I got annoyed at a TV show when I was young and taught myself to siffilate then. Anyway, another blogpost by the wonderful Lady Verbosa! Aka Anne Winchell, and about critique. Take it from here!
The Big Picture
(Anne:) Thanks, Vivian! Well, we’re back! If you didn’t catch my post on understanding critiques, make sure to read it! I’m going to be referring back a lot, so it’ll be good to review (although being me, I will give you a brief refresher next).
Today’s post is on giving critiques, since if you’re a creator or even just know creators, you’ll need to do this, and it pays to know how to critique well. After all, the better your critiques are, the better the critiques you’ll receive as your critique partners learn to trust and value you! Theoretically, at least.
And once you start getting critiques of your own work, you’ll need to read the third installment of this series which will come next on receiving critiques. So buckle in and get ready to dive into the world of giving critiques!
What is critique again?
As promised, a bit of review! A few things from last time will be directly relevant to what I’m talking about, including some basic definitions. First, what is critique?
Critique is the act of giving feedback of any kind about a given piece of creative work.
Simple enough, right? And by the way,
A creative work is the deliberate expression of a person’s thoughts, emotions, or other abstract ideas through a means that communicates with an audience.
Now, as I explained before, the term “critical” has developed a negative connotation, so here’s how I’m defining it:
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.
I’ll go into a few more specifics later on, but that gives you a base to understand the rest. It also helps to remember that the key groups of people you might critique and receive criticism from are friends/family, a critique group/writing workshop, and beta readers. Well, there were others, but I’m going to assume you’re not a professional editor.
Finally, I want to emphasize that establishing trust with the people you critique is absolutely vital. You need to trust that they’ll accept your feedback without getting hurt/angry, and they need to trust that you’ll give quality feedback of the type that they want, whether that be a simple affirmation, gentle criticism, or whether they want you to rip them to shreds. You need to know what they want, and you need to understand how your pre-existing relationship will fit into things. Trust is essential to any critique relationship, and now, it’s time to learn how to start developing that in more detail!
Types of critique
Some of this is review, but if you want to give good feedback to people, you need to start by establishing a few key things about what type of criticism to give.
First, you need to figure out what level of criticism your critique partner wants. Giving the wrong kind of feedback can lead to annoyance, frustration, and a lot of wasted time for both of you. These are also the types of editors you can get/hire, so I’m keeping it in terms of editing just because I’m more familiar with those terms.
Developmental editing focuses on big picture stuff like looking for plot holes and evaluating character arcs.
Most of the time, you want to be focused on developmental concerns. Even if you include the other types, you still definitely want to mention big picture things you notice. Really, the only time you don’t want to do this is if you’re a professional editor who hasn’t been hired to look at it, and even then, you still might mention something. You can help with developmental edits at any stage of writing, even brainstorming, so it’s fairly universal.
Once you get your ideas into writing and you feel fairly certain that you’re going to keep what you have, you might be ready for the next level of criticism.
Line editing examines the writing on a sentence level, focusing on style, flow, and consistency.
Now, if you’re still dealing with huge, developmental issues where it’s possible you’re going to scrap entire sections of your story, giving this kind of feedback can be frustrating, because all of your effort might easily be for naught. If your critique partner asks for stylistic edits, it doesn’t hurt to confirm that they’ve worked out the big picture stuff, or maybe indicate which sections they feel confident about and which they might change completely just to save yourself from spending time and effort giving specific, useful feedback that won’t even be looked at. However, this level of criticism is expected in certain settings like critique groups and writing workshops. In fact, if you don’t give this kind of feedback, you’re missing out on one of the key benefits of these groups.
In my critique group, one of us will occasionally tell everyone we’re looking for developmental critique only so that we don’t waste our time making little suggestions, but the default is all three types. Which leads us to the final level of feedback!
Proofreading looks at spelling, grammar, and formatting.
When you’re getting into the really nitpicky stuff, you want to be absolutely positive that your critique partner feels confident about the writing and has no plans to change things. Ideally, you want your partner to have already gotten developmental and line edits done. This is another level expected in settings like critique groups or writing workshops (unless the person indicates otherwise), but it’s one you can skip entirely in almost all other situations (unless the person specifically asks for it).
Of course, if you’re an English teacher like me, you can’t read without doing all three of these 😅 My critique partners just have to deal, and I just accept that a lot of my effort is wasted.
So those are the three basic levels of critique! But within each of those, you can categorize feedback as one of three things:
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.
(Vivian:) Some might even call the last one
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
Structive criticism… I’ll show myself out.
(Anne:) Obviously, you want to give constructive criticism! This isn’t like the levels of critique where some are good in some situations but all have value. Nope, in this case, you don’t want to give destructive or null criticism! Ever! However, if you’re not careful, things that you intend as constructive criticism can be interpreted as destructive or null. How do you prevent this? Well, luckily for you, I have a few tricks up my sleeve! But first, you have to answer a very important question…
Do you say yes?
Let’s say someone asks you to critique some of their writing. Do you agree? That’s a complicated question, and requires a thoughtful response. One thing I would STRONGLY recommend doing is saying something along the lines of “let me think about that.” This follows Vivian’s One Night Rule that advises taking a night to think about any big decisions. And trust me, if someone asks you to look at something, it is a big decision, no matter how small it seems.
So what factors go into this decision? The key considerations are what your relationship is and what they’re looking for. Of course, if they’re not an experienced writer, they likely have no clue what they want out of a critique, and that can be very dangerous. If possible, have them read this series of blogposts! At the very least, try to explain the different levels and try to figure out if they’re looking for constructive criticism or null criticism, because a lot of people just want compliments and affirmation, not real feedback.
If you’re close to them, you need to be careful of their feelings so you don’t ruin your relationship. Unfortunately, friends and family tend to be the ones who have the least amount of knowledge about critique and criticism. You might ask them what they want to gain from the critique. They might say they want to know if they’re on the right track, in which case limit yourself to a simple yes/no even if you want to go into a lot of details (though you can also say “I noticed some things, if you’d like to talk more”). Or they might say they’re not sure if the story makes sense, or if a character is realistic, or some other big picture concern that indicates you should give developmental feedback only. Word of advice, if they say they’re looking for any feedback you have and they don’t have a lot of experience in the writing world, keep it with developmental and then offer to do more if, after reading, it’s really good at a big picture level.
Oh, that first group also includes people who connect to you through friends or family, like if your sister tells her friend that you’re a writer and they ask if you’ll read some of their work, treat them as if they themselves were in the friends/family category, because you could screw things up for whoever introduced you.
If it’s someone in a critique group or writing workshop, then saying yes is expected unless you know that they’ll be writing about subject matter you’re uncomfortable with. I’ll do a post later about how to form a critique group because that can be a challenge, but for now, we’ll just say that if you’re in an established group with other writers with the purpose of sharing work, you should say yes as long as you have the time.
So that brings us to beta readers, and we’ll assume these aren’t in the first group of people you know well. I’ve connected with my beta readers over Twitter, and we were essentially strangers beforehand, with just a casual correspondence going in the public sphere. And I’ve been asked to beta read in the same way. This is a time when you need a lot of information before you can say yes.
Like with friends and family, you need to figure out exactly what they want. However, you also have to figure out if you’ll even be interested in their story, so you need details like genre, style, length, and a pitch of some sort. It’s standard for you to beta read 1-3 chapters first so that you can get a feel for their writing and so that they can see how you’re giving feedback.
In the previous post from this series, I talked about my experience beta reading when I gave detailed edits at all three levels on the first three chapters of a genuinely bad novel (I say this based on the number of typos/misspellings/grammar mistakes alone - it was not publication ready). I had asked him what he was looking for, and he said to give everything that I noticed. Well, I noticed a lot. He was… not prepared, I think. Turns out he just wanted someone to rubber stamp it as great before he published it. He wasn’t interested in making changes or improving it. Definitely a miscommunication there between what he wanted and what I thought he wanted.
(Vivian:) “I want you to give me everything, NO NOT THE PART I DIDN’T WANT!” pffrrr, why can’t people just have telepathy these days?
(Anne:) All that really happened as a result was that he went on a rampage and sent a lot of hurtful messages, and I got a story to tell. However, I spent hours editing that story, hours that were completely wasted. So make sure you know exactly what they want, then question them, then check with them, and if you think you’re doing too much, you probably are.
The vast majority of beta readers I’ve had give occasional comments, almost always developmental (though one of mine also points out typos which I really appreciate). Beta readers are not editors, so you really shouldn’t be making detailed comments on every line. That’s an editor’s job, and editors get paid (and yeah, I was doing an editor’s job for free for the guy I beta read for, which made it all the more frustrating to know he totally ignored everything).
However, you can charge to beta read, but that’s outside of my expertise as I’ve never paid for a beta reader nor been paid to beta read, so I have no clue how that works. It is an option, though. Usually any payment is in the form of getting beta reading in return, so it’s a fair exchange as opposed to payment. But if someone asks you to beta read something and you want to charge money, it’s not unheard of. You’d want to research rates and other procedures.
Basically, whether it’s your sister, a friend of your dad, or a stranger on the internet, you need to establish expectations and decide whether or not you want to invest the time in and take the risks of critiquing their work.
(Vivian:) Anne knows I literally want anything, so she gives me everything at full blast. But we have a well established relation of expectations and care so she can blast my fat arse and I won’t take it badly 🙂 But this is not something all relationships can take, so be careful!
(Anne:) You definitely have to be careful! For tips on forming a relationship based on trust, check out the first part of this series. And even though I know I can unleash my criticism at Vivian, I certainly didn’t do that when we first met. We’ve slowly progressed over years to get to the point where we’re comfortable. My critique group is the same. We’ve been together for about four years now, and our criticism now is much more honest and detailed than it was when we were first getting to know and trust each other. Some things just take time!
(Vivian:) Tick Tock ⏱️
What I learned from my Masters of Fine Arts degree
(Anne:) One of the huge advantages of getting a college degree in creative writing is the opportunity to be in workshops led by a professor (usually a professional writer) and filled with like-minded writers as your peers, all wanting to work together to improve their writing. That’s the ideal, at least. In reality, people are people, and some professors/writers will be terrible at running workshops, and some of your peers will either dominate the conversation with their own flawed opinions, they’ll give genuinely bad advice, or, worst, no one in the class will engage. There are few things worse than sharing something intimate like your writing and being met with complete apathy and disinterest.
Of course, that’s much more common at the undergraduate level. Once you get into a Masters, Masters of Fine Arts, or PhD program in creative writing (or equivalent in your country), you’re with people who were specifically chosen out of a field of applicants, and part of what makes someone a good candidate is their ability to work with others and give feedback in a workshop. It’s not a guarantee, but most programs work hard to ensure that the students they admit will mesh well together.
Since workshops are such a prominent part of writing programs, and since graduate level workshops are significantly better than undergraduate or non-college affiliated on average, it pays to look at what exactly they’re doing so that you can replicate it in your own groups. So enjoy some of the things I learned during my three years of graduate school. I won’t even make you take out a student loan first!
(Vivian:) For anyone not in 🇺🇸, their interest rates are terrible to the point where you cannot pay the interest rate even at eye-wateringly high payments.
Ways to run workshops
The most common way to run a workshop is to have everyone turn in a chapter or selection at regular intervals, rotating who shares each meeting, giving the selection in advance so that people can read it and leave written feedback, then, at the meeting, a professional will guide the group in discussing different areas such as plot development, character arcs, themes/symbolism, writing, and any particular concerns of that selection. Importantly, during this discussion, the writer of the selection takes notes and DOES NOT TALK. They do not get to defend their work, explain what they meant, correct any misconceptions, nothing. NOTHING.
The benefit of this is that it forces the work to stand on its own, and when you publish your work, that’s how it’ll be. You won’t get to hover over each reader explaining what you meant if they misinterpret it. The downside of this is that if people are misconstruing what you’re saying, the discussion can focus on things that are genuinely not useful, and you have no way of getting the conversation back on track. In addition, if you’re critiquing the work, you have no way to ask the writer questions if you have any. There’s often time at the end set aside for the writer to explain things, ask questions, and answer questions, but other than that, if you have a question about the piece, you have to ask the other critiquers and see what they think. Again, the piece has to stand on its own.
In my graduate program, all of my workshops were like that. Students would sign up to go once or twice a semester, they’d give their selections a week in advance, and the class would focus on one or two students depending on the length of the class. In that setting, we gave 30 pages maximum. I’m sure there was a minimum, but I don’t know anyone who had issues with that. We were all desperately trying to fit under 30 pages.
That’s my graduate program, and most will be very similar. However, there are other ways of running a workshop. An adjustment to this method that I’ve seen, and that my own critique group uses (we’re not university-affiliated), is to follow all of those guidelines, except give the writer permission to answer questions and correct any incorrect comments. That way, instead of the conversation becoming useless, the writer can work with the critiquers to make sure other people don’t make that mistake.
After all, a conversation like this has limited usefulness:
Critiquer 1: I think you’re trying to say [incorrect summary]. What do other people think?
Critiquer 2: I disagree, I think it’s [another incorrect summary]. The reason I think this is [far-fetched theory].
Critiquer 1: Oh, that’s a good point.
Writer: (thinking) No! It’s not! And I don’t know how to make you fools think otherwise!
But a conversation like this can be very useful:
Critiquer 1: I think you’re trying to say [incorrect summary]. Are you?
Writer: Actually no, I’m trying to say [correct summary]. I tried to indicate that through [various elements].
Critiquer 2: I didn’t get that either. I thought [far-fetched theory]. Maybe you could try [useful suggestion].
As you can see, the first isn’t actually helping the writer, but by allowing the writer some flexibility, you can focus on ways to help. Be careful, though! The whole reason most workshops don’t allow the writer to say a single word is that often writers like to talk endlessly about what they were trying to say. Allowing them a sentence or two can work, but not more than that. If the writer is talking for any significant period of time, the workshop isn’t as effective as it could be.
Another adjustment that my critique group has made, and that any group without a clear leader must make, is to maintain the discussion without someone guiding the discussion. Some groups are able to talk about selections as a conversation, with people chiming in and the discussion growing organically. My group rotates people to give feedback to, with one person going through the chapter beginning to end with their comments, then the next person, and the next, but we have regular moments where people can voice agreement and where the critiquer can ask what other people thought about a comment they’re making. For moments when we pause to give suggestions, we all chime in with possible solutions to the problem, then it’s back to the one person giving feedback.
In my critique group, we also have everyone submit a chapter every meeting, so our meetings are further divided so that we cover all four of us, with three people commenting per selection. Theoretically, we meet for 90 minutes, and we often do meet this, but we often take two hours getting through everyone. It’s pretty rare for groups to focus on a single person per meeting just because people might not show up if it isn’t their selection and they don’t have anything especially insightful to say, and you want people there!
One note is that you rarely will get up to 30 pages outside of a setting where it’s part of your job to critique them. Students are expected to spend 3-4 hours outside of class for every hour of class at the undergraduate level, and even more at a graduate level, so you can see that the expectation is much, much higher than you can get when you have a full-time job and are doing this in your spare time. My critique group used to meet every two weeks, but we’ve slowly adjusted to meet every month, sending our chapters a week in advance. We aim for 10 pages, though we’ll get up to 12 pages regularly, and sometimes 6 pages when someone is having a slow month. Some groups will meet more often, some less, some will allow more pages, some less. You need to decide all of this as a group when you first get set up and if you’re joining an established group, make sure you understand and are okay with all of the expectations.
If your group doesn’t have the same members every time, usually in cases where it’s open to everyone (or a large group of people) and anyone can show up as often as they want, it’s not always practical to give the selection in advance. You can make it available in a place everyone can access it, such as a shared folder online, and then if people want to come, they can read it and be prepared.
However, one strategy that often works well is to read the pieces at the meeting itself, usually by the writer reading them aloud while critiquers leave comments on their own copies, then afterwards they discuss as described above. If you do this, you generally don’t want to do more than 3 pages double-spaced, or about 5 minutes spoken. More than that stretches people’s attention too much. This can be a pretty severe limitation. You can give longer selections and have people read silently on their own, but to me, this feels like wasted time. You only have a limited time in the presence of others at the meeting, and reading it on your own is better accomplished outside of the meeting.
Those are the successful strategies I’ve come across, from my graduate school’s fairly strict format to the more relaxed versions used by groups outside of the classroom. If you’re in a critique group, make sure you’re all on the same page with how you want to run the workshops!
The compliment sandwich
Okay, so that’s the format and how to know when you should give your critiques. But what do you actually say? Well, the most successful strategy I’ve ever come across and the one I think everyone should do for everything where you’re giving feedback at any time is the compliment sandwich. It’s pretty simple:
First, compliment something, anything - no matter how bad it is, there’s always some redeeming quality!
Second, give your more critical criticism, though keep it constructive!
Third and finally, end with another compliment, even if you’re just repeating your first compliment!
Seriously, this works for anything.
How does this create ideal conditions for critique? Well, starting with a compliment puts the writer at ease. Everyone likes to hear positive things about their work. If you start out with criticism, no matter how constructive, it often feels like an attack, and they’ll interpret everything as destructive criticism. So find something you like, or a few things, and open with that so that the writer knows that you appreciate their work, and they’ll be far more likely to see your comments as the constructive comments they are.
Then, you get into the meat of the sandwich, so to speak. The criticism is what you’re there to give, after all. Try to phrase your comments in terms of what isn’t working and why (always explain why!), and pair it with suggestions for improvement. You don’t have to suggest exact solutions, just things they might try, even if it’s just “you might think about that.” If you have a lot of criticism to give, it helps to add a compliment every once in a while just to make sure the writer isn’t getting overwhelmed or depressed. Again, all of this ensures that the writer is correctly interpreting the feedback as intended to help them, not tear them down.
Keep an eye on the writer, too, and watch physical cues to see if they’re engaged or if they’ve checked out on your feedback. If they have, you’re probably on the wrong track and might want to move on. Watch the other critiquers too, and see if they want to chime in. Depending on the format, you may have the floor and can choose to engage them or not, or you might have to give up control to someone else as the conversation evolves. You might not have time to get to everything that you have to say. That’s okay. You can usually reach the writer afterwards and ask if they want more feedback or not. Respect their answer.
Then, you want to end on something positive so that the writer has a positive impression of your feedback. When they look back at what you said, they’ll feel good about it and be more willing to take your criticism seriously. And if their work is really bad, you can repeat what you said at the start. I usually end with an overall comment on why I enjoyed reading the work, briefly highlighting the most positive things I said. But you can add new compliments, too, that’s a great strategy. In general, though, you want to end with a compliment.
One danger is that your compliments will feel like null criticism, where you’re just saying “oh it was so great!” or other meaningless comments. To avoid this, be specific. Really specific. “Oh I loved your opening line, it really hooked me” or “I was on the edge of my seat the entire time because of the pacing” are examples of good compliments. If the work really isn’t great, you can go with something like “there’s so much potential here!” but be aware that a lot of people might not see that as a compliment. Basically, be specific to avoid that null criticism category.
A grain of salt? How about a heaping teaspoon
This gets more into how to interpret criticism, and I plan on going into this in far more detail in the next blogpost in this series, but when people say things about a work, you can’t just accept it as truth. Everyone has their own lens that they see the world through, and they may interpret things in a totally different way than you. However, they might also see it differently than everyone, so you can discount their feedback. This is one reason why it’s good to see what everyone in the group thinks about things, because you can tell if it’s just that one person’s quirks or if it’s something that was a stumbling block for everyone.
In addition, everyone has their own preferences in terms of content and style. If you’re working with genres, some people may have more or less experience with them and might suggest things that work in a different genre but not in yours. So their criticism might be well-intentioned, and might even be superb feedback, but it doesn’t fit with your goals and genre. You need to be careful to preserve the spirit of your work and not change everything just because someone said so.
As a critiquer, you need to be aware that not all of your feedback will be taken. Don’t be offended by that. Sometimes, I’ll see a later version of something I’ve given feedback on, and I’ll be peeved that they didn’t take my advice because I think their story would be stronger had they done what I said. This especially bothers me when they don’t take my suggestions on things like punctuation, since most of the time my grammar/punctuation corrections are just, well, correct. Most feedback is kind of optional, and I have to just get over my annoyance because it’s their story, not mine. But when they don’t put a comma where there needs to be a comma, it really annoys me. But again, it’s their story, not mine.
Basically, as a writer, you need that grain of salt, but as a critiquer, you need to understand that writers have to have it so that you don’t become salty yourself. It’s fine to be irritated that someone doesn’t take your advice, but you never want to try to convince the writer to do something. They’ve heard your criticism, and they decided not to do what you said. That’s their call. You need to get over it. If you try to harass the writer, even if you’re positive that you’re right, you’ll ruin the trust between you. Rather than persuade the writer, you generally will just make them far less likely to listen to you in the future. Again, IT ISN’T YOUR STORY. You don’t get to dictate what they do, nor do you get to argue your case beyond presenting it the first time.
If a writer asks you to explain a comment, go for it. If they ask for further advice, yes you can give it. But if they’ve made a choice about their writing, you don’t have the right to question it. So make your case, then drop it. Pressing your case only alienates the writer. Don’t do it.
Summa Summarum
So what have we learned from all of this? Hopefully you now have a good feel for how to critique people, from the extremely important task of determining what type of criticism the person wants to whether you should do it in the first place, and if you’re in a workshop setting, hopefully you can now understand some good formats for holding it.
If you take nothing else from this, though, please use the compliment sandwich. It will make you so much more persuasive. And try it in other situations, too! It’s just a good technique for getting people to agree with you. Have fun with it! And have fun with critiquing. If you’re miserable, you should just refuse, or tell the writer that you don’t think you’re a match for the story. Critique should be a fun chance to help other writers, so keep their well-being in mind, and do your best to give them as much help as possible!
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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 giving good critique 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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