Helpfully Honest

Helpfully Honest:

The Art of Critiquing

It's been a while since I wrote a Passing the Pen article, but that's because I've been as busy as a bee. Actually, I've been as busy as two bees.

You may have noticed that I added a new link to my site a few months ago, one to the Online Writing Workshop. This workshop requires members to review other members' chapters before posting one of their own. In order to receive reviews, it's best to develop "crit for crit" relationships with other members. You review their chapters, and they in turn review yours. I routinely review about five submissions a week. The workshop rewards members who write a lot of reviews by posting images of bees after their names (because they're "busy bees"). I earned my second bee recently by posting my 150th review. To celebrate, I thought I'd write an essay about critiquing. I've wanted to write one for a long time, and with all the reviewing I do, I've been thinking about critiquing a lot.

Instead of writing my usual thesis statement with three points, I'll just cover two: writing critiques and receiving them. As always, this is just my perspective, so take what's useful and discard the rest.

Writing Critiques

Critiquers seem belong to one of two camps. I'll call the first one the "brutally honest" camp, since its members believe that being brutally honest is the best way to critique a story. Their reviews will focus on everything they don't like about the story or what they don't think worked, and they'll tell the author in no uncertain terms. Although this approach may be helpful for some writers, it may not be helpful for all writers. Brutally honest reviews may not give the author any positive feedback about the story, or they may not offer any suggestions to the author about how to improve the problems they point out. These types of reviews can be discouraging to receive.

Fortunately, most reviewers I've worked with, whether through the OWW, at writing workshops, or via snail or e-mail, take a more balanced approach. (In fact, the OWW's guidelines for writing reviews state that reviews should contain at least one positive comment and one suggestion for improving the submission.) This system has been around for a while and is called the Milford approach when it is used in face-to-face workshops. I also like to think of this as the "helpfully honest" approach to critiquing. With this critiquing style, reviewers will still mention any problems they found with the story, but they will discuss the problems in such a way as to help the author fix them. This is what I try to do when I write a review, and this is the type of review that I find most helpful for improving my own work.

How do you become a helpfully honest reviewer? To me, it's a balancing act. You have to be both a reader and a writer at the same time. When you read the story or chapter, you have to note how you react to it. Do some sections seem more interesting than others? Does it make sense, or are the sentences confusing to read? Does the plot seem credible? Does the setting seem vivid? Do the characters seem like realistic people you could care about? Once you've noted the strengths and weaknesses of a story, then you need to examine what the author does to create those effects. (By doing this, you not only learn how to help the other author, but you also learn how to improve your own writing.) Then you have to perform another balancing act as you consider what to tell the author. I always like to lead off with the strengths of the piece. Praise does more than make your review balanced; it can show what parts of the piece work (for example, if there's little description in the story except for one scene, you can say something like, "I like the way you describe the throne room and would like to see you do more of that throughout), it can give the author an idea how much the readers get involved with the story, and it can help the author decide when the story is ready to send to market. Besides, there are going to be days when you think you can't write your way out of a bag with a sharp knife, and it helps to have other people express confidence in you. ;)

The way in which you say things can make a big difference. For example, if you say, "Your characters are as flat as cardboard," that's a brutally honest approach, and it may not be helpful. "Character X is a typical damsel in distress and reacts passively to events," is better because it's phrased objectively and gives a specific reason as to why the characters don't seem real. You can be even more helpful by adding a suggestion: "Character X reacts passively to events. Consider having her respond to her situation -- perhaps she could argue with her captor, or perhaps she could think of ways to let the hero know what's happened to her." Suggestions can be helpful because they give the author ideas for revising their story; even if he or she doesn't use the exact suggestion a reviewer offers, the suggestion can spark other ideas. Again, if you offer suggestions, you have to play a balancing act. While offering suggestions can be helpful, it can feel disrespectful to the author if you suggest changes that wreck what the author is trying to do. It can come across as trying to change their work; I've seen this referred to as "Write Your Own God-Damn Book" syndrome. Try to offer suggestions in line with what you understand the author's vision to be.

Different reviewers have different approaches to writing a review, depending on their strengths. For example, some reviewers make comments as they read the story, while others will read the story all the way through first. (I read the story first, then go through it a second time to add comments.) Some reviewers will discuss plot, character, and pacing, devoting a section of their review to each of these elements. Others may just say what they liked and disliked about the story. My specialty seems to be line edits. I took a course on editing as a graduate student when I obtained my Master of Technical and Scientific Communication degree, and I had a brief, part-time job as a copy editor for a couple of local newspapers. But I look for more than misplaced commas when I do line edits. I also mark unclear sentences and phrases, suggest ways to rewrite what seem like awkward or wordy phrases, and point out contradictions in the text. ("You said before that he had only one wish left, but here he says he has two.") Even dealing with commas can be a balancing act; sometimes it's hard to figure out if a comma splice suits what the author is trying to do or should be corrected. And of course, I always include comments on the overall story as well. When you review someone else's story or chapter, you need to develop your own system of what to look for and how to present your comments to the author. You may even need to figure out how to mark your changes to the author's text. The key is to find a reviewing method that will also be helpful to the author. As you gain more experience with writing and reviewing, your methods may change to reflect that. From what I've seen, the most experienced writers often make the best reviewers, simply because they have a better understanding of the craft.

Receiving Reviews

Like so many other things, reviews are better to give than to receive. At least, my stomach thinks so. ;) I don't get nervous when I post a review, but I sometimes do when I read reviews of my own work. I'll be the first to admit I'm a perfectionist about my work and found it very hard to accept criticism, even constructive criticism, when I was younger. Fortunately, I'm not as sensitive about it as I used to be. Developing a thick skin is vital if you want to survive as a writer. That's part of the reason I prefer a helpfully honest review to a brutally honest one: writers put so much of themselves into their work that harsh reviews can be devastating. Best not to be any more cruel than you have to be.

When you receive a review, whether in a face-to-face workshop or online, the first thing you need to do is pay attention. When you're in a face-to-face situation, that means you let the reviewer or reviewers say what they have to say without interrupting them. (This can be a good excuse to stuff yourself with treats while the other people speak. ;) ) With online reviews, you need to read them through without dashing off angry e-mails to the reviewer. Sometimes, it helps to skim the review right away to get the gist of it, then read it more carefully later. These techniques will help you consider the review as objectively as possible. (It's easier to do this if the reviewer has been helpfully honest.)

Just as reviewers may focus on different aspects of a story or chapter, you may find different reviews to be more or less helpful. You may read some comments and immediately realize the reviewer has told you something that will improve your work, while other comments may be less clear or have less of an impact. And sometimes the comments just don't seem useful at all. That's why it pays to have multiple reviewers; if several of them agree on a particular point, then that's a strong sign to heed them. But even a single reviewer can have valuable insights. Sometimes it's helpful to ask reviewers questions about their comments. For instance, if a reviewer has a certain impression about a character that isn't what you're trying to convey, you can ask him or her for specifics on what creates that impression. Does a particular line cause that effect, or is it something you're leaving out? Sometimes specifics can be more helpful than generalities.

Whether you're in a live or online workshop, it's always a good idea to thank your reviewers, and, depending on the nature of the workshop, review their submissions in turn. Sometimes it's possible to develop "critting" relationships where two people will critique all of each other's work. This can be really helpful if you're writing a novel, where it's valuable to have a reader who's been following several chapters and can see things not evident in just a single chapter. Sometimes reviewers in live workshops can even turn into friends. I know part of the reason I enjoy WisCon so much is because I get to see friends I met through writing workshops at that convention. Making friends with other writers doesn't just help you improve your writing -- which is the goal of critiquing, of course -- but it provides you with a support group to help you cope with all the ups and downs of a writing life.

On a final note, although I have reached the two-bee or "Veteran Reviewer" stage on the OWW, there's one final level beyond that: the three-bee, "Master Reviewer" level. If I continue reviewing at the same pace as I am now, I could reach that level by the end of the year. (Note: I reached it in September.) Hopefully I'll have learned more about writing and reviewing along the way.