When I originally wrote this blog post it ended up too long for a single post, so I have split it up into ‘groups’ as I think of them, and will post them in sequence. Today, Critique Partners and Beta-readers.
If you are going to write, then almost certainly at some point you are going to have to share that work in some way with other people. Whether that is reading it to your kids, letting your significant other take a look, your best friend, your writing group, strangers on the internet with whom you have some tenuous social connection, or publishing it and having a wider distribution to strangers with whom have no connection. And while all of these people will have opinions, not of all of them will be “this is perfect!”. So how do we deal with that? I’m going to share the advice that I have found helpful, the wisdom of which I credit to other writers, editors and agents. Take what you find useful!
Critique Partners or Beta-readers:
- Take a deep breath.
- Remember, you are sharing your work with these people for them to help you find problems. If they don’t identify any issues then they are not the right critique partners for you, and if all you want from this step is an echo chamber, you are wasting you and their time. Getting honest critique is an essential step in making sure you identify plot holes, dragging paragraphs or chapters, poor repetitive wording, confusing writing, unlikable characters etc before you put it out into the wider world. Listening to this advice can be the difference between that short story winning the competition or not even placing, or you publishing something where you unintentionally offend a whole group of people. So commit to listening.
- So note in the above, I said listening. Not acting. You don’t have to act on every piece of advice. The general advice here is one persons critique is one persons opinion, and you are a person too, so if you disagree, ignore it. The extension to that is that if more than one person is pointing out an issue you need to pay attention. I would qualify that with the warning not to ignore a piece of advice just because only one of your critiquers mentioned it. Maybe its really insightful. It may be really important. They may be telling you an issue for 100,000 other readers who don’t happen to be your other two/three/four critiquers, Certainly you should sit up and take notice if more than one critiquer cites the same issue, but give those the same litmus test as you do the ones that are unique – does it make sense to you.
- Don’t decide on first blush whether the critique is correct or not. Usually I read critiques once through all the way through. It’s like jumping in an ice bath. Even the best intentioned and worded critique is still a critique of the baby you created and trusted others to see. It’s ok to not like crit. In fact, I would say its normal. And recognizing that it is normal I read it to get the shock over, and then I set it aside for a day. I don’t respond. I don’t analyze it. I don’t try to start edits from it. I give my brain 24 hours. That way, the ‘fight or flight’ response is gone when I come back to it. I already know the worst thing they are going to say, and I can sit down and more logically go through and more dispassionately decide if I agree and what to do about it.
- Read your critique partners comments with gratitude and compassion for them. They have given of their time and mental energy and written an essay on your work to try to help you. They may not always get what you are trying to do, they may not always make their feedback in exactly the way that is kind, or thoughtful, but maybe they were tired when they wrote it. Maybe they didn’t understand how those words would sting. (maybe they thought you were an adult asking for feedback and help!) But this is a gift from them and you should take it in that spirit. Don’t allow your emotional response to overshadow the message of the comment, or to damage the relationship when they have been generous in trying to help.
- Even if you do not agree with the critique see if there are things you can extract from it. For example, Why did the plotline not work for them? You don’t have to go along with their comments or suggestions. Make the solution your own though, and you will feel more passion and ownership over making the fixes. (many writers ask critiquers not to make suggestions for this reason, but it’s an easy trap to fall into and sometimes the ‘suggestion’ is very loose e.g. “I didn’t believe this character was nice enough to make a sacrifice for everyone else”. The solution might be to make the character nicer, as implied, or you might take it in a totally different direction – maybe they sacrificed for everyone else as a selfish act to look good, to be in the papers, to feel superior, or maybe they did it out of spite, to show up someone else who didn’t make the sacrifice, or to make these people feel bad or guilty of not having believed they would make the sacrifice, etc)
Thanks for reading! How do you handle criticism in its many forms? As always, thoughts, suggestions and criticisms (!) welcome below in the comments section.
Gideon Smith 