HOW TO WRITE A CRITIQUE (from a writer & editor’s POV) 🖋️with full example!
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- EXAMPLE: docs.google.com/document/d/16...
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - intro
1:00 - have good etiquette
1:51 - have a helpful mindset
6:43 - the writer knows best
7:47 - critique on the writer's level
8:25 - share your interpretations
10:06 - think about the reason
11:27 - contextualize with the strengths
12:33 - don't critique the intention
12:22 - don't make accusations
14:42 - avoid 'bad' and 'good'
15:15 - avoid judging the characters
16:26 - don't order the writer
17:26 - don't complain
18:08 - if you're confused, ask
19:04 - don't edit out their style
19:38 - edit selflessly
20:21 - just be respectful
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FAQS
→How old are you? - 26
→How long have you been writing? - Since I was 8
→Where do you live? - I keep that private for safety reasons, but I grew up in Vancouver.
→Where did you go to university and what did you study? - I keep my university information private, but I majored in writing with a concentration in fiction.
→What are your pronouns? - They/them or she/her
→Where can I read your books? - None of my books are published yet, but you can read my published short fiction in my linktree (linked above!)
→So when will your book be published? - I don’t know! I’m in the revision process right now, but I can’t predict exactly when I’ll have a book published. But I’m working on it!
→Do you plan to traditionally publish or self publish? - Traditionally publish
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My favorite thing is when people in my workshop circle a verb I made up and tell me it’s not verb
rude!!!!
Your workshop friends who encircle your freshly minted works should read the official website of Gerald Manley Hopkins.
The priest-poet coined words like endragoned and mealed-with-yellow. Tennyson & Browning never read these unpublished poems.
Lewis Carroll gave us fruminous, frabjous and slithy, Ted Hughes bekittenings, Joyce's follows Hopkins in Ulysses & Finnegan's Wake.
In coining words, look at European languages. Ingeborg Bachmann employs *winddurchschossenen* (windblown) in one of her poems.
In college I was put into a critque group in a creative writing class, there was this one guy who tore my first paper apart and hated everything about it. The next day the professor wanted to talk with me about the same paper and he wanted to copy it and pass it out to the class as an example of what he was looking for in the project. I knew the guy in my group was just being an AH but the professor confirmed that I was on the right track. I wish I could have seen the look on the guy's face when he saw my paper was what the professor wanted.
Coming from someone who has reviewed a fair number of stories:
1) Always share your brand of critiquing style with the writer before you waste your time.
2) Ask what draft they are on and which areas of the story they are looking to develop.
3) Don’t line edit unless asked to / the writer is polishing a final draft
4) Never engage with a “review of your review” if they are defending their story rather than trying to further explore your points. Critiques are a “take it or leave it” deal and neither of you should be convincing the other that they are right
5) I don’t recommend reviewing a story as a quid pro quo arrangement where they review yours. If you do this then do it in instalments so you know you’re getting back what you’re putting in
Point 3 is … on point! A member if our critique group nit picks about tense and grammar and … Now, we give a heads up for what stage we are in our revision and if such things are welcome. What I'll do is ask for specific feedback: What was confusing? What about the tone? Tell me what you think the character's motivation is? ... Stuff like that.
@@alpha1solace hello :) sorry for the confusion. I didn’t mean to give your critiquing style a name. I meant to literally share examples of your critiques / reviews so the writer can see if they vibe with you and what you can offer
There was a season where I was doing a lot of critiques, and I remember slowly befriending one writer in particular after she saw some of my comments/correspondence with writers I'd worked with. It was very informal, I did not do this as a business, so I did not have the foresight ask these writers beforehand what draft they were on (normally their docs had a draft # on the cover page, and they'd straight up tell me what areas they'd prefer I focused on). So this writer asked me to look at her work, just a sample of the first 50 pages, and I offered a structured outline of what could be worked on to bring out the best of what I loved (and there was a lot to love!) Only after I sent her my critique and told her I looked forward to reexamining the next draft did she reveal "Oh that's the final draft! I've already had copies printed :)" When I tell you I SCREEEAMED, Shaelin. I'm so glad we communicated through email for that and not over the phone.
Omg I might’ve done this before to one of my friends. She sent a short story to me to critique and I said possibly the worst sentence I’ve ever said in relation to writing: “Well, since it isn’t the final draft-“ and then I literally died. Because I did not know if it wasn’t the final draft.
You have a lot of empathy, which in my experience is very rare (in general, but certainly among writers critiquing others' work).
As a former academic, I had to do quite a lot of peer reviews. I found one of the hardest things to do is to stop putting on the judgment hat and instead remember: I'm just another writer. With just another set of preferences, skills, etc.
So the Golden Rule is helpful: as a writer, how do you want another writer communicating their opinion about your deeply personal work to you?
You are so right. You can say anything you need to say as long as you say it with respect.
This was such a great video. Rude people in a group I joined really damaged me in a lot of ways. I really started to question if I wanted to keep writing and then I went to the opposite extreme that I was just going to write for myself and not seek feedback. Dealing with these types of people may be inevitable, but please, please dont be that guy
Doing fabulous job, indeed. Hats off to your style. ❤
Congratulations! I didn't know you did an ad for Reedsy.
Keep up the great work!🎉
Thanks for another great video Shaelin :)
Never attack the writer but be honest with the work. Use craft and industry standards to support your critique. Speak of the things you understand and don't offer weak opinions based on subjective assessment. What one likes or not to read isn't in play. The craft doesn't care.
So helpful, thank you ❤
Love this video idea ❤️
Great topic!
Successful writers rely on their editors for informed and close-reading critique. Almost like a marriage. Your workshop works like that.
Maeve Binchy said she would leave her publishers if her editor Rosie Cheetham ever left ; and Maeve had this written into her contract.
New Yorker editor William Shawn wanted to leave the magazine, but the authors he edited so carefully all said they absolutely relied on him.
See the biography of Maeve Binchy by Piers Dudgeon. And *Here, But Not Here : My Life with the New Yorker* by Lillian Ross
Of all the pleasant surprises I could've gotten this Friday, this one is an actual surprise but also the most practical.
Etiquette, reading the room, helpfulness ... these things are a given, 'tis true, but reminders about them are a source of professional wellness. If that makes sense. (As someone with both OCD and ADHD, I find happiness in the basic things.)
And yeah, after a while you can detect in a critic's wording whether or not they're a dickhead, but the problem is how often the dickheads will concentrate their fire on the newer writers. It's harassment. It's Terence Fletchering. It's inexcusable.
Depending on your brain's frequency of disassociating, I'd argue that it's possible to be fully objective. However, my own Achilles heel editing for others is that from time to time I still forget individual writers are coming from different walks of life and won't respond to everything the same way. Objectivity is a tightrope walk where the net under you isn't actually visible, so if you're giving bad advice, you're doing more harm to yourself than to the writer. And when someone else's work has my full attention, at the end of the day it feels like a privilege to be having that back & forth with them because their work is a chance to experience a train of thought that never existed before.
How you phrase the idea at 11:02 to 11:13 is of course the productive way and ultimately the right way. The fear sometimes happens, though, of being perceived by the writer as if you're trying to rewrite the story for them. "Would that come across as patronizing?" is a question that pops into my head, the intrusive thought kicking and screaming against the foundational "Be specific" rule that Shaelin Bishop put there 4 years ago. Specificity is not egotism. My brain just fights me on it.
[I might post a 2nd comment if more thoughts occur to me]
I haven't had a ton of workshopping experience, but honestly in what I have done, I feel like I get less feedback than I wish I did. I'm sure this is because I'm a hobbyist workshopping with other hobbyists (rather than an intense undergraduate program lol), but I do wish sometimes that the feedback I got was "harsher" - or at least that there was more of it.
I do believe one of the most helpful things to know pertaining to a critique is simply expectations. What are the writer's own standards for their work? How much commentary can they handle at this editing stage? That sort of thing. Setting expectations helps a lot. And personally, my expectations are usually "go ham" haha
I've had this same exact problem doing an art degree. I know their are prestigious schools were people are really mean in critique but I've never really ran into it. And it's not just me, like nobody wants to give anyone any actual feedback in critique except the teacher and even that's not a guarantee.
Sketchbook Skool’s Danny Gregory makes the point about Critique vs Criticism that is parallel to your experience in How to Draw Without Talent (p87).
My critique group is invaluable.
A good critique group is really life changing!!
how much input would you say is appropriate to give as a copyeditor? i'm proofreading a short story as part of a job application, and i'm not sure to what degree i should be treating this like a class critique, where i'd be leaving comment-style notes in addition to more objective line level feedback.
I almost gave up writing because of a harsh personnel attack on me and not what I wrote when I first started. I don't know what happened to that guy but I've since published 7 books and I have two more in the can which will be published. I have more books planned. In a way that a-hole inspired me to work harder but it could just as easily have stopped me cold. Never give up.
Cool vid
Any thoughts on reading paper books vs reading on Kindle or phone as a newbie writer?
I don't think it matters at all--just whatever you prefer! I don't think the format has any impact on how helpful it is for your writing.
Ik I'm asking this out of nowhere. I was writing a story where the MC has maladaptive daydreaming and I'm struggling to show it through my writing. Is there a way to transition to her imagination seemlessly without making it feel like she is hallucinating? If anyone can help, please!
I feel really awarkard giving critiques i know they are really helpful but I don't like pointing stuff out that maybe they should rethink or or change
❤❤❤
Yeah, the note on the meanness is important. I gave a mean critique on one occasion, where I saw extremely problematic content that the writer was ineptly using for shock value. The writer and I had a longer discussion about it, and it became apparent they were attempting to imitate some other stories with which I was familiar (though it wasn't evident within the text). We had a much more productive conversation about why those stories worked while theirs didn't, and I ultimately regretted responding to the work with a punitive mindset.
I was in a critique group in college where we were supposed to take turns talking but one girl was constantly interrupting people...even after the prof talked to her about it. To me that's not a great way to critique something
Dear Shaelen, if I hired you as a 'developmental editor', how much would it cost me?
Critiquing as an editor seems it could be very different than critiquing the construction of the story. Hopeless grammar violators have written amazing stories. I critique from a personal point of view, and I can only describe what I like, and what I dont understand. But good writers write about very interesting and intruiging scenarios, and they tell thier amazing stories with tolerable and edited prose. Perfect grammer can be addressed later.
As an editor, I do developmental edits, which is critiquing the construction of the story. Copyediting and proofreading would address grammatical issues, which is an entirely different type of editing!
[a P.S. set of comments to supplement the 1st comment]
When my own work is being critiqued, what constantly happens to me (and in hindsight I can attribute it to inexperienced editing) is that my characters will be judged. Not just judged, but yanked from any sense of plot mechanics just to be torn a new shithole on moral grounds! So I know exactly how that feels, and never do it to other writers.
If I'm unable to get through someone's piece, rather than be the jackass who says "this tripe was a no-go after the first 5 paragraphs", my approach instead tends to be "I'm very sorry, you deserve someone who can tackle this type of material with an understanding, and right now I'm not the right editor for you". Because if you don't understand it (for reasons other than messy grammar or typos), it's important to tap out at an early point and not build up the kind of toxic resentment that offers nothing. Like you said: the writer knows best, so if the editor gets emotionally wounded over not knowing everything, that's the editor's stupidity.
Believe it or not, short stories and novels are easier to edit than plays. It comes down to the ability of an editor to accept the style of writing something: books are permitted by many publishers to be experimental, whereas the formatting of a play leaves less to the imagination and forces a playwright (98 times out of 100) to "follow standard blocking". This didn't *cause* my love-hate relationship with live theatre, but it certainly doesn't help.
Avoiding Judging the Characters-- I partially disagree here. If an antagonist doing something vile can be commented on "They're such a POS, I love it. Great juxtaposition to the protagonists ______" Conversely, you could say that the character needs to go bigger with their action in order to draw more emotion from the reader.
Maybe it has more to do with what the person making the critique is trying to accomplish with their comment. Encouraging or discouraging the character's actions, motives, and methods would be for my examples above.
This isn't actually what I meant by judging the characters, and I think the examples you gave are totally okay! What I mean by judging the characters is treating a character's traits/actions as issues with the story, rather than commenting on how those traits/actions are handled or function within the story. It's okay to comment on a character's qualities, and even talk about how a character's qualities could be better handled. Your examples are great, because while they talk about a character's traits, they do so in terms of the story's effect and craft--which is totally fine and something you want to see in a critique! But, you want to avoid equating disliking a character with poor writing, when they aren't inherently the same.
I know I'm asking this out of nowhere, but what are your pronouns?
they/them or she/her!
One thing that I completely disagree is that doesn’t existe “objective critic”.
Human are subjectives by nature.
Even a robot can be subjective because an IA only exists because a human being created/programmed
Oh for sure every critique is ultimately subjective! I just think it's good to aim to be as objective as possible by focusing on the story's craft/construction rather than your personal reactions/judgements on the story or characters. So when I say 'objective critique' in this video that's what I'm referring to.
Ohh sorry, now I understand.
Thanks for another great video Shaelin :)