Being a good writer means being able to accept critiques of one’s work. It’s a love/hate thing. We love praise but we hate criticism. It’s a necessary weevil of the process of learning to write well… (Okay, my humor is lame but you wouldn’t return if I bored you!)
Most critique forums you’ll find also request that writers provide critiques to share the misery…er…I mean help. Even if you don’t yet know much about the technicalities of writing, you can still provide an objective view of another’s work rather than doing a line-edit. As you learn more and feel comfortable providing advice to others, you may find yourself putting others’ works under a stronger microscope.
Because I’ve spent the last…years improving my writing, I read with a highly critical eye. Unfortunately, it’s a given that we can’t see our own faults as clearly as we can others. Critiquing works like a mirror in that respect. By seeing the errors in other writers’ works, the errors in our own are made more obvious. It’s like that for every writer, but with experience you learn. Keep in mind that everyone sees something different, because we’re not all carbon copies–we have different backgrounds to color our view of the world. The expression of ideas as the writer sees them will never be what his/her audience sees when they read the same words. That’s what sharing critiques–aka crits (plural noun) or to crit (verb) as you’ll often see in established writing forums–shows us.
The contrast to that is to take crits with a grain of salt. Every writer has their strengths and weaknesses and that carries over to how they critique. But, as I said already, critiquing helps us see ourselves in a mirror of another’s work.
The two things critting does for writers are 1) receiving-having objective, fresh eyes provide constructive criticism and 2) giving-holding up a mirror for us to see our own faces.
There are different levels of critting, from the most basic to the more specific, which answer the following questions and more:
1. What is the overall impression of the story?
2. Does each scene keep the reader interested in reading further?
3. Are the characters and settings clear for the reader?
4. Does the scene move the story forward, as opposed to providing nothing new to the plot?
5. Can the reader picture the setting, characters, and action? In other words, are the descriptions sufficient to form an impression reasonably close to what the writer sees?
6. Are there any infodumps (excess information lumped into a long expository) that can be cut out or shown in other ways throughout the story? (somewhat related to #1)
7. Does the writer repeat any words too often as to be distracting to the reader? (adverbs, verbs, and adjectives mostly)
8. Does the writing flow smoothly from one sentence to the next without any harsh breaks lacking a transition in the action/dialogue/description?
9. Are the antecedents of pronouns clear?
10. Does the writing contain active verbs? Or, to flip it around–does the writer needs to fix passive sentences into active sentences? (This usually involves change was/were + -ing verbs to past tense verbs or is/are + -ing verbs to present tense verbs and cutting out any redundant adjectives)
11. Are adverbs cut? (you almost never need an adverb <-see why?)
12. Can dialogue tags be cut? (Where necessary for clarification of who's speaking, use only "said“.)
13. Is the punctuation correct?
Last of all, style is subjective. I have my style, which varies slightly depending on the type of story I’m writing. However, you would be able to tell my writing from other’s because I have my own voice which has developed, but that has come from polishing my writing over time through sharing crits and the process of learning. Don’t try to suggest changes to a writer’s style to be like your own and be aware of other’s making suggestions that do the same for yours. It happens to everyone, experienced or newbie.
When I critique, bad prose gets in the way of my consideration of a good story idea. Before sharing your work, try to have it as polished as possible for what you know. Don’t make more work for your critter than necessary.
Last of all, but most important, try to find and point out the best points first. Mary Poppins said it first–”A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Keep that at the forefront with critiquing another writer’s work. After all, to use an older quote, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In the end, you’ll have a more polished story and improve your skills through awareness of your faults. Eventually, your weaknesses will fade to a minimum, but always be aware of new ones cropping up. Vigilance is the price to pay for writing well.
