To Critique or not to Critique

I wrote my first my first book in 2012 in a complete vacuum. I had no critique partners, no real beta readers (unless you count my sister) and no idea how to critique my own work. Since then, I've tried, with varying degrees of success, to obtain more feedback during the writing stage. Many writers swear by their weekly or monthly critique groups. Others have tried and true critique partners. Others prefer to fly solo until it's time for a beta reader.  I have yet to find the exact sweet spot, but I have come up with some thoughts on how to decide what works and what doesn't.

A critique group has the upside of making you write something, anything. The crappy first draft won't write itself, after all. If you're a procrastinator or find time management  a challenge, that regular meeting where you're supposed to show up with something can be excellent motivation. But I'm glad I didn't have a roundtable to chime in on each chapter on my first book as it was being written for this reason: It may have been too discouraging and I may have given up.  After a few years in the query trenches, a few projects later, and after over a year on submission, I'm less likely to take a negative critique as a reason to quit.

Finding the right group presents a few issues. First, geography and time are critical. Retired folks who meet at 3 p.m. on Tuesdays won't work for someone with a full time job. Commuting across down during rush hour? Maybe not. And then there are the groups that have some version of the "know it all" who relentlessly assails passive voice and third person omniscient point of view because... well, because they heard it somewhere so it must be true. And frankly, sometimes a group member's writing  is riddled with tropes or purple prose or stereotypes that it make it hard to take her critiques seriously. Having the self reflection to recognize our own weaknesses is hard enough but telling someone else their hard work is only mediocre is not a fun way to spend your spare time.

I was recently invited to join a critique group (geography and time worked, fortunately) and am cautiously optimistic that it won't kill my spirit or cause me to spin my wheels in endless re-writes that address every single comment. It has been eye opening to see how others view my characters (not likable? How dare you, sir!) and even more eye opening to read in other genres. And the camaraderie among writers makes me come away from each meeting feeling more determined to get through the next chapter and figure out that plot bunny. But at the end of the day, you have to analyze the input, make the changes that will improve your story, and learn to weed the rest out. You can't please everyone, and if there were ever a better example of the subjectivity of publishing, it will be the diametrically opposed viewpoints you sometimes hear from the group.  But if your regular meeting leaves you feeling depressed, anxious, or talentless, then move on.

If the group meeting dynamic just isn't for you (writers are often introverts, right?) you may have better luck with a critique partner. Finding the right CP is like sighting a unicorn. But the nice thing is that your CP and you are tailor made because you choose each other based on what you write and what you are willing to critique. You set your own parameters about the kind of input you want: plot, consistency, voice, general impressions or a line by line commentary. You set the swap schedule and you're certain to be interested in their genre. QueryTracker and Twitter are only two of many web sites where CP marriages are made. I've had limited success finding a long term CP, but many people forge years-long and multi book CP relationships. It's more personal, and more flexible than a group.

Even if you're a die-hard loner, do consider beta readers, who will read your completed and hopefully edited book and give you feedback. Pick someone who will be honest with you and who reads in the genre you've written.

And whatever method you choose for getting feedback, don't ever let any one person's opinion deter you from continuing to write.

Kim English - is the author of the Coriander Jones series and the award winning picture book 'A Home for Kayla.' Her latest picture book, 'Rolly and Mac' will be released in 2017. Her website is Kim-English.com. She is represented by Gina Panettieri.

Taking Care of Business: Making Friends

Taking care of business and making friends may sound unrelated at best, but here's a secret: the dreaded term "networking" is basically just jargon for making friends.

Writing is a lonely business. You pull out your laptop, put on your headphones, and enter into a world that you created and no one else knows about (yet:  one day they'll be writing FanFiction in your world). If you're lucky enough to be writing full time (and don't all of us, somewhere, have that goal in the back of our mind?), that's pretty much all you do.

Write stuff: no human interaction required.

There are, of course, a few issues with that. For one thing, how do you write Deep Truth About The Human Condition if you aren't around other people? For another, writing is lonely. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's true. You write alone, you face writer's block alone, you revise alone, you read rejection emails alone.

Here's the thing: you don't have to. Making friends might be one of the key ways to keeping your sanity during the long and crazy process of writing and subsequently selling a novel. There are Twitter hashtags to follow (#amwriting is common; right now, #CampNaNoWriMo is a big one. And there's also #amrevising and #amquerying for other stages of the writing process); word sprints to join; and friends to be made.

If Twitter isn't your thing, writers love to blog. Search people out. Interact with writers on their blogs and through their Twitters, their newsletters, their Facebook groups... I do all these things, and I've made a lot of friends through the Query Tracker forum, too.

Besides keeping you sane and making friends from around the world (which should be all the motivation you need), making friends really is networking (which is a very scary word. Sorry about that.). Other writerly friends make great critique partners, ones who are willing to tell you, "You can do better than this. Don't take the easy way out." And you'll listen, and they'll read the revision, and they'll let you know they love it. You'll know they're sincere since they weren't afraid to tell you when they didn't love it.

When you get an agent, you'll want people to tell who understand what it means to actually have an agent. (I don't know about you, but this basically discounts my real-life family and friends.) When you go on submission, it's great to have friends who can send you pictures of cuddly animals to keep you sane and remind you that this, too, shall pass. And when you get the book deal you've always wanted? It's time to celebrate, and celebrations are always better with friends.

Twitter is full of now-published authors who have been friends since the days of querying. The most famous for their friendship is probably Susan Dennard and Sarah Maas, both now published successfully. And because they're writing BFFs, they get to blurb each other's books, and happily promote each other on Twitter, and collaborate on projects.

A quick reminder: Never treat someone like they're just a business deal waiting to happen, or befriend someone only because you think they'll help your career. It won't work. That's why I call it making friends, and not networking.

Befriend someone because you both have an undying passion for knee socks, obsess over Lizzie McGuire even though it's been off the air for 11years, and neither of you are sure what the big deal is about coffee. Oh, and you happen to both be writers. Maybe one of you rocks at dialogue and the other is excellent at filling plot holes. You'll make a great team, the two of you, with two books that both have killer dialogue, no plot holes, and obscure references to fancy knee socks.

The Rites of Feedback

It doesn’t matter where you are in the publication pathway, feedback is something we all deal with in one form or another.

Critique Partners and Groups

This is the essential first step when it comes to feedback. Most often, it takes place with the exchange of material between critique partners or within a group. Often the writer will send a chapter or several chapters to her partner for detailed feedback (including line edits). Some writers attend monthly meetings and read their chapter to the group. The firing squad individuals will then provide constructive criticism. Your goals, writing level (both yours and those providing the feedback), time frame in which you want to finish the story, and how you respond to feedback will determine which method is best for you. Some people thrive on face-to-face feedback. Other people would rather have their teeth extracted without sedation. For them, online feedback is the ideal choice.

When you receive feedback, it’s best that you zip your mouth shut before you say something you’ll regret. You need time to digest the information. You might not agree with the person now, but 24 hours later you might decide they’re the most intelligent person to walk this planet, because they pointed out something you missed. Now, if you didn’t keep your mouth shut and you ranted on about how the individuals are idiots, you might not be invited back to the group. Or worst yet, your poor behavior will become common knowledge.

Contests

Some contests provide feedback via blogs. Other writers, and possibly an agent or editor, do drive-by critiques. Sometimes the agent or editor will request partials and fulls. The feedback can be as simple as ‘Loved this!’ which does nothing to help you improve the piece if it’s lacking. Or it can be more helpful, by pointing out what you excelled at and what left the reader confused. Sometimes it can be misguided in an attempt to make your entry look weak so the judge will select another one—most likely the one belonging to the person who cut yours to pieces. This usually doesn’t have the effect the individual was looking for, but it doesn’t help you, either, if you’re looking for constructive feedback. The other issue that can happen is similar to the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ scenario. One person finds fault with something (that might not even be a real problem), and everyone jumps on it and echoes the same sentiment. This is often the result of lazy critiquing. The writers involved in the contest have to critique five to ten other entries, and this is the easiest way to do it with minimum effort.

The best thing to do with contests is say nothing when you get feedback. And please don’t waste your time justifying why you did something or waste time answering questions left by an individual (which were most likely rhetorical anyway). You will only come off as defensive. Take what you need from the feedback and ignore everything else. Do, though, pay attention to what the industry expert says. I’ve seen agents love an excerpt that everyone tore apart. Trust what the expert has to say.

Querying

Yes, querying, the word so many writers dread—and for good reason. Unfortunately, there are a lot of writers who believe querying is a fancy word for feedback. But alas, this is not so. These days you’re lucky if you even get a form rejection. The benefit of this is you now know your  query or requested material wasn’t lost in cyberspace. Sometimes an agent or editor will reject your material, but with a kindly worded explanation as to why the story or writing didn’t work for them. Remember, it is subjective. Just because one agent didn’t connect with your characters, it doesn’t mean you need to rewrite the book. However, if your query or requested material continues to be rejected because agents and editors didn’t connect with your characters, that is a warning you need to do some serious rethinking about your characters, your story, and possibly your writing.

No matter how the agent or editor responds to your query, DO NOT email back and tell her that she is a moron for not seeing how brilliant your book is and how you will be the next JK Rowling. I can guarantee that won’t change her mind. And if you keep harassing her with your tirades, news will get around to other agents and editors. I don’t think I need to spell out what that potentially means to your career.

Reviews

After all the feedback and rejections you’ve dealt with along the way, your skin might be a little thicker, but the ultimate test comes now, once your book is published. Your baby has been released into the world, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to love it. There will be people who dislike your book because they don’t like your trope, they don’t like your characters, they don’t like that your heroine’s favorite color is indigo. But that’s okay because you haven’t love every book you’ve read, right? Now, there will be people who thrive on cutting books down and thrive on calling authors names that should never be spoken in public. No one knows why these people are bullies, and it doesn’t matter the reason. The main thing is you IGNORE THEM. Never feed the trolls. And while you’re at it, don’t let your friends and family feed them, either. The trolls could retaliate, and you’ll be the victim not them.

And it’s not just the trolls you need to ignore. It’s best for everyone concern that you don’t respond to reviews, especially when you don’t agree with them. Remember, reviews aren’t for the author; they’re for the reader. Let readers do their thing, and you do yours—writing the next book.

Where are you on the ‘rites of feedback’ pathway?

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes Young Adult and New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website.   She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance TELL ME WHEN (Carina Press, HQN) is now available.

 

Feeding And Feedback

"I wanted you to like me, and I thought the best way to do that was with brilliant and insightful critique."  This is how I introduced myself during the first session at a local critique group. "But in order to do that, I'd have to be brilliant. So instead I made cookies."

Not my original idea, to be fair. I ganked that quote from my English 201 TA, who baked for the few students who attended on the day before Thanksgiving too many years ago to count. I recommend his strategy because it works.

For the second month I attended my critique group, I thought about bringing cookies again. I like baking for other people. I also like eating the things I bake, making it a win-win. But the second month, my Patient Husband said, "If you bake for them this month, they'll expect it every month."

I repeated that on Twitter, and someone replied, "Newsflash: they already expect you to do it every month."

The day before the writing group, I did bake some awesome oatmeal-cinnamon chip cookies, but my youngest child stood on a chair to watch and managed to break the sugar bowl on the stove-top. I threw away two dozen unbaked cookies on the grounds that no one would like Glass-Shard Chip Cookies. After that, I wouldn't have had enough, so I didn't bring any.

For the third session, I considered brownies.

Then I realized, I'm getting critiqued. Does that change things?

I liked (and still like) this group a lot. There's insightful critique; it's well-organized and everyone has an equal chance to participate. The group leader runs a tight-but-not-strangulation-tight ship. What worried me was that showing up with cookies (or brownies or pumpkin muffins) might undercut the other members' negative comments about my manuscript because they might not want to hurt the feelings of the baker. 

Above all, I didn't want them to hold back. In my opinion, hitting a manuscript with honest punches only makes it stronger.

It's overthinking, sure, but is it justified? Critique is useless when it's only positive. Saying that a piece's dialogue works well but omitting that the main character is loathsome (for example) doesn't help the writer, who needs to know those things in order to improve.

A friend of mine tweeted a great idea:

But somehow...oh, I don't know.

Over the years, I've found that the best way to induce insightful critique is more of a pre-emptive strategy than a reactive one. That is to say, I look for writers whose opinions I value and whose work I like, and I try to cultivate a critique-for-critique relationship. I'm no longer the jerk who sends a five-page unsolicited letter critiquing/praising/dissecting a 10-page fanfic (although I made one of my best friends that way) but I've found that when you ask someone to swap critiques, and then you spend about twenty minutes per page critiquing their work and compiling a significant edit letter, you get back about what you've given. (Not always, but if you're selective, it pays off often enough to make it worthwhile.)

Cookies are good, in other words, but most writers want something better to feed on. They want your honesty.

Not all writers -- and you do have to be careful. I also earned one lifelong enemy by saying "I find your tone to be uneven" (and immediately heard back that she'd expected such narrow-minded and judgmental responses from the unenlightened who were too stupid to understand her work. I apologized for being dim and never touched her work again, but she still hated me ten years later.) Sometimes a writer says "honest feedback" but means "unrestrained praise," and it's difficult to tell at first who those writers are. 

It's very important to give feedback at the level the writer needs -- and a writer needs first and foremost to be able to hear what you're saying. Sometimes that means not saying "Your main character is loathsome" but rather "I really like the dialogue, but sometimes I couldn't get as close as I wanted to your main character." Sometimes it means just focusing on the things that work until the writer is ready to hear more. 

Is that dishonest? Or is that like my son's karate instructor, a fifth-degree black belt, not punching my child into the back wall of the dojo just because he could?

That's not what I wanted, though. I wanted it brutal and honest. If the manuscript had to bleed, let it bleed cleanly. If my main character was loathsome, I wanted to hear "Your main character is loathsome no matter how snappy her dialogue."

So I stood at my oven, questioning: would sweet snacks and their empty calories lead to sweet commentary with equally empty suggestions? 

The urge to write versus the urge to bake. Who would win? And in the end, I didn't bring anything to that session either. 

PS: Nowadays, now that I can trust them to tell me where I'm failing, and now that they trust me not to go weep in the corner, I don't hesitate to bring any snacks I want. Because I enjoy both the feeding and the feedback.

---

Jane Lebak is the author of The Wrong Enemy. She has four kids, three cats, two books in print, and one husband. She lives in the Swamp and spends her time either writing books or baking pumpkin muffins. At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four kids. If you want to make her rich and famous, please contact the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency.

Fifty Shades of Editing

by Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL

 ©Stina Lindenblatt

Regardless of whether you’re pursuing traditional or self publishing, your book needs to be well edited. If it isn’t, agents and editors will reject it. If you self publish and the story and writing is weak, your writing career is pretty much doomed, unless you use a pen name for your next book. With so many options out there for readers, it’s tough to get a second chance if you blow the first one.

The point of this post is not to provide you with advice on how to edit your book after the first draft. Like everything else in this industry, it’s subjective. What works for one person might not work for someone else. A writer who plots and figures out characterizations first will approach his second draft differently than a writer who jumped straight into writing the first draft without much planning. Instead, I’m focusing on the edits you need to consider from an outside perspective. In all cases, you want to make sure you give the individual the best version of the story to date. That means, no sending them your first draft. You just waste everyone’s time when you do that.

THE FREEBIES

This group of individuals is invaluable. They are your first line of editing and they are free. Well, almost free. When someone offers to give you feedback on your project, remember it’s not a one-way street. There is nothing worse than giving feedback on someone’s 130,000-word manuscript and they do not reciprocate. This group includes critique partners and beta readers. What it doesn’t include is your mom, unless your mom can be critical and give valuable feedback. A lot can’t. On the other hand, if your mom is overcritical about everything in your life, you might want to skip on her feedback. Same deal with your mother-in-law.

Critique Partners and Critique Groups

With these individuals, you usually send your novel to them in chunks. Some groups will meet once a month and exchange chapters. They focus on the here and now, and chances are they won’t remember what they read last time. Because of this, they tend not to see the big picture. They point out places where you could rewrite a sentence so that it’s no longer confusing, and point out things that don’t make sense story wise. These individuals tend to be writers. 

Beta Readers

Unlike the critique partner, beta readers look at the big picture. They will point out problems with your plot and when your characterizations could be stronger (critique partners can do this, too). Some give line edits, but it’s not part of the job description. Beta readers can be writers or avid readers. 

PROFESSIONAL EDITORS

Professional editors tend to have a higher skill set compared to our beta readers and critique partners. But remember, not all are created equal. This depends on numerous factors, including their editing education and experience. An editor who works for Simon & Schuster, for example, will have a greater skill level compared to an author of several short stories who decided to make some extra cash on the side. 

Agents and Editors (with a publisher)

These are individuals are “free,” but they need to love your project and see a market for it before they will offer you a contract. Your book might be great, but if there’s no market for it (in their eyes), agents and editors will pass on your project. Are they right? Not necessarily. But if you’re planning to go the traditional route, you need to impress them first. 

Freelance Editors

These individuals are the ones you hire if you plan to self publish a quality book. This is a step you don’t want to skip. Even if you’re planning to pursue traditional publishing, it doesn’t hurt to have professional editing done before you query. In today’s competitive slush piles, this step might give you the extra edge you need to land a contract. I know one author who does this. The result is she has less editing to do with her publisher, which saves everyone time.

LEVELS OF EDITING

No matter which route you go, there are three levels of editing you need to consider. With traditional publishing, all three are typically done. 

Developmental/Structural Edits

These edits involve the big ticket items, such as plot, characterization, overall pacing, setting, story structure, etc. When you hear an author mention how they received fifteen pages from their editor, this is what they are referring to.

Line Edits

After the big ticket items come line edits. This is where the editor will make comments in your manuscript at the sentence level. She will point out sentences that don’t flow well and make suggestions. Remember, they are just that: suggestions. Be careful you don’t end up messing with your voice (unless you want to). 

Copy Edits

This level of editing is no less important that the others. A copy editor will point out typos, missing words, and inconsistencies. A good one will notice that your main character has blue eyes on page 30 and brown eyes on page 99. That is their job. I recommend you don’t skip on this one. A book filled with typos screams unprofessional. It also screams, “Don’t read my next book!”

The most important thing to remember is that the people giving you feedback need to share your vision for your book. If they don’t, you will end up ripping your hair out in frustration. When looking for the right individuals, see if you can get feedback on a few pages first. That way you can see if you are a good mix.

Have you used a professional editor? How many critique partners and beta readers do you tend to use for each project?