Don't Shoot the Messenger! (Adventures of a Critic)

How to Start Your Critique

So, when you're critiquing a story, poem...work of someone else's there are phrases to employ and phrases to avoid, especially with start-outs. Starting out your critique there are a number of ways to do it (and you may find your own style of doing so as well, but here are a few examples **in no particular order**).

1) They may start off with what they think of the cover.

2) Start off with the blurb. 

3) Re-introduce themselves. 

4) Give a "thank you for asking me to critique". 

5) Just plow right into the critique. 

6) "I will be starting my critique" and maybe a bit of a warning saying they use multiple comments. 

7) "I will be starting my critique" and going right to it. 

8) "So this is what I saw..." 

I personally don't plow right into a critique, mainly because my critiques are really long (my critiques usually range all from two-to-six comments, average being four) so I try to tell them that this isn't me spamming them. They would figure it out, sure, but it's nice to give a bit of a warning when you're critiques are really long like mine are. 

Now, I'll be honest, there aren't a lot of things you can do wrong with starting a critique. Even plowing right into it isn't that bad, all of them have their pros and cons and you'll figure out what works better along the way. So I'm not going to bother putting up a list of "here's what you shouldn't do" because, really, there isn't really a singular thing. 

Except this:

(Prepare for a tangent)

One that I saw the other day that pissed me off so fast was "hey, so here's my opinion". 

Um, what? Excuse me?

Sorry, I thought you were critiquing this story, not giving your opinion. And it WAS a critique, I saw this critic on the thread, she had it out, she was one of those people who used the term "Honest Critiques" *cringe, cringe, cringe*.

THIS IS HOW SHE STARTED OFF MOST OF HER CRITIQUES. That drives me bonkers--authors don't want your opinion! They really don't! Don't start off with "hey, here's my opinion" because NO ONE CARES! They want your advice, they want your observations, they DO NOT want your opinion!

Can I make this any more clear? Critic + Story = Examination and Analyzation, not Critic + Story = Opinion. That's what your readers are for. 

Critics aren't just readers. Critics are people who analyze the story throughly.

A normal reader may say "Hey, I like your character Jude, he's awesome," whereas we critics would say "Your character Jude is really well-defined, the way he does ____ shows ____ and he stays consistent. He is a well thought out character." 

See the difference? The first one, done by a reader, is an opinion. The critic's is a lot more defined. 

Now, I think readers can give the second comment too (and it's more helpful to the author) so readers, you should be more descriptive in your opinions too! BUT--you're allowed to give your opinion, whereas we critics really just shouldn't. 

Starting off with "hey, so here's my opinion" makes you look like an asshole from sentence one. It's unprofessional, it's not even the correct word you should be using, you sound like you're not going to be giving a good critque, it's just overall BAD. 

It's worse than calling your critique and "Honest Critique" because saying "hey here's my opinion," doesn't even sound critique-ish. It sounds like a reader (and though this would be fine if they are a reader) if you're a critic then you should SOUND like one. 

That also goes into using text talk during your critique, but that's for another day. 

So, this is what I have to say on this matter. There isn't a special start-off that will guarantee a good critique, but there are ones that work for the most part. Maybe you have some of your own (comment below your style of opening up for a critique) and that works great too. Find what works best with your style and then you're doing good. 

In all seriousness, though, in Critic-Land, we frown upon "here's my opinion". 

For goodness sakes, just no.