(CLOSED) LUMOS: A Harry Potter Fanfiction Book Club

How to Write a Good Critique

Writing a good critique is so important, because as you very well know being a writer yourself, our stories are our babies. When someone criticizes them, we tend to take it personally. We also recognize that without criticism, it's much harder to improve. As writers, we are so close to our work it's often difficult to get that objective distance we need to recognize what's working and what isn't. Here's my crash course in writing a critique that will both build up the writer and give them something to work on (and hopefully a strategy for addressing that something!)

REVISING VS. EDITING

A lot of people on Wattpad seem to mistake a critique for correcting grammar and spelling mistakes. That's editing. A critique should be aimed at revision, not editing. We want to hit on plot movement and storytelling techniques, characterization, how well the writer stays in scene, their use of action verbs, realistic and believable dialogue, descriptive and sensory language... the big stuff. The stuff that moves the story forward. Anyone is going to be able to go back and check their work for typos. What you're looking for from an outside perspective is someone who isn't so close to the story that they can't see the flaws and can point out some weak points that you need to rework for yourself.

That's not to say you can't point out grammatical errors and typos. If, for example, someone is consistently using an incorrect grammatical structure for their dialogue tags, it would probably be helpful to point that out. 

Similarly, if someone is using a lot of passive voice (am/is/are/was/were/be/being/been) or a lot of adverbs and that's making the immediacy of their scene fall flat, you might want to let them know.

These comments can be helpful. The point is, these are drafts we're looking at. Not finished, professionally published novels. So while editing style comments, or "red-lining" as it's sometimes called, is definitely allowed and can help someone sharpen their sentences or make their writing more clear, the bulk of our critique should be aimed at the big picture stuff, at revision. Those are the aspects of writing that are going to help us grow into a better, more effective writer. Having someone say you mistakenly used the wrong form of "there" probably won't.

COMPLIMENT SANDWICH STRUCTURE

A critique shouldn't only say what isn't working. You need to tell an author what IS working too. It's so important to know what you're doing well (i.e. strong dialogue or consistently staying in scene or good use of sensory language, etc.) so that you don't lose that later when you're ruthlessly ripping your story apart because you've inevitably decided you hate it and everything about it and need to start from square one all over again.

My college professors taught me this technique for writing critiques for our workshop days and I think it is so worth passing on. I call it the compliment sandwich and I've sort of fine-tuned what was a more general idea over the last couple of years.

I start out with what I thought was well done on a technical level. I'll address any positive comments with regards to grammar, word choice (especially of action verbs and sensory language), sentence structure, flow, and point of view.

In the middle I move into the things I was confused by, thought were lacking, wanted more from, or didn't think fit. I might point out an overarching grammatical issue here, such as the above-mentioned adverb overuse, but I'm primarily looking for plot points that don't make sense, character reactions or dialogue that doesn't seem justified, believable, or true to character, and parts of the chapter that either dragged or felt rushed. I offer suggestions for change, not telling the author what should happen in their story, but just directing them towards a new way of thinking about it that might open up some potential ideas they hadn't thought of before. I like to ask "what if?" questions so I'm not imposing my own agenda too much.

Finally I'll finish with what I enjoyed as a reader. I'll comment on moments that made me feel something whether it was funny or sweet or sad or whatever. I'll comment on the plot ideas and characters that I think are strong or that have a lot of potential and I'll encourage the writer to keep pushing further at those things they're already doing well at in order to flesh the story out even further. I try to point out any moment that made me genuinely care what happened next, because that's when you know you're invested in a story and investment is exactly what any writer hopes of their reader.

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY CRITICISM IS CONSTRUCTIVE OR TOO HARSH?

Where a lot of people seem to go wrong with writing criticism is that they forget there's a human who's going to read it. Yes, some stories are THAT BAD. Like grammar's a mess, story's nonexistent, characters are gimmicky, dialogue's cliche... the whole deal. 

I don't care how bad it is. I don't care how much you hate it. That's no excuse for being mean. 

Try to refrain from using phrases like "I liked" or "I didn't like." ALWAYS refrain from using phrases like "I hated." You should never, under any circumstances tell someone they are a bad writer or that they should stop writing. 

Believe me, it is completely possible to give a fully honest and fully kind review. You can be tough love without being cruel. Quick tip here is to focus all your negative comments on encouragement for bettering their writing. Rather than saying "This sucked," say "This wasn't working because A, B, and C, but I know you're totally capable of fixing that. You might want to try A, B, and/or C to get you going and see what that does for you. It might totally change where you thought things were going or reveal something new about your characters you didn't even know! Revision is scary but it's also so exciting to let go of the reigns a little and let the characters lead the way."

The short version of all this is simple: if you would be offended or hurt or discouraged by what you wrote if someone said it about your story, don't write it. Reword it. Find gentler words.

Remember that no matter how bad you think a story is, everyone has the potential to improve. Everyone starts with a crappy first draft and some first drafts (for all of us) are a lot crappier than others. Your job as a reviewer is not to fix all the problems in the story - that's the writer's job. It's to make sure the writer knows they are capable of better, doesn't settle for what they already have, and has a game plan for where to start the revision process so it doesn't seem like such a daunting project.

CONCLUSION

I really hope this was helpful to all of you, both in this club, and outside it. Learning to critique other's work this way actually helped me a lot with my own writing as well, both in the initial writing process and in revision. Feel free to add your own points in the comments below if you have other useful tips and tricks that might come in handy for someone. :)