Evaluating criticism

[Nimue]

If I could find someone who did it would be great! lol. But that hasn't happened yet.

Heh, my mother published a mid-grade fantasy/magical realism novel through Harper Collins—but I’m afraid she’s mostly out of the game, Helio! And while I read her manuscripts at 12, I think my middle-schooler insights are long gone...

Your crits certainly didn’t scare anyone off, Helio... In fact, I feel like there have always been more people posting to the Showcase when there were members giving feedback across the board, whether that was you or Demesne or others. When I first joined I tried to reply to almost every Showcase thread, particularly those that hadn’t gotten feedback yet. But as I read more about critiquing and writers’ responses to it, the more I realized I didn’t know what the heck I was doing—and that I was far too nitpicky. That’s why I wonder whether the idea of glancing amateur crit, no matter how enthusiastic, is helpful or harmful. I only give feedback now if I’m absolutely certain I have something useful to say, and even then I’m not sure whether I should be saying it at all.

The separation of Showcase and Crit Requests is a good idea, absolutely. I might push myself to give more feedback now, since it’s clearer what people are looking for. And I think maybe particularly I should give general feedback in the Showcase even if I feel less “helpful”, because positivity is less fraught than critique...

 

[Svrtnsse]

I believe that reading and commenting on someone else's work is a good way to develop as a writer yourself.

I too have been in the situation where the feedback I've provided has been in the form of telling someone to rewrite their sentences in the way I wold have, but I've moved past that (mostly). I think that once you get past that stage that's when critting becomes really useful. You get the opportunity to analyse someone else's story and you have to figure out what works and what doesn't work on your own.

(also: thanks Chessie, I see you)

 

[FifthView]

RE: Koontz's naysaying v. worthwhile

I think his primary target was to distinguish between the kind of broad negativity that is impossible for an author to evaluate and criticism that can be evaluated.

Your writing sucks. Your characters are flat and boring. Learn grammar. You'll always be a mid-list writer.

This is naysaying. Ignore it. No need to even thank the critic for leaving those criticisms.

Worthwhile criticism—criticism that is most likely to be worth your while, i.e. your time—uses specificity that can be evaluated. You may entirely disagree with it, but at least it's offered in a format that can be evaluated.

Perhaps you'll get lucky and see the criticism is on point, a great help to you as you either learn something new about writing in general, your own particular writing, or something germane to the story you are telling. Perhaps the criticism isn't quite as germane but does point to an area that could use a little work; e.g., any problems in word choice the critic mentions are not really about those words but point at a problem with characterization, narration, setting development, whatever.

Maybe none of these apply. But at least you can evaluate the criticism. In this case, the criticism may still have been worth your while, your time to evaluate it, because you couldn't have known, before reading and evaluating it, that it did not apply!

RE: specificity v. broadness

This area is a little harder to evaluate. Specificity can take many forms.

Specificity can mean a word-by-word, image-by-image, line-by-line criticism.

Or, specificity can mean that instead of giving the criticism "Your characters are flat," you instead say "Your characters are talking about the task at hand, some of their dialogue is on-the-nose, and I don't feel any quirks of personality or biases coming through. Your character Duma is saying the party should travel to the sorcerer's home city. That's where the relic staff has probably been taken. A direct attack would be best. And your character Zumia is saying that the sorcerer often travels to consult with the king in Gormandaria; he'd keep the staff with him. But how do they feel about these opposing choices? Is there anything else lying under the surface of each character's argument? How do these two characters feel about each other? Maybe a little more to color their speech would add texture to the debate. That texture might make the final decision feel more weighty, leave reverberations that will continue into the following scenes."

Or, specificity can mean that rather than saying "This doesn't do it for me. I'd put it down," you instead say, "I like the characters and dialogue, but I don't feel a hook. There's not much urgency, maybe because the stake is too small?" At least the latter might point the author toward a specific area unlike the blanket statement, "Boring!"

 

[Chessie2]

Bringing it back to the OP spirit...I think general comments are actually more helpful. If they stopped reading or didn't connect with the story after a certain page it gives me insight. I don't want to know how to fix my story, just what didn't or did work. Simply put.

When a reader says "I loved this book for these reasons" it helps me understand what I did RIGHT. When a reader says "Ugh this book was not what I was expecting because it was..." and lists off reasons it helps me understand what I did WRONG for that particular reader. I'm trying to get to the point where I don't read my reviews (which are scattered to several places) but I find these helpful. I've gotten some really mean ones that were less so, but most readers who take the time to rate or comment on my stories gift me something valuable. It's them I'm writing for...and I just don't write for my crit partners.

As an aside, my husband is my first in line proofreader. He's ruthless. But I can't get too mad at him given we're locked in forever though. He has, however, saved my ass from many an idiotic mistake.

 

[Chessie2]

Heh, my mother published a mid-grade fantasy/magical realism novel through Harper Collins—but I’m afraid she’s mostly out of the game, Helio! And while I read her manuscripts at 12, I think my middle-schooler insights are long gone...

Your crits certainly didn’t scare anyone off, Helio... In fact, I feel like there have always been more people posting to the Showcase when there were members giving feedback across the board, whether that was you or Demesne or others. When I first joined I tried to reply to almost every Showcase thread, particularly those that hadn’t gotten feedback yet. But as I read more about critiquing and writers’ responses to it, the more I realized I didn’t know what the heck I was doing—and that I was far too nitpicky. That’s why I wonder whether the idea of glancing amateur crit, no matter how enthusiastic, is helpful or harmful. I only give feedback now if I’m absolutely certain I have something useful to say, and even then I’m not sure whether I should be saying it at all.

The separation of Showcase and Crit Requests is a good idea, absolutely. I might push myself to give more feedback now, since it’s clearer what people are looking for. And I think maybe particularly I should give general feedback in the Showcase even if I feel less “helpful”, because positivity is less fraught than critique...

But individual feedback is often given on the premise of what we believe the author did wrong. How is that helpful? Let me put it under a different perspective:

We go into Showcase and automatically assume the author wants a crit. "They're looking for what's wrong," we say, and go forward looking for what's wrong, without allowing ourselves to be entertained by the piece.

The samples in Showcase are just that: samples of a 80-100k piece of work. Many of us post opening chapters. How can we judge another writer's piece properly or give helpful feedback if...

A. It's a fragment of a larger piece.
B. We are not that book's target audience.
C. We don't have a lot of experience writing full length novels, or poems, or ever finished or published a work (I feel totally unqualified to crit on an epic fantasy because I don't read epics for ex).
D. We don't connect with the writing and try to change it when other readers might like the og draft.

Just some food for thought. I'm off to work now lol argh ugh...

 

[FifthView]

Chessie2 I agree with your last comment. But I think that the forum offers a little more than, say, a published criticism/review, in that 1) a wide variety of responses can appear together, and 2) it allows follow-up, a back and forth discussion.

I refreshed myself on Black Dragon's sticky. Showcase is mostly intended for showcasing, enjoyment, and anyone else reading what has been posted should refrain from criticism unless the author asks for it. But, the author can ask for it, heh. So maybe the forum isn't restricted to mere enjoyment purposes.

There is a problem with critics/readers not always knowing posters—and, vice versa. I don't think the onus falls only on those coming to read what has been posted, but also on those who post. Which is only to say, clarity of intention is important, imo. I love when an author asks for very specific forms of criticism—including specifically asking not to receive some types of criticism. In either Showcase or Critique Requests.

But absent any request for criticism, Showcase should merely be that, showcase. Unfortunately, I'm not sure everyone reads the sticky, and maybe some of us (ahem, referring to myself) have forgotten what it said. Or are confused if that was just a recent addition after the upgrade.

 

[Heliotrope]

But individual feedback is often given on the premise of what we believe the author did wrong. How is that helpful? Let me put it under a different perspective:

We go into Showcase and automatically assume the author wants a crit. "They're looking for what's wrong," we say, and go forward looking for what's wrong, without allowing ourselves to be entertained by the piece.

I agree with this. This is true. Sometimes it is hard to get out of "critique mode" and get into "reader" mode, which is why, as you noted, specific requests for feedback are helpful. "No critique required, just enjoy!" vs. "Can I have a general impression?" vs. "Does this character feel flat to you? Does anyone have thoughts on how to fix it?"

The samples in Showcase are just that: samples of a 80-100k piece of work. Many of us post opening chapters. How can we judge another writer's piece properly or give helpful feedback if...

A. It's a fragment of a larger piece.
B. We are not that book's target audience.
C. We don't have a lot of experience writing full length novels, or poems, or ever finished or published a work (I feel totally unqualified to crit on an epic fantasy because I don't read epics for ex).
D. We don't connect with the writing and try to change it when other readers might like the og draft.

This I'm not sure I totally agree with this. I get what you are saying, and I myself don't typically like to do a big cit until I know the full context of a piece, however, one does not have to be an expert in Epic Fantasy to know if dialogue feels "on the nose", or a character feels like cardboard, or a love scene is not coming across as authentic, or the piece would benefit from having some focus on structure or MRU's. That stuff is all pretty generic, and where, IMO, a place like the "new showcase" (I can't remember what it is called... Crit requests?) is beneficial.

 

[Russ]

When a reader says "I loved this book for these reasons" it helps me understand what I did RIGHT.

As an aside, my husband is my first in line proofreader. He's ruthless. But I can't get too mad at him given we're locked in forever though. He has, however, saved my ass from many an idiotic mistake.

You make an important point here that I think is often overlooked, telling people what is working is just as important as telling them what is not. Especially if you can explain why something worked.

I am my wife's first reader and she mine. We are ruthless with each other in editing and are closer for it.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I refreshed myself on Black Dragon's sticky. Showcase is mostly intended for showcasing, enjoyment, and anyone else reading what has been posted should refrain from criticism unless the author asks for it. But, the author can ask for it, heh. So maybe the forum isn't restricted to mere enjoyment purposes.

I think this is something that comes from the split of the old Showaces into Showcase and Critique Requests. This is still relatively recent, and it's probably not been fully adapted/accepted by the community yet.

I've used both recently, and got some good reactions and comments on the things I posted. The poem I posted in the showcase got some comments along the lines of what worked and didn't work for the reader, while the Scene Setting pieces I posted in the Critique requests got some more detailed comments on them. In both cases the feedback was helpful.

 

[Nimue]

But individual feedback is often given on the premise of what we believe the author did wrong. How is that helpful? Let me put it under a different perspective:

We go into Showcase and automatically assume the author wants a crit. "They're looking for what's wrong," we say, and go forward looking for what's wrong, without allowing ourselves to be entertained by the piece.

The samples in Showcase are just that: samples of a 80-100k piece of work. Many of us post opening chapters. How can we judge another writer's piece properly or give helpful feedback if...

A. It's a fragment of a larger piece.
B. We are not that book's target audience.
C. We don't have a lot of experience writing full length novels, or poems, or ever finished or published a work (I feel totally unqualified to crit on an epic fantasy because I don't read epics for ex).
D. We don't connect with the writing and try to change it when other readers might like the og draft.

Just some food for thought. I'm off to work now lol argh ugh...

If some of this is in regards to the chapters you posted recently in the Showcase, I can see that a lot of the comments I made were out of line with the board guidelines, and I’d like to apologize for that. Looking at it now I’m not sure what I was thinking, or whether I even noticed it was in the Showcase rather than Critique Requests. Criticism is my instinct for any piece of writing outside a published format, whether others’ or my own...trust me that I’d like to be able to switch that one off. Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be posting there without thinking—I’m very sorry about that.

 

[Black Dragon]

But absent any request for criticism, Showcase should merely be that, showcase. Unfortunately, I'm not sure everyone reads the sticky, and maybe some of us (ahem, referring to myself) have forgotten what it said.

I am wondering if Showcase should be limited to enjoyment only, with no criticism. All criticism would be confined to Critique Requests. What does everyone think about that?

Also, if people aren't reading the stickies, I could put an announcement across the top of both the Showcase and Critique Requests forum, which would be hard to ignore. It would clarify the purpose of each forum.

Thoughts?

 

[FifthView]

I've been on forums that include some kind of description beside the titles of individual forums.

Something like

Showcase (For enjoyment purposes. Only offer criticism if the author ask for it.)

I don't know if that would be possible here or helpful or upset the cleanliness of the current forum design.

 

[Heliotrope]

I'm not sure how that could be monitored? Like, someone posts a story and a bunch of people read it and feel compelled to say "Wow, this is really great! Keep going! I love it!" And one person says "Not really my thing. The characters feel weird." The positive comments get taken as "comments" while the negative one gets taken as a "critique," which is "not allowed" and so then the writer gets upset and the poster gets his/her hand slapped... for what? For posting a critique where it wasn't wanted? Or for simply having an opinion?

Any time you post stuff online you are going to get a mixture of positive and negative comments. Short of disabling comments all together in that forum I"m not sure how we would get around that?

"Only nice comments allowed" lol.

 

[pmmg]

Personally, I work mostly out of the recent activity, and was mostly unaware of the showcase, unless it starts to scroll by. Or, I was aware of it when I first started, but was not a place I visited frequently, and kind of forgot it was there.

As a tool for offering story posting and reviews, I had some questions about it early on, as it is really just another page in the forum. So, if stuff posted to it was viewable to people outside the site, it could ruin the publication ability of a story. I think it is safe here, but I am not 100% on that.

Other sites I have been to that offer peer review for stories, tend to have a whole separate story section. Where as there is a way to keep the story itself on top (not drifting to a few pages back) and even possibly a tab tool for adding chapters. Comments then stay with the chapters, and not add more pages to the forums. Something like that.

I think, if peer review is really a goal, MS should set as a goal to create something of that nature.

However, I've been on peer review sites, and I kind of enjoy that I am on a writers site where peer review is not the focus. This all works for me.

Showcase is fine to show off samples of writing, but it don't think it is the best tool if someone is really seeking peer input and feedback.

 

[Devor]

So, I think we should think about taking the split between Showcase and Critique Requests as an opportunity to push the way we do critiques. What if the sticky thread has something of a rubric to recommend - and if you're posting a story to critique, you could "pick" the sections of the rubric that you're looking for help with?

One thing that I've noticed is that people often don't know what they're looking for, or we say something like "All feedback welcome," so people respond with the first thing that comes to mind, and don't necessarily put a lot of thought into it. If you defaulted to a rubric, it would give you some idea of how to ask for and to offer better feedback.

Of course, nobody's going to go around judging you for not using the rubric. It would just be a tool.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Also, if people aren't reading the stickies, I could put an announcement across the top of both the Showcase and Critique Requests forum, which would be hard to ignore. It would clarify the purpose of each forum.

I'm thinking this would be a good idea. Something brief like: "mainly for enjoyment/feedback - see sticky for details"

 

[Devor]

Other sites I have been to that offer peer review for stories, tend to have a whole separate story section. Where as there is a way to keep the story itself on top (not drifting to a few pages back) and even possibly a tab tool for adding chapters. Comments then stay with the chapters, and not add more pages to the forums. Something like that.

I wonder if there's an easy way to replicate any of those? That's a question over my head. What you're talking about could be as easy as a template and a widget or as complex as many hours of programming. We've got to work with the tools we have, and I can't imagine not having a place to critique our work.

 

[pmmg]

I wonder if there's an easy way to replicate any of those? That's a question over my head. What you're talking about could be as easy as a template and a widget or as complex as many hours of programming. We've got to work with the tools we have, and I can't imagine not having a place to critique our work.

Easy, I would not think so. But I would leave that to the coders. Scribophile, and Wattpad seem to have good tools for this, so one could pop over there to see what others are doing. My old site got all changed around a while ago. I am not sure what tools it has now. Scribo is pretty similar to what I have seen before, only they have put a lot more effort into their tools. More than I really need, to be honest.

If I may say so though, tools and widgets are great, but the character of the site come from its members. Scribo has a lot of good tools, the site owner puts a lot of effort into them, but the crowd there does not appeal to me, for many reasons I could site but I'll just leave it at that. A good group can make it work regardless, so I would not fret to much if others seem to have it better. What you already have is good.

I don't say so, but people are friendly here, without being overrun by people being too sensitive, too political, or too much showing off for their friends, and the Mods seem to do a really good job, cause I almost never see anything I wish there were some good mods to handle (So thanks and good job Mods Near as I can tell, you guys are great.)

 

[Chessie2]

I agree with this. This is true. Sometimes it is hard to get out of "critique mode" and get into "reader" mode, which is why, as you noted, specific requests for feedback are helpful. "No critique required, just enjoy!" vs. "Can I have a general impression?" vs. "Does this character feel flat to you? Does anyone have thoughts on how to fix it?"



This I'm not sure I totally agree with this. I get what you are saying, and I myself don't typically like to do a big cit until I know the full context of a piece, however, one does not have to be an expert in Epic Fantasy to know if dialogue feels "on the nose", or a character feels like cardboard, or a love scene is not coming across as authentic, or the piece would benefit from having some focus on structure or MRU's. That stuff is all pretty generic, and where, IMO, a place like the "new showcase" (I can't remember what it is called... Crit requests?) is beneficial.

We'll have to disagree here. And "one the nose" is a concept that I disagree with as well for deeper reasons than this discussion warrants. On the short, it's one more nitpicky thing. Just my 2 cents.

@ Nimue: no worries girl! I still value your opinion!

 

[Black Dragon]

the Mods seem to do a really good job, cause I almost never see anything I wish there were some good mods to handle (So thanks and good job Mods Near as I can tell, you guys are great.)

Thank you for noticing. They really are first rate. We've got a great team of mods who bring with them a diverse array of talents and backgrounds. They work hard to keep this community at it's best.