Writing Critiques

[Lorna]

I've been doing some research on how to write a good critique.

This web page is very helpful:

How to Critique Fiction by Victory Crayne

 

[ShortHair]

That's a fairly exhaustive list. I would advise beginning critiquers to concentrate on the most glaring flaws. If the writer has trouble with grammar and spelling, the more advanced topics will be lost on him/her at that stage. One exception, of course, would be if English was not the writer's first language. Covering topics the writer is not ready to tackle will only waste your time and his/hers.

Another tip: preface your remarks with the diplomatic advice this piece gives. Tell the writer up front that you're trying to help, not hurt. Nobody wants to be told they've made mistakes, but that's the only way they'll ever learn.

 

[Butterfly]

I posted this link a while ago in Chit-Chat. May as well put it here too.

How To Write Critiques?

 

[Weaver]

This starts out with something very important: Let the author know if this is not your favorite type of story.

How often have we, as fantasy writers, gotten feedback that amounts to "This stinks [except they use harsher language than that] because it's fantasy and all fantasy stinks"? That is, in my opinion, a dishonest critique; it isn't judging the writing by itself. If you cannot keep personal opinions about genre/subject matter out of your critique of this particular story, don't critique it. (There are some kinds of story that I won't touch for this reason.)

That doesn't mean that only people who read fantasy all the time can have anything useful to say about it. See, it can be a good thing to get feedback from people who don't usually read fantasy (or whatever genre), because people who do read it a lot are familiar with the conventions of the genre and may not even notice if something is unclear - they can fill in the blanks with their own knowledge of what usually goes in that kind of story. On the other hand, if the reader likes the story but admits to getting confused because he/she doesn't know what the word mage means (this happened to me once), they may not be the best person to give you feedback.