The only value of a critique, whether done in group or as an individual, is to help you understand how you can do better on the NEXT story, not necessarily "fix" the story being critiqued.

Endlessly re-writing a story because of critiques received against it is a recipe for killing your new production.

If you notice a theme in the critiques directed at your current story, apply that lesson to the next story.

Because you won't ever write a story that makes your entire writing group say, unanimously, "It's wonderful!" Someone will inevitably pick on your story. For something. Anything.

Again, let a paying editor be the ultimate judge. You're writing to get published. You're writing to get PAID. Do your writing group members pay you? Can they publish you??

No?

My assumption, and I think Brad's is the same, is that you are seeking a critique on what you believe to be the finished product.

I just finished a draft on a piece where I got hung up about three fourth through. In the end I just hammered it out to get the story out of my mind. I know it has problems and I need to work it over. That, IMO, is a normal process of writing and different from what Brad is speaking about.

No one writes brilliant prose from the get go. But you should have your story in good shape by the third pass. First pass being your initial writing. The second pass being a cleanup/revision and the final pass, for me anyway, is a read out loud to catch any of the invisible problems my prose often has.

Once that is complete you seek a critique but get that puppy out the door quickly and get started on your next project.

Just my take.

Sooner or later, you just have to let it go and move on to something else. And by "let it go" I mean finish it, then print it out and get it into an editor's hands. Even if you think it's trash. Even if you think it's the worst piece of crap in the world.

Stories can and are edited or re-written to death. Dean Wesley Smith talks about this all the time. And it's something I think all of us wannabes have to careful about. We refuse to let ourselves suck. We refuse to not make it absolutely perfect. We waste untold hours re-telling the same freaking sentences, paragraphs, and passages, until our eyes roll out of our heads and we've re-read our own story so much, we have no chance at all of "seeing" it as it really is.

Problem is, we are our own worst evaluators. We know very little about what makes our writing good or bad. Our writing groups don't know jack squat about it either. Chances are, if we edit or re-write too much, because of our own internal critic or our critics in our groups, we will suck the voice out of the story and then we've basically ruined any impact it might have had on the reading public.

So if you ask me, I say, write everything like it's Final Draft. Don't allow yourself the luxury of being sloppy or making promises to go back and fix it later. Write like you know it's going out the door the second you type THE END. Then, if you want to review the piece, don't take more than a day. When I write short fiction, I give myself two or three days from start to finish. No longer, if I can help it. A week or more on a short story means I have lost the voice or have run into some sort of plot problem or didn't think my story through carefully enough.

When this happens I throw the story in a "scraps" folder on my computer, which I usually go back to at later dates and "mine" for ideas, characters, etc; building blocks for new stories which I've taken the time to think through and know how they will go differently, as compared to the original.

Again, I think the point of a group critique is to pick up on what can be done better in the NEXT story, not fixing the current story. Chances are, if you spend all your time "fixing" the current story, you will probably hurt it more than you help it, and you'll have expended precious time re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, as opposed to setting sail on a new adventure.

Here's another thought.

In the Army we do something called an AAR; After Action Review.

I wish all writing groups were conducted as AAR.

What is an AAR?

At the end of every mission, event, op, whatever, everyone involved gets together and QUICKLY identifies:

- What was supposed to happen (the mission objective)
- What did happen (the mission, as actually executed)
- Sustains (things that went good, to be repeated next time)
- Improves (things that went bad, to be avoided next time)
- Additional feedback

At the platoon and squad level, the AAR is often informal and should take no more than a few minutes. Tops.

Every author is different and every story is unique. Yes, endlessly tinkering with stories is counter productive, but critiques can often be useful in helping an author to see beyond their own tunnel vision on a story, and get to that final version. Many authors have a few trusted readers that they listen to carefully, and adjust their stories around. I wouldn't ever suggest not changing a story around based upon a good critique if the author thought it would make the story better.

What every author does have to learn is at what point to stop tinkering, and like Brad suggested, just get it finished and in the mail. Like he said, not everybody is going to like everything. Part of learning that is having confidence in your own work.

Every author learns and uses critiques in their own way, in my opinion. Learn what does and doesn't work, but if an author isn't getting stories finished and submitted, they need to reevaluate their process.

Talent is another matter, an inherent one, I believe. We're born to instinctively tell stories. It's a survival trait. As we learn language, somewhere along the line, storytelling talent gets beaten into the background by the insistent proclamations of grammarian and stylistic tyrants.

I'm of the "learn and make the next story better" school of thought. I've learned a fair amount about what I've been doing by showing my stories to others---some of which I wanted to avoid doing in future stories.

True, I don't take what I learn and go back to polish the written chapters; I'll make notes, and worry about rewriting down the road. But I do try to use it on the next chapter--well, I guess Brad's idea does apply

Now if only someone would yank my Hatrack membership so I could get some writing done... Except that I agree with tchernabyelo too.

The key word is “necessarily fix”. Sometimes, a critique will be a huge help in cleaning up problems and ambiguities. Other times, absolutely, the issues raised are just too big, or too general, or too far outside the scope of what you were trying to accomplish.

The trick, as with so many things, is knowing when to let go.

A critique is to pinpoint what bothers you about a story. It helps the author (when it's not just a matter of taste), but it helps the critiquer learn to identify those flaws in his or her own writing.

That's what it's for.

What you get critiques for (which is a slightly different subject) is feedback. Period. Feedback itself is neither good or bad, it's knowledge. You learn to separate who nitpicks and who points out prose flaws from who hunts cliches or larger plot issues. Collation of this information is important as it points out problems noted by more than one individual. Those problems automatically gain validity. How to fix them (whether it's what Chris Owens calls a "band aid" or as I do: a complete re-draft) is the author's choice.

As to when you have enough critiques: If you are asking this question, chances are it's not plot, prose or dialogue that is the problem--it's courage. No amount of critiques can give you that. If you've noticed a trend in critiques, that's the information you needed. Obsessing only makes things worse.

Always remember that it's your story. If it starts to become another person's, the outside influences have gone too far. Period.

The best thing a critique can do for you is to give you insight into the experience of reading your work. If you as a writer believe that readers automatically experience what you intend for them to experience then you are deluded. You do not know what it is like to be your own reader. You never will.

If someone finds my funny scene boring, my exposition scene choppy, my dramatic scene humorous, or my tender scene brutal, then I want to know about it. I don't care if I apply what I learn to my current work, my next work, or some future work.

As to whether all critiquers are *pleased* with the concept of my story, I agree. Just move on.

Brad isn't saying that there isn't valuable information coming to you in critiques. He is saying that that valuable information is better served in a new piece than endlessly reworking an older piece.

Anyone who subscribes the Heinlein idea of writing knows that your writing is not served by revising and re-revising your work.

I've seen too many would-be authors get trapped, endlessly re-writing their work because The Group (ugh!) is never quite happy enough with it.

This kills new production.

New production (not endless re-writes!) is the ONLY WAY you get better,

Endless re-writes kill voice.

Endless re-writes sap the vigor out of a story.

Endless re-writes keep you from moving on, sort of like people who can never get over a divorce, or the death of a loved one.

I'm not saying critiques can't be useful or give good information. I am saying that spending all your time trying to please The Group, instead of just pounding out new material, is a total waste and won't get you where you want to go: pro publication.

Unless, of course, you're just fine writing exclusively for The Group.

I was pointing out that there might be some other value. Your statement is so extremist that anyone finding any other value in a critique would defeat your argument.

I have very little faith in peer writing groups. Having experimented with them over the years, they haven't helped me much. Mostly because most people in those groups didn't seem to have a clear idea what the group was for, what their role was, or how to distinguish personal genre or topic preferences from constructive criticism about technique and content.

There were also always one or two writers who deluged the group(s) with endless novel chapters and stories, such that if you actually took the time to read it all, each week, you had very little time or energy left over for your own work.

In the end, a peer group can't buy or publish anything.

Editors do that.

My advice for anyone who is brand-new to this whole game, would be to write with the editor and the paying reader in mind; not the peer writing group.

The only exception to this, that I can see, would be something like Clarion, Clarion West, Uncle Orson's Boot Camp, etc.

Places that are run by professionals with the aim of making you into a professional too.

Trying to learn how to write professionally in a peer group of unpublished amateurs, well... Can someone spot the irony?

If anyone here personally loves their writing group, its members, and the peer process, fine. More power to you. I won't tell you your opinion is invalid because it's your opinion, and if the tool works for you, great. Your experience is obviously a positive, whereas mine has always been a negative.

But I stand by my assertion that ANY writing group fails to be useful the second it delays you or stops you from working on new material, or sending that material to the markets. Nobody ever had a novel "peer group" its way to the NYT bestseller list.

But of course, nobody has to take my word for anything.

Consider Dean Wesley Smith:

But I'd rather be a published author with a good critique group, than a prolific unpublished author.

If you open any best seller's book, there is a "thanks" page. Stephen King (can he be considered a best seller?) gives thanks to his "first reader" like that.

If you're not worried about impressing your critique group, fine. But don't tell us that critiquers are less important than "paying" readers until you see the size of some of our personal libraries. Critiquer were paying readers first. And, in a time when readership is slowly shrinking, these are the type of people--believe it or not--that will be most likely to buy a book from a new author.

Every critiquer has something valuable to add. Maybe it isn't prose advice, or dialogue or plot--but, everyone points something valuable out.

Whether or not you listen my not be the turning point for getting published, but if you don't acknowledge the possibility it someday will.

And, there are a few published authors kicking around Hatrack -- ignore advice at your own risk. For me, I'll consider everything (even if I already know the advice).

So, did you get some critique that offended you? Because it seems like it.

It seems from your link that you are confusing The Value of Critique with Not Following Through. I've seen quite a few writers cite Heinlein's Rules, and then proceed to define them. And we've already discussed them here - surprise! - but the "don't revise" is not to say "don't smooth out what you know to be wrong".

Whose advice do I value more? The fellow amateur in my peer critique group? Or a working professional?

Easy answer.

Right now I plan on attending next year's week long workshop that OSC is operating. I've got the budget already set aside for it. I'd do Clarion West, but that's too expensive and takes too much time; time I cannot spare from my busy work, home, and military schedule.

My point being: if you have to work in a critique group, make sure it's being run by someone who knows WTF they're talking about so that your time is well-spent, and not wasted.

Every lay critique group I've ever been party to has always been composed of amateurs. None of the advice given ever helped me sell anything, and in fact, much of it set me back; in terms of structure, story dynamic, voice, and morale.

Again, if you personally think peer amateur critique groups are great, fine by me.

I never said all critique groups suck. If you're fortunate to be part of a group which contains working professionals, boffo.

If you're in a critique group and you think it works, yay.

The conventional wisdom among amateurs is that peer critique groups are near-essential.

My experience says the conventional wisdom is a lot of B.S.

If my stating this offends or upset you, I don't really care.

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If my stating this offends or upset you, I don't really care.

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I agree, critiques aren't perfect. For me, they provide insight into my writing. How I deal with them is my choice. I appreciate your perspective. However, I find an absolutist attitude, as if any one process or ideology must work for everyone, to be incredibly defeating to what we are trying to accomplish here.

His opinion was probably stated in a rather matter-of-fact manner that maybe could have been tactfully dressed down a bit. But the responses were, for the most part, equally absolutist.

I've seen it time and time again on this board as well as others. Amateurs aren't too excited about taking advice from other amateurs regardless of the fact that this advice might be backed up by the support of a successful writer.

There are authors whose first work was published and those who wrote for twenty years before selling a single piece. We all have different stories and different paths but we almost all have the same goal. I can find a person who did it differently than every writer who has ever written an article on how to get published. That doesn't mean that author is wrong, it just means there are multiple paths to the same destination.

I'd put it to everyone not to lose sight of that.

~Anthony

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I doubt that he is so offended at people disagreeing with him but rather that they are saying he is wrong.

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Isn't that the same thing? Or at least, the same thing in the "disagreeing" party's eyes?

And, it seems he's walking into a place with an established method and telling everybody else they don't know what they're talking about. That's either rude or arrogant--or both. He's going to push a few people's buttons that way.

I'd put it to him to consider that.

quote:

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Isn't that the same thing? Or at least, the same thing in the "disagreeing" party's eyes?

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Not at all. disagreeing with someone's opinion is simply saying you are of different opinion. Telling someone their opinion is wrong is quite different.

I also don't get the opinion that he is telling ANYONE that they don't know what they are talking about. Why would be even participate in Hatrack if he didn't think there was value in a critique.

He merely thinks that value is better served in a new story. I tend to agree. So which am I? Arrogant or Rude?

~Anthony

Yes, Brad said that what is learned from a critique should be applied to subsequent stories, as it should (whether the critique is given or received by a writer).

His implication (or, at least, the inference from what he said)that what is learned from a critique would be wasted if applied to the object of the critique (the current story) could have been more carefully expressed as his opinion instead of coming across to some as more absolute than that.

If feedback on a story is not allowed to be used to improve that story, then there are those who would not bother making the effort to provide feedback. It is only natural to wonder what would be the point of reading and commenting on a story and its specific problems if the feedback were not at least looked at with the possibility of applying it to the story.

So, as has already been pointed out, please, apply feedback offered on your story to the stories that come after it.

As has also already been pointed out, whether the author applies that feedback to the story that generated the feedback is entirely up to the author.

Okay?

Brad, I would not have achieved my story sales without a "peer" writing group (though in any group of "peers", some will be more expereinced, some less so).

When I first came to Hatrack, I learned a lot from people who were further "up the ladder" than me. I'm now further up the ladder myself, and the reason I'm back is to try and pass on some of what I learned, just as others did for me - though there is still a huge amount for me to learn yet; I'm not trying to pretend I have all the answers.

I'm not the only one. This write-and-never-look-back philosophy was the one thing Brandon Sanderson had to abandon before he could break in. Learning to do multiple drafts, he maintains, was key to him taking his writing to the next level. The level that got him published.

Orson Card himself gives everything he writes to Kristine, his wife, and you'd better belive the man revises based on her reactions.

In my experience, Brad's right when he says endless rewrites are harmful. They are. He's right when he says trying to please everyone in a writing group is impossible and will probably ruin your story. It is. And he's right when he says many writing groups have folks in them that don't know how to give helpful feedback. Alas, I've met too many of those critiques.

But none of these issues should lead us to believe that you cannot fix or improve a story after getting feedback. Communication takes two people. If I'm not clear, I'll only know it because the other party tells me so. If my five pages of details on digging a cesspit are not interesting (true story), I'll only know when my wise reader tells me so.

In my experience, what's critical are the following:

1. I know what I'm trying to do with the piece.
2. I select readers who are likely in the audience for my story.
3. I select readers who know how to respond in the way I find helpful (or I guide them). All I want is an accurate account of the reader's experience of the tale. I don't want critique. I don't want edits. I just want a report of the reader's interest levels.
4. I don't try to please all of them. I just look for a majority.
5. I take responsibility for my art (don't rely on them to tell me what to do).

Feedback has been incredibly helpful to me. Yes, a writer ought to avoid the traps Brad mentions. But in my experience responding to good feedback by revising the current piece isn't one of those traps writers should avoid. It's just part of the process.

I will grant that there are bad critique groups out there, but blanket statements about the uselessness of critique groups always rubs me the wrong way. I've gotten excellent feedback from critique groups in the past that helped me to improve the story that was being critiqued. And I've sold those improved stories to pro publications.

> Endlessly re-writing a story because of critiques received
> against it is a recipe for killing your new production.

I'll agree with that, but the key word is "endlessly." I will often run a story by two (sometimes three) different critique groups and then revise it before sending it out. But I don't run a story through the same critique group more than once. So the critiquing process has an end.

> Trying to learn how to write professionally in a peer group
> of unpublished amateurs, well... Can someone spot the irony?

I used to go to a critique group that met at a Barnes and Noble. I was the only professionally published writer in that group, but I still got valuable feedback from the other writers.

One of those other writers just sold her first novel in a two-book deal for six figures. She's now made much, much, much more money than I have from writing. Does that suddenly make her advice more valuable? No, because I knew she was an excellent writer all along, even if she hadn't sold anything yet.

I am more than willing to be wrong. And obviously my past experience has colored my view on the subject.

I think the last thing you noted, is the key.

Finding and keep group members who are WORTH keeping.

Not just whoever happens to float through, but men and women who are similarly serious, similarly driven, and at a (more or less) similar level with their craft.

I know I've p*ssed off a few people here at Hatrack. For that I apologize.

This thread (and its companion) had been excellent food for thought. No doubt.

I've found that to be more important, actually, than how smart or experienced the members are, or the quality of their insight. I need people to be invested, to show up, and follow through.

I can spot the irony. The irony is that, once your story is published, the majority of your readers will be "unpublished amateurs" who will be deciding for themselves if you suck or not.

I trust the opinions of my critique group to be just that... a reader, giving me feedback on how the story flies. Is it making sense? Is it compelling?

I like to see if several people are pointing out a problem with the same passage, if things clear in my mind are confusing to others, if they are responding the way I want to the characters and the plotline. I find it particularly helpful to have people in the group who are from different countries, because some phrases comes across differently in Great Britain and/or Australia than they do in the USA.

A critique is just a tool. Like every other tool a writer uses, it works best if you know how to utilize it properly. The trick when you get back a round of critiques is to take what helps and learn to leave the rest behind.