Here's my problem, though: None of them are really that familiar with the type of story I'm writing (high fantasy). They've all read at least one high fantasy novel, so it isn't like they don't have any idea what it is, but I feel like most of the time, their criticisms and complaints are really against conventions of the genre and not my writing. Example: I was told it would be best to keep the story to one or two PoVs. Now, as a lot of you know, it is not unheard of for a high fantasy to have as many as a dozen PoV characters (or more), so this criticism that I have too many PoV characters (I have four) comes as useless advice to me. Yet, it's something they continue to comment on.

Along that same line, there is one person in the group who is very insistent that I stick to only one PoV per chapter and that it would be best if I alternate them regularly. However, as a long time reader of fantasy, I know that most fantasy authors don't do this. Some do. Others switch PoVs mid-chapter—or even mid-scene (Garth Nix in SABRIEL, for instance). It's not always regular, either. I tend to keep one PoV per scene, but will switch in the middle of a chapter if I feel it needs it. Yet, this continues to be a point of contention with that one person in my group. There's this on-going insistence that what I'm doing is very wrong and is, in fact, "head hopping". (I don't think it's head hopping at all.)

All but one member of the group (who seems to be more familiar than the others with fantasy) also balk at the length of the story (~140,000 words). And that's just the first book. The second I haven't finished yet but will likely be around the same length. All the other members of my group are writing stand-alone novels (mostly YA). This is also what they all mostly read, so when they tell me my pacing is too slow and greater than 100,000 words is too many, I'm not sure how to take it. I mean, high fantasy is going to have a slower pace than your typical YA novel. How am I to know that my pacing really is too slow or if it just seems slow to them since they don't read a lot of (adult) fantasy?

(sigh) So what to do? How should I take their criticisms when those criticisms are really about genre conventions and not my writing? How do I respond when they continue to bring up these criticisms and insist I'm not listening?

Personally, I read fantasy almost exclusively, both high fantasy and YA. But honestly, I'm also touchy about head hopping. I'm okay with changing between perspectives when you change scenes (assuming there's a section break of some kind), but otherwise I'm not a fan. And I prefer whole chapters from one perspective where possible. (I believe in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn books, it's one perspective per chapter until the climax, when the increase of intensity is showed partly by changing characters after section breaks within the same chapter. I thought it worked well.)

I see two problems here. First of all, you need feedback from people familiar with genre conventions, who can help you be sure your pacing and POV transitions are working properly. For that, I'd recommend that you look into the Novel Support Group (NSG) topics in the Hatrack Groups area, and see if you can set up some chapter exchanges with them.

Second, you need to help your group to understand that their feedback should be directed to general writing problems and they should not be distracted by things you consider genre conventions. Perhaps if you gave them a list of things you consider off-limits (length, POV switches, etc) and a list of things you want them to concentrate on, that might work.

By the way, the kinds of problems they have with your POV changes may make a difference, too. "Head-hopping" usually refers to changes within a scene, and literary fiction does that a lot with omniscient POV, so that shouldn't be as much of a problem for some (consider the "he thought-she thought" head-hopping in some romance novels).

Also, maybe ask them to critique things like believability (within your world) and likability of character, depth of plot, rather than technical things like length and quantity of pov. If they keep bringing up things that you know are genre appropriate, let them know of some of the more famous people who have done this and tell them from here on out it's a moot point so they shouldn't bother bringing it up again.

Then, try to find some critters that are more familiar with the Fantasy genre.

Appointing yourself craft cop is usually less useful, especially if you don't normally read the genre involved. Of course one does run across straightforward blunders, like shifting POV in a scene. But then when the author tells you this is intentional, there's no point belaboring the point. Every writer breaks rules, and sometimes its brilliant, other times its a blunder.

I find some prospective authors aren't generous with their effort when it comes to critique. Critique is hard. They mail in their critiques so they can discharge their obligation and get you to read their stuff. One way to do that is to become a one or two trick critic, to pounce on the same easy to catch points over and over again and then make dogmatic pronouncements about them.

But... but... sometimes you can be a lot more wrong than you think. Suppose somebody generally gives thoughtful criticism, and obviously put effort into reading and thinking about your MS. If he keeps coming back to the number of POVs you have, it's possible he's not being dogmatic, but that it just doesn't work for him no matter how much he tries.

Now a dozen POVs in a novel is almost certainly too many. Can it be done? Sure. You can even mix POVs in a scene, even though this is as close to a rule without justifiable exceptions as anything could possibly be. Ever notice how often Tolkien's POV gets shaky? Often it's clearly just a blunder, but sometimes those are very effective scenes -- particularly the 'elvish' scenes which have a kind of unearthly quality. So is shifting POV in a scene necessarily a blunder? By the punchlist school of criticism it certainly is. But if the author can carry it off, I'd say it's OK.

Open-mindedness is important on both ends of this stick. If an author you're critiquing says he understands that a dozen POVs is usually a bad idea but he's giving it a try anyhow, you should read his MS with an open mind and tell him whether it worked for you rather than automatically dismissing it. When you're the author in that scenario and the others keep coming back to that thing you insist isn't a problem, maybe that thing is a problem.

If you've told them what you're doing is intentional and/or acceptable in the genre with which they aren't familiar, they should let it go and focus on other aspects. It's my absolute belief that any critique intended to help an author should critique a work within its own context on all levels; genre, style and most of all authorial intent. Critiques that critique the thing for being what it is are generally unhelpful.

But I did learn to adjust (or I was before I left the state), and I think in part it takes letting the critiquer know what you expect. They might simply not realize that they are judging HF against something else. Tolkien can never stand when judged against Tom Clancy standards. Let them know this story is written for X-audience and ask them to critique it as such. If they are a good critter than it will help them grow to absorb and anaylze a different style, if they aren't then any crit you would get from them would be shot from the hip anyway and you should let them go.

For myself, I think a good way to tell a good critter from a bad critter, is their ability to make the criticism positive. For example:

"Your scene with the goblin devouring the townsfolk who get's killed by the knight in elvish anti-evil armor is lame. I was completely uninterested in the plight of the damsel in distress."

All negative tells you that they are against the story, rather than the way it is written. A sort of pride in being able to tear down your work.

"The scene with the goblin attack, I didn't really feel I knew the damsel well enough to be concerned with her fate. If you were to bring us to the damsel earlier, say introduce her in the background during that festival of the splenda fairies you mentioned, then we would have a sense of continuation and thus miss her if she were devoured."

Last semester I had a creative writing class, and it was mainly populated with people who started their critiques with, "I don't usually read Sci-Fi but . . . " and then give me a list of things they didn't understand. (Like, how does this 'spaceship' work, what is this 'mobile thing she takes out of her pocket'. (Which, by the way is a cell phone!)) So for my second story that the class had to crit I gave them some absurdist Sci-Fi, most of their responses were, "I have no idea what to do with this."

The point of this? Seems, to a certain extent, I'm expected to extend myself to relate to something out of my experiences or interests, writing or reading or living...yet it would seem there are those, whose own experiences-etcetera lay outside my own, are less willing to stretch for it than I am to, say, stretch for theirs...

(Offhand...one hundred forty thousand words seems pretty damn long, even longer if it's only the first-book-of-many...multiple points of view can be confusing...and a work of high fantasy might need some explaining to separate it from the here-and now, some of it substantial.

Moral? An oldie but goodie: To your own self be true.

Off to Napa Valley wine-tasting.

In an attempt to answer a few of the questions you guys posed: My group likes the story in general. They've told me my characters are strong and likable and that I've created a world they're interested in reading more about. I feel that for the most part they give very good advice and provide a lot of good insight. It's just when it comes to questions like pacing and certain fantasy conventions that their criticisms seem a little...er...off. Like they aren't aware that X, while out of place or wrong in any other genre, is something that's actually quite normal to have in a high fantasy story.