I have given critiques, in more writing groups than just this one, for stories and fragments that didn't fall within my normal reading habits. I've noticed I tend to limit my input to very general terms such as grammar, POV, character development, and plot construction. Whereas, for something I might consider buying, I often have more substantial input regarding plausability and readability.

The only differences are the settings and the characters.

Critique on what you can. If you are unfamiliar with the genre, avoid critiquing realism of the characters and setting. Likewise, if someone is unfamiliar with your genre, take their critiques in these areas with that in mind.

Most people will be able to offer advice taking the story as a self contained work.

If a critique starts with, 'I hate stories that are so tolkieneque or so hard sci fi', then you can pretty much ignore the rest of that person's words. They are biased and were biased from the moment they decided your work fit their prejudice. They cannot seperate their writer/editor self from their emotional reaction to your genre.

If you cannot offer a fair critique based simply on the genre or sub-genre, then just come out and say so and then stop the critique altogether and apologize. It's not their fault for choosing a genre you don't like.

quote:

---

I have to preface my comments by saying that this is exactly the sort of story that makes me view "literature" with extreme distaste. I absolutely feel no personal connection with the POV character, the action is confused and boring at the same time, hate it hate it hate it.

And yet, for all of that, it is a pretty well written piece of "literature", with a clearly decodable subtext and effective use of the first person immediate past tense to define the character as the sort of constantly self-justifying person that all healthy individuals instinctively shun. Therefore, I will address my criticisms to the "literary" aspects of the story, rather than boring you all with how little I liked it personally.

The apparent purpose of the story is to put us into the mind of a person that we would never willingly be or associate with, both because his behavior and personality are disgusting in the extreme and because he is consciously and deliberately dishonest at every level. It succeeds fairly well, though there are some technical errors (list of technical errors, hold on to your butts).

[very long and through critique]

Actually just for the literary effect you might want to start transitioning into syntactic present tense as you reach the end of the story, which would be easy given the appropriate use of sentance fragments and the integration of his dream imagery into his perceptual process. This would also highlight the contrast of the final line, showing the entire story as building to this point in time rather than simply ending there.

I will close with the comment that I would rather read more stories written for readers rather than for 'literature' professors, and if I were an actual literature professor (rather than someone that survived Eng. Lit. by a combination of testing out of it and finding a novice professor to corrupt from the true path of 'literary' writing) I would give this an F despite being a good example of 'literature', but that would be a frank admission of a bias against the form rather than an honest judgement of how well you've achieved it. The choice of a 'gritty', 'realistic' character and plot also works as 'literature' (if only I had a mind reading machine, so I could see if there were really people like this...and summarily execute them in a most painful manner--perhaps by deep fat frying them...).

---

After having said much in praise of the story, I went even further in its defense during the next "day" of critiquing.

quote:

---

I should probably clarify a number of points.

First, I actually think that the opening line works well because it tells us that the story is going to pivot around [pivotal story event], and in fact that is the point in time that the story appears to be told from, the [pivotal story event]. We also are given reason early in the story to look forward to [pivotal story event] ([cause of event]), so the implication that there will be [pivotal story event] is very strong. On the other hand, I think that we already know [story information] ("[text quote]"--actually didn't like the wording of that so much), and could guess it in any case from the fact that these are [characterization]. The beauty of the last line being the same as the first is that it effectively compresses the entire narrative into the thoughts of the POV character as [story frame].

[Another critic] has some good points about some of the grammer. It could be better throughout, notwithstanding the conceptual relation to the POV narrator's somewhat inferior mentation. And the dialogue was usually pretty hokey (but that's always the case).

As I indicated before, I like the contrast between the dark, aimless, lethargy of the initial dream and the bright, passionate, desperation of the later vision that develops. I don't believe that the initial dream has to serve any other purpose than highlighting that contrast, but if we look at the symbolism in the later dream it becomes clear that the previous dream is a clear symbol of his "[text quote describing the character's life]" vs the [tranformative character goal] that he is drawn to at the end of the story.

[Aforementioned critic] has another good point about the unreliable narrator, one that I don't believe I made clearly. I think that the narrator comes across as consistently self-justifying and unreliable (which is good in a literary sense though I didn't like it myself). He also has a good point about the lack of context in describing [character] as a statue (though I think that you meant she was stern and asture looking rather than lively and soft like a Greek statue). I made that point myself. I thought of making a point about the [characterization], but decided I would throw it in as part of his not very clear relationship with his sister.

I agree that the [...] simile worked very well. I also thought that the 17 year old dialog was hokey (so is mine) but reasonably clear in illustrating [character's] character. Didn't care for her shout of "[hokey dialog]"

I thought you made the fact that [character] thinks of his realization [obvious information] as an act of superlative bravery a rather effective tag letting the reader know that this is still what [character] rather than anyone else thinks. Looking at that monstrosity of a sentence, I realize why [other critter] hates me. Okay, by telling us that he is superlatively brave for observing the obvious, [character] demonstrates that this is his own thought, and not the author's.

As I said before, I felt that the first person of this piece was actually quite effective (in the cause of evil, of course). I also feel that the strong use of literary parallelisms and symbolism, along with the structuring of the piece as a narrative compression of events into the single moment of crisis is not an accident (though I mentioned some problems with the tense compression--along with suggested fixes). It seems to me that these are deliberate, or at least show a strong sense for the modes of ENG LIT. I can see that this story is already following a very clear formula, and as it doesn't seem to have any real purpose outside that formula, I gave very clear instructions for better adhering to the form, but I absolutly agree with [other critter] that there is not a single formula for writing stories (if the rest of you are going to start submitting identical stories, I will be mightily displeased with you all).

I also agree that most characters should not view themselves or others in the self-centered way that this character views everything...but this particular character clearly does, and to maintain the integrity of the narrative he should do it consistently. Also, since the dream sequences are an important part of the symbolism of the story and an important symptom of the characteristic failure of [character] to confront reality, they should be consistently represented, and should be presented as a part of his perceptual reality. I realize that I only listed one way to accomplish this, but telling you what I just told you would be resorting to jargon (I do this, but not when clear language will be understood).

This story is clearly a work of ENG LIT. As such, if follows certain very tight conventions. I would prefer that stories not be ENG LIT, as I do not like them, and of course I do not believe that they are the only type of story worth telling. But to the extent that this works, it works as ENG LIT. I didn't make the rules of ENG LIT, I don't like them, I don't write ENG LIT because I detest it, but ENG LIT has certain rules (and they are very restrictive). I may get some of these rules wrong (I only stole the code, after all). But don't send me an ENG LIT story and then shoot me for critting it as an ENG LIT.

---

I don't think I made it clear in my crit just how much I dislike this sort of story. After all, I made extensive suggestions for how to "improve" it (I may not have ever learned anything in English class, but I did pay attention). And I defended all kinds of things about the story that all of us hated.

Was my critique "fair"? Well, I'll leave that question to those who care. My objective in a critique isn't to be "fair", it is to identify what the author is doing, what the author is probably trying to do, and make suggestions to bring the former into better correlation with the latter.

Admittedly, it generally makes my critiques heartless. Even cruel. But that's how I do it.

Would I have been "better off" by just saying I didn't like it? Well...although I don't regularly consume "literary" stories, I do occasionally find some real gems inside the genre. The genre as a whole (exemplified by this particular story) isn't to my taste, but I do find that when I like a "literary" story, being able to appreciate the various tricks of that trade really does make a difference in my enjoyment. Just as having a basic understanding of SF tropes and concepts heightens my enjoyment of SF, and having seriously read Tolkien helps me appreciate well written Fantasy. I don't usually enjoy "literary" stories, but when I do, I really enjoy them because I can understand some of what the writer is doing.

There is no such thing as a "bad genre". Even romance...I've read at least one (probably meaning only one) romance novel that was genuinely delightful (and no, I'm not talking about Austin or Bronte or whoever, I mean a "romance novel" from Harlequin or whereever). Even if you think the overall tendancy of an entire genre is very bad, there can still be well written and engaging stories found there.

Literary novels written about angsty, neurotic characters in the first person? My list of favorite books (if I ever got around to compiling it, which I won't do soon) would contain several. Sure, most of what gets turned out by that school is crap, but that's mostly because the people who write it aren't writing for the sake of writing, they're posing as writers for some other reason. But some of the best writers in the English language have turned up in the "literary" genre (nowhere near the percentage that English professors would have you believe, but still a non-zero number).

I didn't mention to that author that I count some "literary" works among my favorites because, while I found a lot of solid points in that story, overall I still hated it. It would be a little too "I've read stories I loved in this genre, but yours isn't one of them." Or, more like that would be exactly what I'd be saying

All stories have the same basic structure. The only thing I can see that would trip up a critique would be ignorance of a genre's cliches. That's easily cleared up by putting a disclaimer in your critique.

quote:

---

"I only read the first page of this submittion because it is science fiction. Nobody understands science fiction, and I will spend the next ten minutes telling you all why science fiction turns my stomach . . ."

"I didn't bother to read your story because it is romance. I will spend the next ten minutes telling you all why romance gives me headaches . . ."

"This is a stupid story because it is horror. Horror stinks, and I will spend the next ten minutes telling you all why horror stories bore me . . ."

---

I always want to hear the critiquer's opinions of the work, and it is useful to know whether the critiquer has read anything else in the genre.