July 30, 2010 8:30 PM PDT

Writing Effective Critiques by Debra Grace Khattab

(A quick point, tell the writer up front if you have read other critiques or not, it will help the writer evaluate your commentary. I find personally that I like it better when no critiques are read before giving my story a critique. That way I can see if a problem is prevalent for many people or not. Sometimes if it is only one person who is having a problem with your story or an element in your story, you can ignore it and still be publishable since stories don't come across to everyone in the same way.)

I. Rule One: Start Out Positive

One of the first rules of critiquing is to get the author to hear what you say. This does not mean you need to say only nice things, but it does mean that you need to be both diplomatic and smart when writing your critique. A good rule of thumb I follow is to start out your critique with positive comments. This doesn't mean you have to lie if you had real problems with the story, i.e. it didn't move you as a reader, or had so many grammar and structure problems that the story lost you. It does mean that you should work hard at first finding something positive to say about the story or at least in being extremely diplomatic right at the start if you had trouble finding anything positive to say. Here's an example of how to be positive in an intelligent way from a solid critique I received from an excellent writer who wasn't into the type of horror in my story:

"Before I begin this critique, I should be up front and say that I don't enjoy stories that end with suicides. Just because I have this prejudice doesn't mean that everyone else feels this way."

(Notice that the critiquer is up front about where his prejudices lie, a good tact when the story's subject matter doesn't appeal.)

"Gerald's Dead isn't the sort of story that you'd want to sit down and read to little children. I'll try to make some suggestions of how to improve it. . . . It's up to her if she likes any of them, or if she just wants to leave the story as it is.

"First of all, I enjoy the suspense of horror more than the acts of violence that take place."

This critiquer basically told me to take his suggestions with a grain of salt since some of his suggestions are going to come from a non-horror (at least of the horror style I wrote the story in) reader. I did find useful comments in his critique although I needed to ignore many of his comments unless I wanted to rewrite the story as a non-horror story.

I generally find that I as a critiquer can find something positive to say about a story, especially if I focus first off on what the meat of the story is, i.e. what I thought the writer was trying to say in their story. Even if the plot wasn't clear enough or didn't appeal to me, I try to find some unique viewpoint or unusual aspect of the story's plot or ideas to point out and encourage the writer to pursue. More than just helping the writer feel good, these positive points help the reader know what he has done right which then encourages the writer to pursue and deepen what he is doing well. In addition to the basic plot, I find there are many times positive comments which can be found out of the following areas: the characters; character build-up; motivation for the characters; dialogue; background description; character description; descriptive language; story structure (how/where it began & how/where it ends especially); point of view; scene vs. summary; and any unique or well-done science fiction/fantasy/horror elements found in the story. This list, when you add in grammar, is also the list you look at when you evaluate the story for problems.

II. Isolate The Basic Problems

Keep in mind that you want to voice your comments diplomatically and now begin to detail the problems you've found in the story. To me the most important part to analyze right away is the basic plot and plot elements. After I read a story, I jot down the major points which stood out as problems that I remember. This sometimes can be a problem with the plot, a break in writing style in the story which doesn't fit, or a factual mistake which bothered me. For example, I just finished reading a book and near the end, I realized that the author had made a mistake because he went from the main character, a modern policeman, not understanding the Latin or old English used by some 11th century knights to having the cop suddenly understand what they said without any real explanation. These are the type of major mistakes you as a critiquer are trying to help the author find.

After I give some positive comments and a quick basic analysis of the story plot (this being the off-the-top reactions to the story on first finishing it), I carefully reread the story and write down comments/critiques as I reread. Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself at this stage to help you critique it:

Plot, Structure and Flashbacks -- Does the plot work? Is it feasible, that is can you the reader buy into the plausibility of what was written? Does the story move through transitions easily? Are any flashbacks done right, justified and in the right place within the story? Should the author have started earlier or later in the story (many times too many flashbacks means the author might need to think about starting the story earlier, no flashbacks in a slow moving short story might mean that the author should think about moving the story forward in time and give pertinent earlier information either in flashbacks or in summary near the beginning of the story)? Did the story end in the right place, or did it feel like it hadn't ended yet (the ending was too ambiguous or had too much going on at once without enough resolutions), or that the real ending had already happened and the story just kept going? One suggestion made to me when I had a story with too many flashbacks and some plot structure problems, was to take my characters and have them all talk to one another. This critiquer suggested I have my three main characters do the story completely in dialogue, like a play, and have them tell each other the basic story. I found this suggestion to be very effective for the story which was a fairly complex story to begin with.

Characters, Character Build-up and Character Motivation -- Do the characters feel real or do they feel like cardboard cut-outs that need to be fleshed out more? Did the author spend too much or too little time on character build-up? For a short story especially, it is a good idea to point out any extraneous elements or actions which don't add to the story. For example, when the main character is debating whether to push the button and blow up the earth, we don't need to know about the character's Great Aunt Bertha's hernia operation, unless Great Aunt Bertha raised the character and is part of the character's motivation for whether to push the button or not. Is the character motivated and by what? If the motivation for the character isn't clear, is there something you can suggest the author emphasize or draw out for motivation?

Dialogue -- Does the dialogue sound real? Is there enough dialogue or too much dialogue without enough action? Is it clear who is speaking or does the author need to add in a few more he said/she said/it said to clarify? Does the author have too many repetitive he said/she saids and need to vary them with more descriptive words? For example:

"I know that," he said.

"You know what?" she said.

"I know what you said," he said.

"So what," she said.

Instead, try putting some personality, action and emotions into the dialogue like this:

"I know that," he grumbled.

"You know what?" she said, sarcasm dripping from her words.

"I know what you said," his voice louder and more sure of himself as he glared at her.

"So what," she said laughing.

Background description, Character description and Descriptive language -- Were you given enough description of both the background and characters or too much? Did the description come in clumps or was it well spread out in between the action and dialogue? It is generally a good idea not to have a clump of description unless a character has suddenly come to the door and you are describing the character as he/she is being looked at by another character. Did the description help make the character unique and was it consistent (if the alien was blue skinned on page 1 he should stay blue skinned on page 10)? Did the author use any descriptive language, especially in their active verbs/adverbs/adjectives or do they need more (for an example, see the corrected dialogue above)?

Point of view -- Does the point of view the author chose work for the story? Point of view consists of the following categories: third person (she walked right into the attack); second person (you walked right into their attack); first person (I walked right into their attack); and how much omniscience vs. objectivity the author uses in the story. Which point of view did the author choose and has the author supported their choice in how the story was written? Was the author consistent with the point of view or did they shift back and forth without realizing it (in a short story, one point of view should generally be all that is used, only in longer works can shifting the point of view back and forth work out if done right)? Generally the first person is the point of view which brings the reader the closest to the character, the action and the emotional content of the story -- if the author chose first person, did they bring you close enough or too close?

Scene vs. Summary -- Is there enough scene (where the action and dialogue happen) to balance the summary in the story, or is there too much summary? Has the summary sections been put in appropriately or do they stand out in clumps of summarizing which would be better done if the information was split up and put out there during action? Some authors use devices like newspaper accounts, journals, official sounding reports to get their summary out there, if they used these in the story, did they work or not? Generally you can have a story without any summary in it (although it is unusual to find a story that doesn't have some summary or explanation in it), but you can't have a story without any scenes in it or else it turns into an essay and isn't a story.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror elements -- pecifically, did any of the SF&F/Horror elements in the story work? Does the author need to research an element better, i.e., is the science correct, does the fantasy rules of magic or court behavior make sense, etc.? Did the Horror element work, did it scare you, did it go overboard with gore, was there enough suspense to carry off the basic horror of the story? Even more important for genre writers -- is the SF&F/Horror in the story new and/or original? Any editor worth his salt will tell you that they don't want to see another Adam & Eve story redone (which means you better be an established writer or have a very unique take on the idea for the story to work and not be a rehash of stories already written). So an idea either needs to be new, or if it is an older idea that's been around for awhile, it needs to be treated in an original manner to be taken seriously by any writer/reader/editor in the field.

Grammar -- I always try to analyze the grammar last in a critique. Beginning, and even experienced writers, can be so close to a story that they may not catch some of the grammar problems in their writing until they have set it aside and learned to edit it themselves. First off, I look for any spelling problems, most writers have access to spellcheckers now-a-days, but spellcheckers won't help with the incorrectly spelled word which is correctly spelled like another word. For example, the write way to go is left when driving - should be written - the right way to go is left when driving. Next, I try to see if the writer had any punctuation problems and if they formatted their dialogue correctly. Whenever I find myself lost in a sentence, I stop to see if it was a run-on sentence or an incorrectly structured sentence that needs work. If a story is in its final drafts, I find that I can be more specific with the author on the few grammar problems found. It a story is still in the very rough draft stage and there are extensive grammar problems throughout the story, I find it is better to summarize the types of problems found and give one or two examples but leave the writer to work on the rest. When there are extensive grammar problems in a story, I might recommend that the author read the story out loud to themselves to help them find them all. For example, this might mean telling an author that they have punctuation problems and need more commas, they have too many run-on sentences and they have too many verbs in the passive voice. Generally, stories do best when there are fewer passive verbs, or a very small percentage of them compared to the active verbs in the story. Some word processing programs have grammar checkers now which can help in analyzing a story, but since they are mostly set up to help with business writing, they need to be taken with a grain of salt so I generally only recommend them to people who are really having troubles with getting a grasp on grammar in their story.

III. Summarize and End Positive

At the end of a critique, I always try to summarize both some of the major flaws as well as the major strengths in a story. Since the writer has just had their story shredded, even if it was nicely and diplomatically shredded, I find it can be encouraging and helpful to summarize the positive and the negative. This also helps emphasize the most important elements in the critique. That way, the serious plot structure flaw won't get lost in all the grammar suggestions, and in the same way, the excellent character development won't get overwhelmed by the other story problems. This summary at the end is also where I suggest where an author might think of marketing their work if it is ready and I know of a magazine interested in this type of story. Sometimes, I also suggest any other authors which remind me of the author's story or writing style, that way a writer can compare how they write and how they told their story with others in the field. More than anything, I try to encourage the writer to keep trying, everyone has a story worth telling, even if some people have a long ways to go before they can get their stories written down well.