When it comes to associates critiquing my work, I have a thick skin. I realize that everyone has different tastes when it comes to style and genre. And I have enough confidence in myself and my work that even a critique loaded with corrections doesn’t send me into a depression. While I would love for people to be blown away by my brilliance, it’s important for me to know what parts of my writing aren’t working for the reader. And the truth is that it is only through this process of critique and editing that the beauty of the work comes through.
That said, I always get nervous when I critique stories for someone else, especially someone I don’t know well as a writer. I tend to be heavy-handed with the red pen. My goal is to maximize my fellow writer’s chances of getting published. Blowing sunshine up someone’s arse doesn’t help them. At the same time, I do try to be tactful and convey to the writer that my goal is to let them know what didn’t work for me as a reader. I never tell a writer that they suck. In fact, I will go out of my way to find something in the story that the writer did well.
Writing is a craft, just like woodworking and silversmithing. Some people come into it with a better sense of it than others, but there are a lot of skills to be mastered beyond basic grammar. Voice, theme, style, scene structure, story structure, character development, dialog, etc. The only way to learn these skills is through trial and error. Reading books on writing can help, and reading a lot of fiction is crucial, but we still need to give ourselves “permission to suck” to quote Mur Lafferty of the I Should Be Writing podcast.
We can only improve as writers if we are willing to change how we write. And we can only change how we write if we know what aspects of our writing don’t work. That’s where critiquing comes in.
Dharma, you are a good critiquer. You always manage to say something nice and also the constructive things.
I always try to say something complimentary, but sometimes I get focused on making sure people know what doesn't work so well that I forget. I never lie, but I try to phrase things positively. Of course, that said, I know many times things don't come out quite like I mean them to. And when T mentioned some of the peeps have quit the critique group in the recent past, I sat there and wondered what I might have said to contribute to that. Oops! I mean, it could be they just can't deal with the critiques, and that is too bad. Because I think even at my worst (and the group's worst), I am (we are) far more kindly than many editors/others. But this is something that I worry about. Being honest, but also putting a positive spin on things.
And, as far as being critiqued, yeesh. I think I have medium skin. I can deal with most things, but no one has told me anything super bad about something I love in my novel, yet. I feel like people have been going lightly on me lately. I guess I started getting used to Rachel killing my page with edits and suggestions. haha!