Sandra’s Miscellany

When I started critiquing with others, way back in college at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, my poetry teacher, Richard Jackson, had only a few words to say at the first class workshop: When your work is up, keep your mouth shut and listen.

It was a lesson repeated in every critique class the entire three years I worked with him and his other students, and it’s the one lesson that has made me a much, much better writer.

I’ve run into people who can’t listen to feedback for wanting to argue. In one notable incident, I quickly realized none of my comments were being heard because the person whose work I was critiquing was too busy trying to justify and explain absolutely every item that I mentioned. In fact, my comments seemed to bounce off some sort of invisible “shield” that had been erected to keep anything resembling a critique out. I did notice that the “good” comments slipped through okay…. But the point is that unless one is planning on shipping a clone of oneself out with each copy of one’s book to explain this or justify that, this defense mechanism is counterproductive. If the reader doesn’t “get it” in the story, there’s a very good chance “it” isn’t in the story.

The first thing a new writer might find helpful to understand — on a gut level and not an intellectual one — is that yes, feedback is entirely subjective, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong if you don’t like it. I’ve seen this attitude a lot among romance writers who have had no formal training in either writing or critiquing. The emotional commitment to the work is extremely strong. An honest critique is interpreted as a personal attack. Emotions run high during the critique session. There are various complaints about how people don’t understand the work.

This attitude is so prevalent, in fact, that one of my romance writing buddies won’t critique with anyone unless she knows they’ll be able to “take” the critique she dishes out. I’ve critiqued with her. She’s tough and she’s honest and she’s thorough, and I know it’s why she rarely has to deal with revision letters from her editor. She’s covered all the bases from the get-go. That’s what makes her such a valuable resource, and it’s a shame more people can’t learn from her. But it’s not her fault they don’t — or won’t.

Me? I got so “beat up” in literary critique sessions that there’s basically nothing a romance writer can say about my work that will do more than cause me to go, “Hmm. You could be right.”

Because the critique is always about The Product. The Product is what you send to agents and editors. The Product is what gets copyedited and printed up and bound and shipped to bookstores. The Product is not the book plus a lengthy argument by the author on why the character’s motivated the way she is.

That said, it’s equally important to find critique partners whose opinions you trust. In an ideal world, you’ll be able to find someone who is a little further along the writing path than you, so you can learn from him or her. Or someone who at least can give you feedback on something you know is a weakness for you, so they can help you correct problems.

And remember, too, that this is your Product. If you don’t like what a critique partner is saying to you, accept that this is his or her opinion, file it away, and ponder it later. That doesn’t mean you should take the opinion as marching orders to go change something. But each comment is worth a good, long look before you chuck it in the trash bin and opt to keep your story exactly as it is.

So if your critique partners are giving feedback on your story, don’t argue with them, because that’s not your job. Your job is to keep your mouth shut and listen.