Oh, that dreaded word, critique. I well remember
finishing my first book, His Dark Enchantress, with a sense of doom hovering
over my head. This was my baby, my first Regency romance. After carefully nursing it through the process from a barely formed premise to writing The End, I now had to run the gauntlet of another pair of eyes before I could consider
submitting it anywhere.
My hesitation to pass it on stemmed from a one-off experience in a critique class – one in which the presenter showed no interest in reining in two women who jumped on everyone’s work and shredded it. One person in the class walked out, and another emailed the organizer to say they would not be back. Stubbornly, I hung on, determined to learn what not to do and to be as supportive as I could to the rest of the class, even to the two naysayers, who thought they had carte blanche to strip another’s work to the bones.
I entrusted my baby to two author friends, one who
wrote Regency romance and the other, at the time, who was writing western
historical romance. I breathed a sigh of relief when those first critiques came
back to me. They both had many comments, and where their comments aligned, I
knew I had work to do. One picked me up on some of my Regency accuracy. At the
same time, the other asked questions about the era's terminology and customs,
quickly eroding my blithe supposition that everyone would understand it. I
wanted my readers (if there were any) to enjoy what they were reading without
being tripped up by either situation, and I quickly learned that writing The
End was, in fact, only the beginning.
Since then, I have worked with a handful of writer
friends who critique my work, and I return the favour. The choice of reader depends on the genre I’m
writing in. If it’s a historical novel, I ask someone who writes contemporary
fiction to critique my work, as well as someone who writes historicals.
Thankfully, I have that mix in my close critique group. We know each other well
enough that none of us takes umbrage at the results, but some authors are very thin-skinned. Learning to take an honest, fair critique is part of the process.
courtesy img.freepik.com
When I am asked to give a critique, I’m looking for
rounded characters and well-thought-out plots. If I come across awkwardly
worded sentences, I will suggest an alternative – this is not for the author to
use – more to give them an
idea of how to frame that sentence in their own voice. I will pick up on word
choice, repetition, misplaced modifiers, and run-on sentences.
That first draft is essential to commit the story to
the page in the first place. Subsequent drafts are for improvement all around,
and I know I couldn’t do that without input from my ‘Dream Team.’ Personally, I
read my manuscript aloud when I think it is finished and still catch problems,
usually with syntax, which a text-to-speech program would likely miss. Once
that is done, I put it aside for a few days, read it again, and if I’m happy
with it, I submit it to my publisher. Having done all that, it still amazes me that when I have my print copy in hand, I will usually find an error or two.
As much as writing is a skill, so is critiquing. It is
not helpful to a budding or a seasoned author to give their work to a family
member or friend who will probably say they love it and haven’t you done well
to write a whole book! An author needs another author, or a very perceptive
reader’s critical eye, to see a problem, address it constructively, and
together build a better book.
Victoria Chatham
