Surprisingly, not that many X words occurred to me .

I sometimes feel like I’ve received more than my fair share of bad advice on my writing. (This probably isn’t true, but it still feels that way.) From people who seemed to be half-reading what I wrote, and half just making crap up, to people who were obviously trying to teach me a lesson (which no one else who’d read it seemed to see), from those who were trying to remake my writing to sound like theirs to those who could tell me I was breaking writing “rules” without apparently understanding what the rules were for in the first place—and my personal fave, the person who killed off my killer in the opening scene—sprinkled among fabulous advice from insightful readers that has and continues to help me improve my writing, I’ve gotten an awesome sample of how not to be a critique partner.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to 1.) tell good advice from the bad, or 2.) move on from well-intentioned but wrong-headed advice. Even when I have great, enthusiastic responses from critique partners to comfort me, some words still chafe.

Even more frustrating than the feedback is my tendency to dwell on it. When I’m faced with this, I try to tell myself a couple things:

• Does this bother me because I agree with it on some level? Then how can I fix it?
• This person isn’t omniscient. He might not even know what he’s talking about.
• What does the majority say? Look over the feedback I’ve received from others to see if there’s anything directly addressing this issue.
• What does my experience say? Does this advice work for me?

And then I go to my wall o’ praise: the spot where I’ve taped up pages of nice things people have said about my writing.

What do you think? How do you handle critiques or advice that just BUGS you?

Photo by Elyce Feliz

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Obviously, nobody else knows our story and our characters like we, the authors, do. While critique partners are absolutely invaluable in telling whether a scene or even the whole plot works, they don’t have to be the be-all and end-all when it comes to determining what, exactly, goes into your story. As I said yesterday, immediately changing your work based on one person’s opinion is a knee-jerk reaction means you’re writing to an audience of one.

This is exactly why we need more than one critique partner. In fact, it’s why we need even that first critique partner. When one person has read your story (i.e. you), you have the feedback from one person. When you get feedback from one other person (who, let’s face it, may be just as blind as we are when it comes to storytelling, craft, publishing or what have you), now you have two people’s opinions. What if there’s a tie? What if one of you is dead wrong and cannot see it? What if you both missed something?

We need several pairs of eyes to look over our work, to catch our mistakes, to offer different points of view, to get as broad a range of opinions before we start trying to get our books out there and published. (Oy—do you know what it feels like to get feedback in a rejection that you’ve already gotten from a critique partner?)

Take your time in getting critiques (the hard part for me!) and in applying them. Let the feedback set in for a few days, and see if your critique partners all or mostly agree on those points.

Several of Rick Daley’s rules for taking critiques hearken back to this principle:

Rule # 3: Seriously contemplate your changes. Take time. Work through it. You never microwave a roast. Slow cooking always turns out better. (NOTE: what’s with all the food references?)

Rule # 4: Look for common threads in the feedback and start there. The advice of the many outweighs the advice of the few. . .

Rule #7: Be ready to disregard any feedback that doesn’t make sense. Sometimes people will tell you to say something different, but that does not always equate to better. Some people may give ill-advised feedback. If it doesn’t make sense and if clarification [rule #6] seems unnecessary, just disregard it.

The majority doesn’t have to rule, of course—it’s still your story. You can do what you want, what you feel is right. But if some advice is truly wrong for your story (because, say, your CP hasn’t read the whole thing yet and couldn’t possibly know that person is the murderer), still look to see if there’s an underlying issue prompting this advice that needs to be resolved. Maybe that character’s behavior in this scene is too strange or leaves too big a clue.

And what if they tell you to cut your favorite part of the story?

The fact that it’s your favorite may be a bad sign in and of itself. We all have our “darlings,” and yes, some of them must be killed. Give the advice some time. Weigh it out. Contemplate how cutting or changing that element would change your story. Could you take it in new directions? Would it deepen the characters? Make the plot stronger? Or just plain be more interesting?

I’ve mentioned this before, but even if we’re initially opposed to some advice, sometimes thinking it through makes a huge difference:

I should add here that fortunately I’ve been a victim of this one, too. My favorite example here is when a critique partner suggested I add a scene near the beginning of the book. I hemmed and hawed over this privately—until the scene started playing out in my mind. It was so entertaining—and just like she said, solved so many problems—that I just had to write it, just to see what it’d look like. (And when I still liked the finished product, I stuck it in there.)

And, as always, remember to thank your critique partners!

What do you think? How do you know when (and when not to) take advice from critiques?

Photo by Casey Smith

We’ve talked about receiving bad advice before. And sometimes, recognizing bad advice is as easy as reading it, like when I received a suggestion that would kill all the tension in a story—or kill the murderer in the opening scene.

But not all advice we have an adverse reaction to is bad. Sometimes it just hurts us on an emotional level, and we react from that place instead of really listening to the ideas in the critique.

Rick Daley, who runs the Public Query Slushpile, offered this advice on receiving critiques:

Rule # 1: Don’t pout if you hear something negative. Remember that you asked for the feedback in the first place. Don’t get defensive and don’t argue.

What’s the best thing to do if the advice hurts? Do. Not. Engage. If you respond emotionally to something a critique partner said analytically, first of all, the CP’s entire frame of reference is off. This can escalate very quickly into emotional and even personal attacks—when really, your CP (probably) wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. (This assumes your CP wasn’t unnecessarily harsh or otherwise insane critique partner.)

If you find the critique painful, simply thank your critique partner and put the critique away for a while—however long it takes to take the edge off, and then some. (It might also be a good idea to take a step back from your work for a while, too, if you’re still that emotionally invested. Critique partners are only the first of many people who will respond to your work!)

Critiques can be a good way to work on developing that “thick skin” that you’ll need when you face rejection after rejection, endless rounds of editorial revisions, or harsh reviews.

Of course, just because some feedback hurts doesn’t automatically mean you should follow it. Immediately changing your work based on one person’s opinion is another knee-jerk reaction that may not be helpful either. We’ll look at how to determine whether to follow hard advice tomorrow.

What do you think? What do you do when a critique hurts?

Photo by Paul Iddon

For some reason, the bad advice—from the mean-spirited to the what-the-crap?!—seems to stay with us so much longer than the good advice. It’s seldom the encouragement or praise that comes ringing back to us in the dark, still hours of the night.

Add to this the fact that I have an obsessive personality, and I’ve taken dwelling on bad advice to a whole new level. Even for stuff that’s flat-out all wrong for my story, I think about it for months on end before I can finally move on and maybe even laugh at how terrible it (and I) was.

For the stuff that’s just off-base, it’s annoying. But for the things that come with that extra note of spite, it’s even harder. This is why I’ve come up with my coping mechanisms—if two other people agree with me, if I can just laugh at it sooner (and laugh at myself), then maybe I can move on faster, right?

Yeah, it’s not so much working—though sometimes when my mind wanders back into the Forest of Remember How Much You Suck?, I can smile.

And then I read the praise-filled emails from my biggest fan/critique partner that I have taped on my wall. (No, seriously—I highly recommend doing this! It’s like getting a big hug every time you read them!)

So, in the spirit of the year dying in the night, how can we let our criticism-fed insecurities (or just the memories of the criticism) fade with it?

Photo credit: Omar

I doubt any of us need to be told how to react to bad advice. But the best thing to do is ridicule it.

I’m kidding.

Kind of.

Read over your work again

Is there something there that led this person to say this? Really take a good look at just the words on the page—and try not to think about everything else you know about the story and the characters. Did you convey everything you needed to to make this clear, without the reader having to dig and read between the lines?

Of course, it’s possible that this reader just wasn’t paying attention. I’ve had (very nice!) critique partners suddenly realize a what year the story was set in chapter 7 or so, and say I should weave it in sooner—unless, of course, she’d just missed it (which, she acknowledged, was possible). (I’ve had people miss way more than that, and even start inventing stuff to fill in the blanks—to the extent where I seriously thought they were half-reading what I’d written and half-imagining something else entirely.)

Ask for feedback (from someone else)

If you think there might be some merit to some advice (somewhere), or if you’re worried you’re the one with the case of the crazies, turn to someone you trust (especially someone who’s read the story).

Failing that, look at other critiques—do they all have similar notes? Is this the only person who feels that way? Or do they all say different things? (Great . . .)

Now is a good time to remember: you can’t please everyone.

Okay, now ridicule. If you must.

And oh, I must. I’m really trying to grow out of this one, but sometimes the only thing that makes me feel better about this is to rewrite the “offending” passage in a completely ridiculous way—following their advice to its ill-fated, (il)logical conclusion.

I’ve shown you one of these before, where a contest judge marked the sentence “Sighing, Margaux pulled her hairpins from her hair” with “SHOW us the sigh.”

Sure thing:

Margaux’s thoracic diaphragm contracted, expanding her thoracic cavity and creating a vacuum in her lungs. Air at atmospheric pressure rushed in to fill her lungs. Once they were at optimal capacity, and a good proportion of the oxygen content had transpired into her bloodstream, Margaux reached the full depth of her frustration with her disheveled coif. She contracted her external intercostal muscles, audibly forcing a stream of air through her nostrils, and pulled the hairpins from her hair.

Warning: don’t do this in front of them, and don’t go back and look for an opportunity to sock it to them, or parody their writing, even if there’s a really great opening. That’s just not cool.

How do you cope with bad advice?

Photo credit: Eric Kilby