You need critiques…

So you have finished your MS at 79,899 words… Now what? Are you ready to get it into the grubby hands of a critique partner? Are you ready to find out where your plot holes may be? Are you ready to cry? Are you ready to go into a semi-depression because you think people think your MS is dirt? Are you ready to grow and be stretched?

Ahem, no really. Ask around.

If you are, you may proceed.

When it’s time to have your MS critiqued for the first time, it’s hard… VERY hard to let someone read your “baby”. Not only are you afraid they will think it’s rubbish but what if they tell you it’s contrived and just like every other story?

As the writer, you need to be prepared for anything that might be handed back to you. And I do mean ANYTHING. One of the reasons you send it out to get critiqued is to make your story better, fill in any holes, take out things that don’t matter and just get feedback in general.  But, the only way to make it better is to be patient with the critique process and be open to receive whatever comes back.

Notice I said patient and open… VERY important qualities in a writer.

I critiqued for a friend a few months ago and when I handed her the “on paper” critique she stared at me like I had a third head, “Really was there this much wrong with it?” Umm, well, yes… in my eyes there was, you asked for my opinion and here it is. I took days to critique this MS and then explained to her line by line what I thought at Starbucks one day. We parted that day, she thanked me for the critique and then I never heard from her again, save an email here or there.

This had me pondering why on earth she would ask for a critique yet run with her tail between her legs when I gave the honest opinion back. One of the gaping holes I found was integral to her story line! She built the whole book up to ONE SENTENCE and I was shocked and told her so. I said, “Huge let down. You built us up for this moment and then said, ‘she did it. it happened. she moved on.’ Didn’t work for me.”

Contrary to popular belief, most writers want to see their critique partners work go to the NY Times Bestseller List. I am one of them. If I have spent time on your MS, it means I believe it to be worth the time and effort I have put into it. I felt my points were valid as far as the plot and the believability of the story. I probably wasn’t right about everything, who is… but what I had to say fell to the wayside because she wasn’t ready to hear it. She refused to believe that I was saying anything worth while.

On the flip side of the coin, recently I received a MS that had some issues I pointed out and it had me wondering if this person was going to run in the opposite direction of me. Hahaha… I already had it happen once, it could totally happen again.

However, this time the writer was open and ready to hear my opinion of the MS and what I thought worked and didn’t work. She received it and she thanked me because she indeed was “too close” to the story to see the elements that I had pointed out. THIS, my friends, makes a fabulous writer. She is ready to make herself better, ready to hear and patient to do the work. Excellent!

Accepting critiques for your work makes you a better writer. You are able to see your story from another persons perspective and really feel the story through another person.

BUT you have to do the work first. It frustrates me to offer a critique on a MS that hasn’t been combed over at least 4-5 times. And by combing over I mean, the writer has written the MS, read it and made changes, edited it and made changes, read again and maybe even one more time for good measure. And unfortunately you can tell when a MS is just hot off the “finished writing” press. Even with my own MSs… I do silly things like “its and it’s” and “then and than” things that can be found usually on the first pass through.

Now, saying all this I do not want everyone to just take what the critique partner says as the “God’s honest truth”. Read over the critque and really debate on if what the critique is saying has any merit to your story. You won’t always see eye to eye but you can not discount what anyone says. This is your audience… regardless of the genre… they can read! You can use every critique to your advantage. Even the ones that you “don’t see eye to eye” will help you as a writer. Because while they probably don’t understand your MS at all, they are offering you a different perspective that just may be what you are looking for disguised as another package.

Finally, it’s very important to find a critique partner who shares the same VIEWS on life as you. Maybe even the same writing style. This is important for many MANY reasons… MANY. Not all MS and critique partners will be a match. In fact, I have had to turn down critiquing a MS or two because I could not wrap my head around the plot… or the style of writing. Because it just wasn’t me. Now saying that, I would probably read the book once its published and feel just fine about it, but when I have my critiquing hat on it’s a different story.

I encourage all writers to find a good critique partner and really listen to EVERYTHING they have to say. They may not have it “all right” but they at least give you a broader perspective on things you maybe too focused on to see the bigger picture.

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