The key to good critique

One of the scariest stages of a writing project is getting someone else to look at it and give you feedback. What if it’s amazing? What if it’s terrible? Will they like it? How much will you need to change? It can all be very stressful!

If you’re in the position of giving a critique of someone else’s writing, it can be tricky to know what feedback will be useful, especially if you don’t write that sort of thing yourself or aren’t part of the target demographic. What follows is a set of guidelines that you may or may not find useful the next time you have to give a critique—they’re particularly relevant to critiquing writing, but could be applied to other settings with varying degrees of helpfulness.

Don’t provide an opinion piece

When giving feedback about a piece of creative work, our first instinct is often to say what we liked or didn’t like about it. If you’re engaging purely from an audience perspective, this is all you really need, but if you’re providing any kind of critique on the craft, or if you’re part of a workshopping process, focusing on your personal likes and dislikes can be distracting and unhelpful, or worse—a complete misdirection for the work’s creator.

We all have our own personal standards, tastes, and senses of style which inform our opinions, and that’s an important thing to remember. Just because I, personally, don’t enjoy engaging with a particular text doesn’t mean it isn’t good or that other people won’t enjoy it, and the techniques and tropes I like best won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, nor will they fit in all genres or media.

The first key to a good critique is that you need to address and judge the work for what it is, and what it’s trying to do. If it’s a horror story, does it engage with the conventions of horror in an effective way? Does it build tension and suspense well? Is it actually scary? Alternatively, if it’s a romance, does the text engage with that genre’s conventions effectively? Is the core relationship compelling? Is the ending satisfying?

It is neither fair nor helpful to judge a work by standards it isn’t intended to meet, so you need to put your own personal opinions to the side in order to focus on the nuts and bolts of the thing. Does it accomplish what it set out to do, and how effectively does it do so?

Point out the positives as well as the negatives

No matter what it is you’re critiquing, or for whom, it’s also important to remember to talk about the aspects that work well, not just the parts that need improving. For one thing, we as people aren’t really any better at identifying what we’re good at than what we aren’t, so it’s good to be told. Besides which, critique is not equal to criticism, so if all you’re providing is a list of things to fix you’re only really doing half the job.

It’s also worthwhile considering the matter of self-confidence, particularly if you’re working with people who are new to the craft. It’s really disheartening to try something new and put a lot of effort into it, only to be told all the things that are wrong with your creation. And experienced creatives aren’t immune either—many of us never tire of being praised, and may prematurely give up on a piece if we don’t think it’s going to be appreciated.

In short, be kind as well as critical, because your job is to help the person you’re critiquing, not tear them down.

Be clear and constructive

I’m fairly confident that most if not all of you, gentle readers, have received vague and wildly unhelpful feedback or responses at least once in your lives—you know, the sort of thing that you have to read a couple of times, and then still don’t know what the problem is, let alone what you’re supposed to do about it.

When you’re identifying issues to be addressed, make sure that it’s clear not just that there is a problem, but also what the problem is and why it’s a problem. You may or may not need to explain these things explicitly (in the case of a misspelling, for example, it’s pretty easy to connect the dots), but you should check that you aren’t being vague about your advice.

Being clear and constructive can require a bit of thinking, because we’re all a lot better at picking up on the vibes being off than the reason behind it. If a paragraph feels awkward, it’s not very helpful to just say so and be done with it; there can be a lot of potential reasons why that awkwardness is there. Is this paragraph hopping to a new point of view or tense? Has the tone of the wording changed? Does the paragraph introduce a bunch of exposition in the middle of an action scene, making the pacing uneven?

By identifying the problems more clearly, you’re making it much easier for the creator of the piece to figure out a solution. However…

Don’t try to fix things yourself

I know, the temptation is strong! If you’ve been called on to critique someone’s creative work, chances are it’s because you’ve got some experience in the craft, and those creative juices can really start flowing. But it’s very important to remember that this isn’t your work. You can’t just go around insisting on a creative changing the plot or the style of something because you think it’ll work better that way—that’s their job, not yours.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make recommendations or provide examples, and naturally this guideline doesn’t apply to things like spelling and punctuation, but keep in mind that the creator of the work has the final say. They can (and probably will) ignore all of your suggestions if they please, and may quietly decide not to bother asking for your advice in future if they don’t find them useful.

The magic of art and creation is in the individuality of the person creating it, and the best way to retain that magic is to retain the individuality. Besides, no-one knows the work better than it’s creator, and they’ll know best how to make the fixes work.

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Being asked to critique someone else’s work is a great honour, and it’s exciting to have a part in their creative process and see what they can do. But it’s also a challenge to do well, and as the critique may have a significant effect on the development of the piece there is a bit of pressure. Hopefully reading this advice helps you to be more thoughtful about giving feedback, whatever the situation.