Critque Group

Posted on August 25, 2003 in Writing Groups

I survived another critique of a short story tonight. I don’t think that it helped that I spent the half hour before the group talking to a friend on the phone about her life problems. By the time my story came up for critique (which was first), I felt a little feisty. I talked back, usually with a smile. The story itself needed work. (It has grown from four to nine pages in the rewriting and needs more plumping up — so much for the myth that the best thing to do to anything you write is to cut it!)

People who don’t like my short stories typically focus on two things: first, my “poetic imagery” and, second, the things my characters do. People who like my stories like the poetric imagery and the things that my characters do.

So what do I do? Listen to the critiques to see if there are holes that need to be filled or sentences that are truly tortured. Fill the holes and take the skewers out of the sentences. Or put them out of their misery with a single slash of red ink. And stick up for what is good!