A Philosophy of Critique

Posted on August 27, 2003 in Writing Groups

A few readers of this blog participate in writing critique groups. The horror stories about such groups are legion. Here’s a small collection confided to me:

• obsessive compulsives who spend their times pointing out each missed comma and improperly placed semi-colon;
  
• the reader who starts to attack your sanity for writing such a story;
  
• the languid dope who declares that your story is a bore;
  
• the expert who read one book about writing and tells you that this is The One True Way so why aren’t you following it letter for letter?;
  
• the jerk who mocks you by writing a story that features a particular vile version of you doing obnoxious stupid things;

• the generalist who cannot point to specifics;
  
• the slow reader who cannot understand what you are trying to say no matter how you write it.

I’m very conscious of the fact that a bad review might turn a person away from a group, so I have adopted a simple philosophy to guide me: It’s not my story. It’s owned by the other person. They have the right to make their own decisions about what their characters will do, how they will think, and how the thing will end. My job is not to tell them how to write it as I would, but to evaluate the story in larger principles, to see if the story arc is clear, to see if the words make sense, to look for gaps that need to be filled, to encourage the person to keep writing. We only get better by writing. We must have the guts to be truthful and the compassion to see the whole truth, which is that every writer is vulnerable. Critique groups meet to make better writers. That’s the prize upon which our eyes must fix and we must work hard to keep our egos out of it.

And when we receive bad critiques, we must be ready to forgive. In every bad night, some good advice comes out. When you hear it, acknowledge it and thank the giver for it.

Reprinted from Writing in Orange.