Being critiqued - treading the minefield

Being critiqued can be overwhelming. I've talked about the need to pay attention to things that you might not want to hear, and not disregard painful advice out of hand. Now, I'm cautioning against the other extreme - trying to pay heed to everything.

There is a skill to scanning a critique and picking out things to take action on. An equally important skill is deciding what to ignore.

Not all advice is equal. Not all advice is good. Even good advice is not always applicable.

Here are some reasons to be cautious, and things to watch out for...

The compulsive rules junkie: This is the critiquer who likes to wave the rule book at every opportunity. Some "rules" seem to acquire inviolate tablet-of-stone status. No adverbs. No passive voice. No telling. I'm sorry, but adverbs and passive voice have their place. If I see someone embarking on a relentless mission of adverb annihilation then I can see that actual critical thought - the point of a critique - has flown the nest.

Inaccurate advice: More insidious than the blatant rules junkie is the "wrong rules junkie" - the critiquer who insists on some rule that simply isn't true. I once had someone tell me that every piece of dialogue absolutely had to start on a new line. He'd clearly misunderstood the actual rule where someone new is speaking, but was most insistent. He then went through my MS pointing out every single instance of my "error". The trouble is, that was the sum total of his critique.

Plain old unhelpful: "Boring" or "this sucks" is simply not helpful. If you make no effort to explain why something is not doing it for you, I'll probably make no effort to listen.

Personal taste: Some advice amounts to little more than personal preference. That doesn't necessarily mean it's worthless - it is a genuine reaction from a reader, after all - but neither is it gospel.

Trying to rewrite your story: Personal taste taken to extreme can lead the critiquer to try to rewrite your story how they would have written it. This is far more dangerous. Write your own darned story and leave me to get on with mine!

Wrong audience/just doesn't get it: Personal taste is especially dangerous if the critiquer is clearly far removed from your target audience. There's no problem critiquing outside your comfort zone, you can give a fresh perspective as well as general writing comments, but if you don't "get" the specific conventions of the genre then be wary. If this is a hard military sci-fi story, don't bleat about the technology or the lack of a mushy love triangle.

Wrong advice for your story: This is very hard to detect, and needs great confidence and judgment to stick to your guns. Sometimes none of the above is true, and the advice might even be good in its own way, just not right for you.

Conflicting advice: In my previous post I mentioned looking out for things several critiquers agree on. The converse is also something to watch out for. If different critiquers are leading you in conflicting directions then it's a sign you're in territory where there's no clear right answer. This is bad news if you are looking for definite advice, because you're on your own. The good news is, you're on your own. If you aren't doing anything clearly wrong, then you are free to carve your own path.

Cheerleading: It's always good to be told nice things about your story. The trouble is that if the critiquer is overly complimentary then you probably aren't getting any worthwhile advice. I am more inclined to pay attention to odd bits of praise if the critiquer has also shown no qualms about shredding bits that needed shredding. Then I know it's genuine, and not just empty cheerleading.