The Wicked Witch of the Crits! (Part I)

LOL. Or maybe that should be mwahahahahahahaha!

No, I'm not taking sadistic pleasure in craving up others' work. But I'm participating in a couple of group crit circles and.... sometimes I feel like I should be picking out little bits and pieces of baby limbs from between my teeth when I'm done. Confronted with the final scope/range of my 'opinions' littering the landscape of someone's submission/chapter, I feel like I've been that mean.

But it's not meanness. It thoroughness. I like to give complete and thoughtful/analytical crits. Not hurtful or tactless, but honest and, hopefully, helpful. I can't stand 'soft crits'. I don't like to give them, don't like to get them, and don't like to see them given to others. They tend to be insubstantial and of little help. Example:

'Add a comma here'. 'Ooooo, I love this phrase.' 'Grrr, I hate this character!'

The End.

What the feck is that?

That's not a crit. That's commentary; it's feedback. All well and good, sometimes that's all that's called for or needed. But it's not a critique.

It's particularly disturbing in a group, where you see several people critting the same work. Five will send in fairly meaty crits. And then you'll see the soft lob crit.

Do they really think they're helping this person? Have they been around a few editor/agent blogs? Take your choice from any in my sidebar--->. Scroll through the archives, then ask yourself if you still want to hit 'send' on that so called crit. If you don't know *how* to give a good crit. Google is your friend; there are articles galore available. Or just lurk for awhile on a crit loop, you'll see different styles and levels of effectiveness.

And if that's not bad enough, there's a specific type of 'soft lob' that is not only useless, it's dangerous. This crit comes rolling in after a "harsh" one or several harsh ones. And the sole purpose of this soft lob, is to soothe the feelings and pour effusive compliments on the author of the submitted work. It also , by extension, aims to negate a lot of the opinions/advice given previously, without offering anything of *substance* as replacement.<--yeah, that last part is where the danger lies.

And just in case y'all are thinking I can dish it, but can't take it, read on:

Once Julie sent back a chapter uncritted, except that she'd Highlighted. Every. Single. Semi colon. lol. She refused to do the crit proper until I cleaned up that mess. :-P

Dee? Queen of *The Hero's Journey* and *Goal, Motivation, Conflict*. She will riddle your ass, and your manuscript, with questions pertaining to these elements until you just want to reach out and-- Oh, hey, Deedle! Didn't see you standing there.... (Smooches! lol)

And there's a reason why Sela is known as the Snarkalicious Diva over on Romance Divas. The lady pulls no punches with her crits. You'll get work back and be cruising along reading her comments/corrections, then suddenly there's this big blotch of red on your page, no, it's not the color of the font she used. It's your blood. She's just gutted you, and your flimsy assed, not-buying-it-for-a-minute-characterization, with her rapier wit/tongue. Don't even bother trying to backspace at this point to find out where you went wrong, your hands will be too slippery from gathering your intestines back into your body. ;-)

Cece? Someone should disconnect her 'Insert New Comment' tool in WORD. There's a twelve step program somewhere, I'm sure. lol. But make no mistake, they're never half-assed comments, suggestions or corrections.

Joyce (no blog or site, yet, but she finalled in 6th place!) gives killer(seriously, Kill-her. heh,heh) line edits.

There are others, who've been my victims, erm, ::coughcough:: crit partners from time to time. They've all given honest, helpful, tough crits, and I thank them. They've helped me to become a better writer. Partly because that was their *intent* and also because they're kick ass writers and knew what the feck they were talking about.

**Segue on 'intent': Sometimes the intent isn't to improve your work, sometimes it's to re-write *your* the way they would have written it, or so that certain things that *offend* them, are no longer evident, or because you did such a hatchet job on their stuff, their goiing to make nit-pick sushi out of yours. Or they really don't know what the feck they're doing, but feel they gotta make a half-assed attempt. Or they've got all these "opinions" and nowhere to stuff them, except the obvious place.... your work. ;-) These are all no-nos. Watch for them.

Which brings me to the flip side of the critique 'partnership'. Not only do you give as good as you get. But in order to receive... you must be open to receiving. Yeah, sometimes those crits sting or touch a nerve, but if you *trust* your partner(s) (or editor, first reader, agent, etc.,) and you *trust* your own judgement, then you'll be open to receiving the help you need, while discarding--no hard feelings-- what doesn't work. But if all you want are soft lobs, then maybe you should be exchanging crits with your bestfriend and/or mother. They'll never hurt your feelings. ;-)

I could go on and on about the different types of crits, the appropriateness of language, the nature of good crits vs bad ones, and how to recieve or rebuff one graciously--critting is actually a very complex, involved thing with many variables--but this post is getting hella long. I might do a Part Two to this post later and cover those issues.

And now that I've gotten that all off my chest... I have a few critiques to do.