“I love criticism just so long as it’s unqualified praise.” — Noel Coward
By PJ Parrish
So your friend whips out the phone and before you can slither away, out come the pictures of the new baby.
“Look at that face! Have you ever seen a prettier little girl?” new dad beams.
She looks like Karl Malden. What do you say?
- “What a beautiful child!”
- “Yup, that’s some baby you’ve got there.”
- “Are you still within the return period?”
I ask this today because a good friend of mine has an ugly baby problem. The son of her best friend has just published his first book, a sci-fi thriller about the world maybe sorta coming to an end. She read the book while here and says it is terrible. Like terrible in cardboard characters and incomprehensible plot. And now she has to go back and face her friend. Avoiding the writer’s mom is no-go because they play pickleball every week. She asked me what to say because she knows I’ve done a ton of manuscript evaluations and I once made my living as a dance critic.
What did I tell her? I suggested that she say that the genre was not her cup of chai, and thus she isn’t the best person to judge. Which was a true lie. She never reads crime fiction, and the idea of the world ending in ether gives her the creeps. Just to be safe, I read the first couple chapters, and yeah, the book is awful. So I think I told her the right thing. I dunno. I hope so.
I have been in her position. Over the decades, many friends and co-workers have asked me to read their mystery manuscripts, and while none were butt-ugly, not a one was publishable. I gently told them their work needed work before it could be seen in the harsh light of day. (This was mainly in pre-self-pubbing era). Most took it well. Some kept trying, a few quit, one guy never spoke to me again. A good friend, who was trying to write a mystery about retired NFL players, switched to non-fiction and got published by a good small press to great blurbs and national reviews .
Ugly Dog winner Phoebe with proud parents
Brief digression. I don’t have any ugly kids. I have an ugly dog. So ugly she won the Ugly Dog Contest in Williamston, Michigan. First prize was three bags of golf-ball sized kibble, which I donated to the police canine unit. I also won a gift certificate to J&B Boots, which got me a nice pair of Italian kicks. They wrote a story about my dog in The Williamston Enterprise, which hangs framed in my office.
Giving criticism is a fine art. Our own John Gilstrap wrote about his adventures in critique groupland recently. Click here. It’s a little easier when the person you’re critiquing is a stranger and there’s no face-to-face time. But the basic rule still applies: You need to fair and you can’t crush someone’s spirit. I think about this every time I do a First Page critique here at The Kill Zone. I have a process I always go through:
- First, I read the whole 400 or so words quickly, without any eye toward editing. I try very hard to read it as only a reader would who has just bought the book. Does the opening pique my interest?
- Second, I ask myself: Do I have any prejudices against this TYPE of book that would make me unduly negative or even ignorant? For instance, I’m not a big sci-fi fan, and I’m clueless about what works in YA these days. So I read such submissions with that caveat.
- Next, I ask myself if the submission has something to teach all our readers. It’s not enough to just red-ink grammar mistakes or such. I look for a larger issue in each submission that can help all our writers learn.
- Sometimes, you get a submission that just isn’t up to snuff enough to critique. The writer hasn’t yet gotten the basics of the craft down. I decline to do these.
- Finally, I do a submission only if I can find something good to say about it.
That last one is important. Because I remember how hard it was to get any feedback when I was trying to publish my first mystery back in the late 1990s. Even though I had had four romances published by a big house, I was clueless about mysteries. When I showed my agent my freshman attempt, she told me I didn’t understand the unique structure of a mystery. “Go home and read,” she said. “Start with P.D. James and Michael Connelly.”
Today, when I do a critique, I use the Hamburger Method:
- Start out by staying something nice.
- Insert a big juicy slab of criticism.
- End with saying something encouraging.
A few other things I’ve learned about giving criticism:
Resist the urge to fix the problem. Unless you really have the solution, it’s not a good idea to offer up the answer to another writer’s problem. You don’t know their book; you’re not inside their head. They have to find their way.
Watch your tone. Being snarky is, unfortunately, encouraged in our culture today. Be firm but kind.
Don’t take out your frustrations on someone else. Your own WIP is falling apart. Your plot has more holes than a cheese grater. Your Acer died and your geek can’t do a data retrieval. Don’t take it out on someone else’s baby.
Don’t boost your own ego. Don’t go all alpha dog, using criticism to show how sharp you are. Nobody likes a bully.
Be empathetic. You’ve probably had the same problems the other guy is having. So tell him how you fixed your book’s issues.
Okay, so you’re done reading a friend’s manuscript. Or you’ve been doing your part in the weekly critique group. You’ve been kind, you’ve been constructive, you’re offering up suggestions that you think might cause a light bulb to go off over the other writer’s head. And then…
They turn on you. You don’t understand their genre. You’ve missed their plot points. You’re supposed to hate their protagonist. You’re just biased against second-person omniscient. I call these folks the Yeah Buts. “Yeah, but if you keep reading, things will get clearer.” “Yeah but if you read more dystopian Victorian zombie fiction, you’d understand what I’m going for.”
You can’t help a Yeah But. They don’t want to hear anything except how great their stuff is. Don’t get angry. You did what you could. Smile and walk away. Sometime, an ugly baby is nothing but an ugly baby with an ugly parent.
Times like that call for your collection of non-committal adjectives, like interesting. Don’t say, interesting, of course; people have caught on that it’s meaningless. Use other words/phrases:
“Remarkable.” (The remarks would all be awful.)
“Not bad!” (Because it’s atrocious.)
“Exceptional!” (Exceptionally bad.)
“Special!” (Especially terrible.)
“What a great imagination you have!” (You imagine this is good?)
“Outrageous!” [Smile as you say this, and they won’t catch on.]
“Amazing!” (I’m amazed how much this stinks.)
“It’s in a class by itself.” (It’s all by itself in Uglyville.)
“I’ve never seen anything like it!” (And I hope I never will.)
“Outstanding!” (It should be out, standing behind a privy.)
“Unbelievable!” (I can’t believe you wrote this drivel.)
“Transcendent.” (It transcends the limits of good taste.)
“WOW! Just WOW!” (Worst of the worst.)
“Impressive.” (I’m impressed how grotesque it is.)
“It leaves me with a sense of wonder!” (I wonder who would buy this piece of hoskaplop.)
Actually, “What a great imagination you have!” isn’t bad. The book does have a cool premise. He just isn’t there with craft yet.
Thanks!
I’ve been asked a time or two to review song lyrics, and used the “hamburger” method without knowing that’s what it was called (partly because I tend to keep others’ feelings in mind, and partly because I’m among the first to say I don’t know it all, and I don’t wanna be seen as claiming to).
I get the “Yeah, but…” often – it’s a defensive mechanism, I s’pose – but for me, the worst, is the writer who gets miffed, taking the “I know what I’m doing,” tone and stomps off… but comes back with different works that have the same problems… despite politely suggesting a few standard “rules of the road” that would make a rewrite relatively simple… but then, again, the rules don’t apply to them…
I just wanna be helpful – so many folks have helped me, so it’s only fair – but some folks just don’t wanna be helped… they wanna be praised…
The first person to critique my first manuscripts (after the agent I mentioned) was my dear late friend Jerry Healy. I didn’t know him at the time, but I “won” him by bidding for his critique at a writer’s conference. He told me upfront he was going to be honest and he was. Yeah, it stung a little, but I was so damn grateful for the honest input. He gave me a nice blurb when Kensington accepted the book a long 18 months later.
Thank goodness nobody other than my critique partners have put me in a position to give this kind of feedback in years. And we don’t bother with the niceties unless they’re outstanding. We need help knowing what’s wrong.
Yup. We all need to know what’s wrong, right?
Great post, Kris. I like your analogy. Excellent tips on giving criticism. And I liked that final zing on beauty (or lack thereof) and parentage. A little snark is good.
Oh, about that ugly dog contest: I think Phoebe is really cute. She reminds me of what I see in the mirror when I haven’t shaved for a few days and need a haircut. Well, she actually looks much better than what I see in the mirror.
I was so proud of Phoebe cause she beat out the favorite, a truly gruesome Chinese crested with no body hair and a tongue hanging out of its toothless maw.
Fortunately, I’ve not been in a situation where I had to give feedback on something really bad (and I hope I never do!). Certainly I’ve read work from people at varying levels of writing experience, but nothing that couldn’t be done with the hamburger type method you describe. Usually even if a piece needs a lot of improvement, there are still at least a few positives you can point to.
I do sometimes spend eons agonizing over just how to word a critique. I want to give the same thought and care and time and attention that they spent writing their work.
And I encourage people to be honest when giving me feedback. It’s a disservice to the writer of a needs-improvement work to just smile and say “Oh, it’s great!”. That only subjects the writer to more pain down the road when a reviewer who has no vested interest in them leaves a scathing 1-star review.
Very true what you say about faint praise being a disservice. You need craft, talent and a hard skin in this biz.
I’ve been in this position countless times and it never gets easier. I always try to help b/c, as George says, so many others have helped me. But sometimes…..
The hardest are young writers. I never want to dash anyone’s dreams but it’s esp. important not to kill a kid’s spirit. Two immediately come to mind, both young adult children of old friends. Compounding the challenge, both had mental health issues. I agonized for days, trying to diplomatically make suggestions couched in terms that might not cause them to fling themselves off a bridge.
Each thanked me, as did their parents. Both had expensive hardcovers printed by vanity publishers they proudly gave to me. One even sent an additional five books to give out to my friends.
When I opened the covers, neither had changed a word inside their masterpieces. I congratulated each on completing a book, emphasizing that few people do. It’s a major accomplishment. What else can you say?
Kris, thanks for addressing this really awkward, difficult topic.
Sigh. I have a shelf devoted to books like this. (I have kept them all). The fact that someone even completes a book is a small miracle. They need to be told that, at the very least. And that most successful writers have un-pubbed manuscripts in their hard drives or drawers.
A very good friend is working on their second book. I couldn’t finish the first one. Bouncing flashbacks, inconsistent characters, and just plain boring. I didn’t finish it. I told her it was interesting. She sold some copies. Her non-fiction writing is good.
Another friend asked me to beta read the first volume of his three volume sci-fi saga. You won’t be seeing it on Amazon anytime soon. I gave him several notes of areas to think about or change. He thanked me then asked some of his other reader friends about some of the things I thought needed a fix. They had been nice to him and “skipped over” major issues in his book. He is working on a different book now.
Geez, I am sort of sorry I brought this topic up today. We all seem to have our little scars. 🙂
Offer to blurb it: “Of all the books out there, this is one of them!”
I’ve critiqued hundreds of MSs at conferences over the years, and could usually find something good to say up front. Then I would offer ways to fix it, because I knew how. I’d give assignments. I wouldn’t patronize, I also wouldn’t slam. If something really, really stunk (rare) I’d recommend a course of study.
Yup, there has been, in my experience, almost always something good to say. And you can use that to inspire confidence. (“You’re really good at description. I can really imagine that abandoned castle in chapter 5. Most writers have one thing they are good at and other things that need work. For you, you should learn more about…”
(Fill in the gaps).
In another universe I inhabit I asked in retrospect what was a really dumb technical question, and one of the OGs who has been doing this stuff since his teens said “You’re a smart guy. Figure it out for yourself.”
That, friends, is the best piece of critique I’ve ever gotten.
In that moment I realized that the greatest learning takes place where there are failures. Some of them are expensive but if you’re not a snowflake you take it to heart and work on your craft.
I am in the process of reviewing the entire First Page archive and going through each one so draw out some learning. I’ve seen precocious teens on reddit say things like “Here’s the first chapter of my zombie apocalypse fanfic novel. Just tell me the good things I did in it.” How does that improve anything? It’s mere stroking.
See, you have to be receptive to and accept criticism to make progress in this field.
Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
“The greatest learning takes place where there are failures.”
Amen, brother.
Had to go back and find this quote from Chuck Wendig that I had always liked:
“Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe?”
I ran the writer’s workshop at our local science fiction convention for four years, before my first novel came out. Submissions were limited to about 7000 words, and could be either a short story or the first few chapters of a novel. We aimed to have a pair of professional authors give feedback on a submission.
My job was to match up pro authors providing feedback to submitters, which meant I’d read through the cover letters and then read the openings of the submissions, just enough to get a sense of what they were like and then look for a pair of pros that might be able to best give feedback on that particular submission. If it was a fantasy story, I didn’t want to give it to pros who only wrote Hard SF, and vice versa. It was as much art as science, based on my knowledge of the pros who had volunteered their time for the workshop.
I spent a lot of time matching submissions, scheduling sessions, emailing the author guests etc. and then during the convention, had to drop by before each session to make sure that the two pros and the feedback recipient all made it the conference room at the scheduled time.
The best part was hearing afterwards from the writers who had submitted to the workshop that they’d found it very helpful.
Great way to tailor the process, Dale. Lot of work for you but the payoff was worth it, it seems.
Your dog is adorable, Kris! It’s never easy to critique another writer’s work. Every time I’m asked to do it, my stomach knots. If I can add valuable input, I bite the bullet. Still isn’t my favorite thing to do, but other writers did it for me, so I pay it forward.
I still get a little knotty everytime I begin one of our TKZ critiques. 🙂
First of all, Kris, I think Phoebe is adorable. I hope she didn’t take the criticism to heart.
This is good advice and so entertaining. I laughed out loud at “You’re just biased against second-person omniscient.”
When I give feedback, I try to be constructive with lots of praise surrounding the criticism. However, when receiving feedback, I would much prefer the reviewer to just come out with it. I need to know what to work on, and I won’t hold a grudge. Of course, a little pat on the back now and then helps.
Phoebe is a dog of a certain age, as the French would say. She no longer gives a flying rat fart what anyone thinks. 🙂 My other dog, Archie, on the other hand, is blindingly handsome and milks this for every bone and belly rub.
I love your dog, Kris! I think our giant GS, Hoka, would love her, too.
This is a great post, from the standpoint of switching sides to the poor victim who signs on to critique my project. I’d never considered how fraught with angst it might be for him/her. The next time I’m sitting across from a critiquer, I’ll be sure to remember what they might have gone through to get there.
And, BTW, second person omniscient? I can’t even wrap my head around that one.
🙂
Oh my goodness – this just happened to me. My book club decided to read a book written by one of the members. I downloaded the Kindle sample and had to stop reading. I did a little research and discovered she published it through a vanity press. So many things were wrong! I kept my mouth shut during the discussion time and made appropriate noises at others’ comments. I asked if she read any books on craft and she said, no. I made some suggestions, so we’ll see where that goes.
I’ve also suggested to many such folks that they come here and delve into the archives. Deaf ears, sometimes. Alas.
Welcome to my professional life as a writing teacher. Sigh. All your points are good. Well done.
I trained to be a teacher in college. That’s what my main degree is in. But I realized, at age 23, I had no knack for it. (You need confidence to be an effective teacher. I was too shy back then). I did have fun in student teaching with my 8th grade creative writing class. They seemed to really get into things. But that was back in the dark ages. Can’t imagine what the classroom is like today.