Make Critique Work With Your Process

We never bring our works-in-progress to critique group until the first draft is done, and it has at least one polishing edit applied. The experience with our second novel taught us not to. The plot got twisted into a writhing tangle of second-guesses as we tried to alleviate our readers’ confusion. Eventually we decoded the feedback and realized that the problem really had nothing to do with plot. The issue was characterization, things we were forgetting to put on the page because we knew the character so well.

Readers don’t know what you have up your sleeve, so their comments are sometimes out of proportion. We found that when our upcoming pages were still hypothetical, it was all too easy to lose our own sense of proportion.

It was just one way the critique process can go haywire when you bring in material that’s not ready. The wheels can come off in other ways, too. You should at least not treat your critiquers like proofreaders; make sure to read over your own draft looking for mechanical problems before you send it around.

There are times when you’re stuck, and you can’t finish the first draft for that very reason, and then you should bring it to your group in whatever shape it’s in. They can help you prod and twist your ideas and maybe provide the inspiration you need.

Writing with a partner gives you an extra set of eyes, which makes it much easier to spot little things like dropped words. It also gives you someone to discuss deeper story structure with while it’s being written, someone to help keep the ideas bouncing so you don’t get too stuck. A good collaborator will challenge you to make your scenes even more awesome, and when asked if something works will occasionally say, “Not really.” You might be able to do that much just by talking to yourself, but the magic of flesh-and-blood writing partners is that they often offer constructive suggestions along with their blunt honesty.

All of this means Rune Skelley’s first drafts aren’t really first drafts, not once they’re ready for the group. By serving up something that’s clean and debugged, we clear the way for our fellow writers to let us know how they’re connecting with the characters, and how the story makes them feel.