The Three Critiques
Jan. 7th, 2019 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emptymanuscriptSo, for those who don't know me, I'm something of a devotee of Orson Scott Card's writing advice. Whatever you think of his politics (and I've had to grit my teeth two feet from him so don't talk to me about it), he knows his stuff about writing. One of his best pieces of advice are three observations that cover about 90% of writing critique.
I don't understand what is written here.
I don't believe what is written here.
I don't care about what is written here.
You can phrase them any way you want. He actually termed them, "Huh?" "Oh, yeah," and "So what." I tend to say about five sentences when one would do. That's personal style. But the three basic observations will handle most problems. Pretty much all small scale problems and a suprising number of large scale problems.
As an example, what I'm working on now is a series of rewrites based around a scene that reveals a criminal secret as part of a character's past. I need his past to come out, that's kind of the central conflict of the book. But my wife, an exceptionally good content editor, just kept shaking her head. It wasn't working for her. And finally she just went with the basic, "I don't buy it. He's spent nearly twenty years covering this stuff up and it takes one page of dialogue for him to give it up. No. What you've set up, leads me to believe he would never tell." Which gives me, as the writer, everything I need to work out what I need to change.
Part of the duty of the writer is to interpret critique. To take the huhs and nahs and figure out how to apply (or not apply!) them to your story. With her identification of exactly what she doesn't believe: that my main character would not reveal a crime he spent a lifetime covering up, I can interpret that to change, ok, don't have HIM reveal it. I have other ways to reveal this crime. I can also change his reasoning for why he does the things he does, instead of trying to reveal, he can give information that is designed to cover up instead. And then it can backfire or whatever. It just has to be clear from him that he is trying to stymie the investigation rather than aid it.
And honestly, I'm not kidding, that's about it. 90% of the problems I have and the problems I see in the writing of others fall into one of those three categories. So, if you are ever at a loss for what to say or look for in a piece you're editing - or what to ask beta readers for - try the three critiques.
I don't understand what is written here.
I don't believe what is written here.
I don't care about what is written here.
You can phrase them any way you want. He actually termed them, "Huh?" "Oh, yeah," and "So what." I tend to say about five sentences when one would do. That's personal style. But the three basic observations will handle most problems. Pretty much all small scale problems and a suprising number of large scale problems.
As an example, what I'm working on now is a series of rewrites based around a scene that reveals a criminal secret as part of a character's past. I need his past to come out, that's kind of the central conflict of the book. But my wife, an exceptionally good content editor, just kept shaking her head. It wasn't working for her. And finally she just went with the basic, "I don't buy it. He's spent nearly twenty years covering this stuff up and it takes one page of dialogue for him to give it up. No. What you've set up, leads me to believe he would never tell." Which gives me, as the writer, everything I need to work out what I need to change.
Part of the duty of the writer is to interpret critique. To take the huhs and nahs and figure out how to apply (or not apply!) them to your story. With her identification of exactly what she doesn't believe: that my main character would not reveal a crime he spent a lifetime covering up, I can interpret that to change, ok, don't have HIM reveal it. I have other ways to reveal this crime. I can also change his reasoning for why he does the things he does, instead of trying to reveal, he can give information that is designed to cover up instead. And then it can backfire or whatever. It just has to be clear from him that he is trying to stymie the investigation rather than aid it.
And honestly, I'm not kidding, that's about it. 90% of the problems I have and the problems I see in the writing of others fall into one of those three categories. So, if you are ever at a loss for what to say or look for in a piece you're editing - or what to ask beta readers for - try the three critiques.
