Produce effective writing workshop critiques—and improve your own work in the process.
For the uninitiated, the critiques or reader's notes required of an MFA writing workshop, or any other workshop, can lead to heart palpitations. After all, you won't only be writing them—you'll be receiving them too. Read on to learn how to develop effective writer's workshop notes that not only support your fellow writers, but help you improve your own craft.
Letter Format
I prefer giving notes in letter form because it's a reminder to both the recipient and myself that the exchange between author and critic is a deeply personal act. I've just received a piece of art that came from the writer's heart, and the format encourages me to deliver the critique with compassion, empathy, and respect. (And by letter format, I mean, quite literally, that you begin with, "Dear Katie," and end with "Yours, Seth.")
With that said, writers expect, and should receive, frank and objective criticism based on elements of craft, in addition to thoughts of appreciation for the work. As a note-giver, if you're not daunted by the task at hand, you should be. I get a little nervous writing notes because it's a big job with which my friend or client has entrusted me. There's a lot of ground to cover, and your communication has got to be effective, thorough, and respectful. Deliver on only two of the three, and the work has been for naught.
Your communication has to be Effective, Thorough, and Respectful—deliver on only two of these dimensions, and your work has been for naught.
Critiquing is as much a matter of personal style as authoring a story itself. What follows is my own method for providing notes with maximum impact. (This guide to participating in workshop as an effective reader will also help set the stage.)
Start with a Brief Summary
Start by summarizing the piece you've just read, and try your best to include elements of both the outer and inner stories. For a short story, the summary might be a three-line recap; in a longer work such as a novel it might be a paragraph; in screenwriting, it's called a "log line."
The summary is important because it invites a comparison between the reader's takeaway and the writer's original intent. They're not always aligned; sometimes the recap raises an immediate flag that the reader and writer don't agree at all on what the story is doing. But a misalignment isn't necessarily a bad thing. Quite often the reader will pick up on an interesting element that the writer wasn't even aware of—and now the writer can deliberately cultivate that nugget in the next draft.
The exercise of writing a brief summary also helps you as a reader, especially if you're not sure how to begin your critique. It'll jog some memories about what worked and what didn't—and refine your thoughts on the author's intent.
What You Loved and Why
After tackling the summary, you’re now ready to talk about what worked in service of the inner and outer storylines. What did you love and why? Be specific, and use the language of craft. Instead of "I really dug the opening passage" or "I couldn't stop reading,"talk about the author's facility with building tension or earning turns. Pick out a few examples from the text. I don't recommend going overboard, but if you're truly feeling effusive, go for it! Your enthusiasm for the work will encourage the writer and help prepare them for the less-fun stuff to come.
Questions
Because many early drafts are quite fine loaves of bread that simply need more time in the oven, I like to present many of my "criticisms" in the form of questions. I might not understand the dynamics of certain characters' relationships, or why a particular passage was necessary; I might be curious about the protagonist's motivations, or I might question the author's decision to shift the POV partway through. Asking questions is an implicit way of pointing out general areas of murkiness that need more work.
Strategic vs. Tactical Commentary
A student once approached me about how to frame and apply my notes to his second draft. He was a physics major who happened to be a skilled writer of speculative fiction; the draft he'd turned in had promise but it needed work. I proposed that he separate my comments into two stacks: the hard stuff and the easy stuff. Of course, nothing in a rewrite is easy, but he understood my advice to mean that some of my comments were strategic in nature,"big-picture"issues that would take time to figure out, while others were more tactical—issues that, while not "easy," were easi-er to fix. The writer should tackle the big-picture issues first, because the big decisions will have a cascading effect on the smaller ones.
Examples of strategic issues: structure, plot, dialing in a protagonist's motivation, a weak character arc, lack of a consistent through-line, or uncertainty regarding what the story's really about.
Examples of tactical issues: Thin secondary characters, POV infractions, word choice, imprecise detail, loose management of time, or confusing "stage direction."
A note on the biggest strategic question of all: Sometimes the writer might tell a clear and detailed outer story, but you can't figure out the inner story. You finish the story and think: So What? Asking the writer to explicitly answer the question, "Why is this story being told now?" will help her figure out the "So What?" or the Big Idea—the story's primary intent.
Why is the story being told now?
Just to be clear, this is a strategic, big-picture question. Perhaps the most strategic, biggest-picture question there is. Make sure the text answers it—and if it doesn't, let the writer know. It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow it she must.
The Critique Lives Inside the Story
While I encourage you to pepper your critique with the language of craft, especially when addressing tactical issues, most of your big-picture comments will require a deep-dive into the particulars of a story. For example, rather than saying, "I thought Charlie's character arc wasn't believable," you might say, "By page 15, Charlie was focused on cleaning up his life—going sober, working out, finding a new job, and moving out of his mom's basement—then he decides on page 16 to participate in a bank heist, seemingly out of the blue. What motivated him to take such a drastic measure? Did he miss the feeling of freedom of his bad-boy days? Was he self-sabotaging? And if so, why?" Asking questions in this context will encourage the writer to think about the particulars of the story. Charlie seems underdeveloped, and his goals aren't clear...but a brief note to "develop Charlie" and "give him a clear goal" wouldn't have been helpful. Avoid the abstract, and commit yourself to going deep inside the story.
Relatability and Authenticity
Be wary of the words "relatable" and "authentic." The concept of relatability is controversial because one of the very goals of fiction (and poetry and screenwriting) is to introduce the reader to different lived experiences. While the reader might relate to some portion of the characters' lives, by and large it's not the writer's job to create characters you'd want to befriend because they resemble you.
Similarly, the notion of "authenticity" is problematic because it assumes that a writer should adhere to some unwritten law of character "type"—and that politicians, athletes, fishermen, professors, children, and grandmothers should appear, speak, and act along prescribed lines. Writers are meant to create nuanced characters, not cartoonish tropes.
Prescriptive Suggestions
It’s OK to give prescriptive suggestions but do it sparingly—and only if you point out the reason for the suggestion first. Instead of suggesting that "Charlie should start drinking again on page 10," advise the writer first that "Charlie's bank heist seems sudden and unearned—and showing him sliding off the wagon is one possible way of suggesting his growing discontent. Or you might revisit Charlie and write more deeply into his character—and see what emerges organically." I don't think you want to get anymore prescriptive than this. You wouldn't suggest, for example, that "Charlie should sneak sips of Irish whiskey from a bottle in his desk at work."
The danger with being too prescriptive is that you might be making suggestions that reflect your idea of the story—not the author's. One of the most important rules of critiquing is to keep the author's intent in mind. The last thing you want to do is wrestle the story into the ground and turn into your story. If the story is about a haunted baseball dugout on the off-season, told in quiet, moody prose, don't ask the author to turn it into a tale about an epic underdog win at the World Series...just because you love baseball.
The danger of prescriptive advice is the impulse to turn the story into your own—not the author's.
Arranging Your Comments
I like to give each issue type a heading—for example, if I feel Charlie's character is underdeveloped, I'd write about his issues under a heading called "Charlie" or "Charlie's Character." If the writer has a repeated craft-related issue, I'd create a section naming the craft element. For example, if the writer has trouble writing intros and outros of her expository flashbacks, I'd create a section called "Managing Flashbacks." I might also organize my comments according to chapters or passages. How you arrange your comments is up to you—as long as the arrangement scheme helps the writer to receive and comprehend those notes. In general, however, a big block of text is more difficult to navigate than clear sections arranged by subject.
In general, however, a big block of text is more difficult to navigate than clear sections arranged by subject.
Then, I'll save the last section for a list of any short, sentence-long "orphan" comments that don't belong under any particular header. These are, by nature, minor comments that don't require more than a few words.
Before signing off, I like to recap things I loved. Whether it's an inventive plot line, a unique or authoritative voice, particularly lovely details, or characters who jump off the page, I always find something to appreciate about the work. Above all, I remember to be respectful in my tone, objective in my interrogation, and specific in my guidance, especially since I'll be on the receiving end the next time around!