Photo by Cara Lopez Lee I feel sorry for the first writers who ever came to me for feedback. My initial writing experience was in news, where deadlines were brutal and so were the editors. We believed that was because nobody had time to waste, but I now believe it was because we were young and stressed out and didn’t know another way. I’ve discovered that providing feedback with the goal of serving both writer and story can be faster and easier, if you know how. I learned the hard way, the first time I judged a writing contest. I meant to be empathetic and constructive when I told a writer that her story about financial hardship was an opportunity to broaden readers’ minds. Unfortunately, I included this: “…take a moment to explain why you couldn’t get a better job.” She was outraged, believing I was judging her for not having a better job. Egads, that wasn’t what I meant at all! I was just suggesting she write more detail. I was a professional writer and I had failed to communic...

How to Take Criticism, or How I Learned to Stop Plotting the Deaths of My Critique Group Members and Love Their Feedback Instead Image by Mr Clementi , via Flickr I’ve been a member of a critique group for almost a year. In that time, they’ve helped me slog through the second draft of one manuscript, helped me plot my next story, and advised me on the first draft of a new manuscript. They often give me specific feedback that I don’t like. They tell me my characters’ motivations are muddy, my sentence structure is clunky, and I don’t show enough of my protagonist’s reactions to events. When I used to hear these criticisms, it’s not that I necessarily wanted to murder them, I simply daydreamed about interesting accidents that may or may not befall them. Just daydreaming… I’m not a monster, after all. But all that murderousness abated when I learned how to leave my ego at home. My words are my teeny tiny textual babies. They are sacred to me. When I pour my blood, sweat, an...

This month marks my fourth year participating as a contributing blogger for the BRP, and it's a ride that I've enjoyed immensely. I have connected with some wonderful editors, writers, and advocates of the writing craft here on BRP, and as I reflected on that and these last four years, I found myself pointed toward one topic for this post: the importance of community in a writer's life. Sure, we all know the saying, writing is a solitary act , but the success of that writing, the success of the writer is connected to the community the writer belongs to. And what community is this? Well, there are many communities, to include (My category titles are fairly loose; I apologize in advance for that.): The "familial" community, those in our family (and I would add close friends) who support our zany idea of becoming an author, who listen to our doubts and help to push them away, who put the pot of coffee on in the late-night hours, who clean the house and make d...

Many of the manuscripts I edit would have benefitted from review by a critique group. Maybe you don’t trust your peers—after all, the individuals who make up such a group may have no more experience than you do. But as practiced readers, each can contribute something of use, and as I wrote in my Friday post , the better the shape your manuscript is in, the more an editor can help you achieve your vision. But first you have to learn critique speak, a nondescript mode of communication in which what people say is not always what they really mean. Example One Critiquers told one of my clients, “You need to start with an establishing shot.” Establishing shots are used in the movies all the time: the camera pans mementos in a room, the streets of a town, or, from a helicopter shot, a protagonist lost deep in thought on a cross-country bus ride. Anyone who’s hung around modern writing instructors knows that such openings are passé. So why would her critique partners tell her such a thing, and...

I started reading a mystery novel last night that I just had to put down. The back-cover blurb sounded like a great story, the book begins with the discovery of a body—all great ingredients for a mystery. But… The author obviously did not have the book professionally edited. Telling rather than showing, passive sentence construction (“there was…” “they were spoken of…” “members were directed…” etc.) and long, stilted, unnecessary dialogue bumped me right out of the story and I had no interest in finding out “who done it.” It doesn’t matter whether you are submitting to a traditional publisher or publishing a book yourself—as an author, you owe it to yourself to have it professionally critiqued and edited. You want to put forth the best possible product you can and not be embarrassed by negative feedback. This is something I, along with the other editor members of the Blood-Red Pencil, can do for other writers. Here is a link to a great article “How to Measure the Value of Ed...