Tuesday, March 29, 2011

How Not to Respond to a Review - or a workshop critique!

Check it out! Now, when someone workshops or critiques your work, think back to how uncomfortable you felt reading the author's repeated defenses of her own work! A much more professional approach is to make note firstly of the good things that have been said about your work. And I do mean make a note! It's very easy to hear what people thought could be improved and much harder to remember the elements they enjoyed or thought worked. So, make a note in your writer's journal 'X said my characters were well developed. Y liked my writing style. Z felt my descriptions were vivid.'

Then, calmly and professionally make a note of the areas that need improvement - and notes to yourself on how this might be accomplished. This should help put you in the mindset of revising, rather than defending your work.

1. Opening para needs work - can I introduce the character straight away involved in some action which will show the reader who they are rather than tell them?

2. Mrs. B is too cliched - maybe I should model her more on Aunty May - give her A.M's mangy German Shepherd rather than the spinster cats? She could walk past the local school muttering to it. Kids think it's called Adolf? When really it's Alf?

3. Middle section needs more action - think about it, but there are possibilities to use the best friend situation more. (Or the breakdown in the marriage?)

4. Ending too weak. I'll think about that. Is it too throw-away? But what I emphatically don't want is a too-neat, every tied-off ending. It might be weakened by other problems - partic. the middle section. Leave this revision to last.


Part of being a professional writer is being able to distance yourself from criticism and the editing process - it's not personal. Any critiqueing, whether it's from an editor, a workshop group, a writing tutor or a friend-reader should be about making the work itself stronger. It's one of the hardest lessons to learn, but if you can learn it in your apprenticeship, it will save you from appearing unprofessional. The golden rule in publishing is, of course, never reply to a review unless they actually have a fact wrong - and even then, think a long time before you send the email! Too often you'll simply look whingey at best, unhinged at worst.
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 30, 2011 at 2:28 AM

    Hi Catherine,

    This may be a silly question, but I have absolutely no experience with being reviewed so I'm not aware of the protocol.

    When you say "The golden rule in publishing is, of course, never reply to a review unless they actually have a fact wrong", does that only apply when responding to negative comments, or should you just never reply - full stop? Would it be acceptable to simply thank them for publishing a review of your work without actually mentioning anything about the content of their review?

    Thanks,

    Mark W

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  2. CattyroxMarch 31, 2011 at 3:31 AM

    Mark - only rarely would an author thank a reviewer for reviewing their work - it is, after all, the reviewer's job. You might thank them if you met them socially or at a conference or somewhere but you wouldn't send them a thank you note. There are some exceptions to this - I've been thanked for a review when the poet thought I'd mentioned something specific about their work that they felt was an unusually detailed reading. But that would be the exception.

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