Comments | sartorias: The Landmine of Critique

sartorias

The Landmine of Critique

Mar 23, 2006 06:52

Anyway, a couple of people mentioned workshopping and critiquing as a separate subject. There's been lots of discussion on these subjects (check out not only the posting but the comments that coffeeem got here).
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writing, critique

Comments 39

matociquala March 23 2006, 15:47:20 UTC

The crit you gave me on W&W is one of the best I've ever gotten, for what it's worth, and I learned more from that experience than I have from just about any other.

sartorias March 23 2006, 23:45:02 UTC

Thank you! That makes me feel amazingly good. (And I could use that right about now, when I'm feeling amazingly tired and even more amazingly incompetent.)

matociquala March 24 2006, 01:46:36 UTC

well, you may be tired. But I guarantee you are quite competent.

telophase March 23 2006, 15:54:54 UTC

Mine's art instead of writing, but I think some things can be generalized. I've never had any what I would call bad critiques, because the ones that I don't learn anything from tend to be in the 'nutbar' category, like the person on DeviantArt that I ended up arguing with over a painting I did - I finally realized that he had an image in his head of what the Ideal Fantasy Painting should be, and never grasped that I was trying to subvert that ideal, even when I explicitly told him that I was subverting the fantasy ideal. The painting needs help, but not the help he was trying to give.

One of the best critiques I ever received was accidental. An editor was at an anime convention and doing portfolio reviews, but the publicity had failed to mention that he wanted to crit sequential art, and so the room was filled with people who had pinup-style art. I had some apges from my webcomic that I'd printed out to show someone, and he leaped upon it with relief and spent 25 minutes giving it a thorough going-over and ripping it apart to ( ... )

sartorias March 23 2006, 23:45:31 UTC

Ahah. That does translate well for writing purposes.

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sartorias March 23 2006, 23:44:17 UTC

I have been glowing green with jealousy about the Scribblies for decades!

mamculuna March 23 2006, 16:24:04 UTC

I so much appreciate yoiur note on not telling people what to do. I can be very practical about even very negative critiques, but when someone rewrites what I've written, and turns it into their plot, their characters, their style--that's not helpful, and I'm not happy.

sartorias March 23 2006, 23:43:03 UTC

They don't always mean to--and some genuinely believe that this is a legit, nay, a necessary part of critiquing. So it's good, before commencing the trade of ms, to make it really clear you don't want that kind of feedback.

dendrophilous March 23 2006, 16:35:39 UTC

One of my best experiences was hearing "all your characters sound like transplanted Vulcans." It summarized so well what all the other critiquers were telling me about not being able to connect with the characters.

sartorias March 23 2006, 23:43:43 UTC

Someone who can sum up an ongoing problem so clearly is rarer and more valuable than diamonds!