In January 2006 I started a critique group in my home. I handed out guidelines at the first meeting.
Stringent guidelines. The kind with a Lionhearted bite in them, and yet, my whole desire was to help the young authors—wow, did I learn a lot.
My guidelines: Submit ahead of time, take time to critique others and remember, to ‘check your ego at the door. Use the sandwich method. Say something good, give comments about the piece and close with a positive.
However, over the months I found myself repeating the same instructions on each manuscript I edited. “Avoid passive verbs, and words like 'so, just, even, very, and ly.'” Often I reminded the authors to format their work. Almost every MS I wrote “Run spell check and read aloud.”
Finally, I grew wiser. I only looked at content, POV, and take-away. Little by little each author’s work grew stronger and many of the group are published today.
Now there are others outside the critique group who ask for my help, too. I’m upfront with them. “I’ll be glad to read your work. Gotta tell you, I’m dead serious about what I do. I won’t waste your time or mine....”
I don’t want to stifle a wannabe author and never would I intentionally wound anyone. After all, my whole purpose is to help every writer get published—that’s a win-win thing, isn’t it?
What about you, how do you critique for new authors? Or do you?
Thinking, Kat
My guidelines: Submit ahead of time, take time to critique others and remember, to ‘check your ego at the door. Use the sandwich method. Say something good, give comments about the piece and close with a positive.
However, over the months I found myself repeating the same instructions on each manuscript I edited. “Avoid passive verbs, and words like 'so, just, even, very, and ly.'” Often I reminded the authors to format their work. Almost every MS I wrote “Run spell check and read aloud.”
Finally, I grew wiser. I only looked at content, POV, and take-away. Little by little each author’s work grew stronger and many of the group are published today.
Now there are others outside the critique group who ask for my help, too. I’m upfront with them. “I’ll be glad to read your work. Gotta tell you, I’m dead serious about what I do. I won’t waste your time or mine....”
I don’t want to stifle a wannabe author and never would I intentionally wound anyone. After all, my whole purpose is to help every writer get published—that’s a win-win thing, isn’t it?
What about you, how do you critique for new authors? Or do you?
Thinking, Kat
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