Everyone’s a Critic But Where’s a Good Critique When You Need One? By Jane Casey

For any writer, it’s extremely helpful to find an ideal reader: someone who has the skill, experience and practical knowledge to assess a piece of work fairly. It’s certainly possible to read your own work critically, and you should, but being objective about it is a different matter. If you’ve been living and breathing a story for a long time, your reading will be influenced by that: the next bit is really good so I’ll just skip this page . . . that’s the part I wrote on holidays when I had sunburn . . . this chapter took FOREVER to write . . . this is the bit the cat deleted, the little fecker . . . wait a second, when did I decide to call that character Imelda? But when your book is published, it will stand alone without any explanatory notes about how you wrote it, or why, or what else was going on in your life. The words on the page are all your readers will know or care about.

Agents and editors are great sources of advice for published authors, but for those on the road to publication, it’s harder to find a reliable pair of eyes. It’s also difficult to ask a stranger to tell you what’s wrong with your writing. If you want to be published, however, your eventual goal is to be read by thousands upon thousands of strangers – and they will tell you what you got wrong!

A critique is a very useful tool for improving your work, but of course there are pitfalls to avoid, so here are some dos and don’ts.

• Do think about investing in a professional critique once you feel your work is ready to be submitted to agents. Friends, relatives, that girl down the road who got a book deal last year, an editor your colleague met at a wedding – none of these are ideal. You’ll find it hard to accept anything critical they say and they’ll find it hard to say anything critical in the first place.

• Don’t expect it to solve all your problems if you are struggling with your work. A half-finished first draft isn’t ready to be read. If you’re too frustrated, confused or lacking in confidence to persevere without help, a writing group can make all the difference. You can even join an online writers group if your location or shyness or lack of time puts you off finding one in real life. Try to get to the end of the first draft at the very least before showing the book to a critical reader and you’ll get the most out of their assessment.
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• Don’t expect it to be entirely complimentary. Everyone needs editing. Writers who are famous and scary and deluded enough to dispense with editorial advice turn out bad, awful books. I’m not naming names but I can think of three examples off the top of my head and I bet you can too.

• Do learn to take criticism, by which I do not mean you have to adopt every word of advice you receive in a critique. Readers make suggestions and very often you will disagree. Set that to one side and think about why they are making those suggestions. What did you write (or not write) that allowed them to jump to their entirely wrong conclusion? The sixth book in the Maeve Kerrigan series of crime novels, After the Fire, has just been published and regular readers have been speculating (and arguing) about how the characters have developed and where I intend to take them. It’s very tempting to jump in and explain that I made this character do this for this reason, and I haven’t abandoned that character, and of course I’m not going to do that to them – but if the readers think I’m steering the story in a particular direction that’s because I’ve allowed them to think it. There’s no point in arguing with them or explaining myself – I just need to keep it in mind when I’m writing the next one. Remember, you want to fix your problems, not defend them. I know of an author who wrote a friendly, helpful critique for a writer who was very eager for advice. He took offence at the suggestions the author made and sent back a critique of the critique’s style and content. The critique was a waste of his time and money because of his response to it, not because it contained bad advice.

• Don’t expect to get advice from agents or editors when you’re submitting your work to them. Rejection letters are formulaic and frustratingly unspecific but you can’t expect a detailed explanation of why they don’t love your book. People often perceive agents and editors as being negative, prickly, unhelpful people who can’t recognise true talent. Not so. No one loves books as much as the people who work in publishing and they want to love your book. So make it easy for them by submitting the best book you possibly can.

• Don’t think critiques are a way to make useful contacts. I’m sometimes asked to read manuscripts but I always say no, even though I like helping other writers. Agents and editors rely on their own response to a book, not anyone else’s opinion. Reading is an intensely personal experience. What is universal is a dislike for awkward phrasing, hackneyed characterisation, stilted dialogue and careless mistakes – and a good critique should pick up on those issues. But you don’t need someone who’s already inside the magic castle of publishing to hold the door open for you. Every writer has a different story of how they first got a book deal and none of them involve knowing the secret password.

And lastly, don’t rely on a critique to give you permission to think of yourself as a writer. It’s not success or book deals or praise that makes a writer: it’s the compulsion to turn words into stories. You are a writer already – but with a little help, you can be a better writer.

(c) Jane Casey

About After the Fire

After the Fire is in bookshops now, or pick up your copy online here!

If you are looking for a professional critique, check out The Inkwell Group reader’s report service. Inkwell have worked with many award winning and bestselling authors to perfect their manuscripts prior to submission, and are Ireland’s leading publishing consultancy.