by CaraMarie Christy

There is no set of concrete rules for how to approach critique etiquette, or critiquette, as it’s been called. However, those who participate in a workshop/critique group should hold themselves to a standard of professionalism that encourages the productivity and continuity of the group. It’s difficult to know what these ideals are, what is considered acceptable and what is not, especially when most comments made in critique groups and workshops are, assumedly, an effort toward producing good literature and not an opportunity to vent. Here are some common critiques broken down into instances in which they might be acceptable and other times when they might be taken as counterproductive:

Character/Story/ Style Critique- “I don’t like what your character did.” These are the hardest critiques to give and receive, because they can often come across as unduly subjective and unhelpful. Characters in fiction cannot be censured for their misbehavior. However, there are some times when such comments are extremely beneficial to writers, though they should be more carefully crafted than the example given above. If a critic has a strong sense of who the character is, what they are likely to do, and can justify that “what the character did” is not in line with how the character has previously acted, then this critique is valid. A way to rephrase this opinion in line with useful critiquette would be to say, “I’m having trouble believing that your character would do this because of [insert reasoning here].” There are rare times when this critique is acceptable because of the character’s immorality. Numerous popular stories about serial killers fly off the shelves. If the character’s offense is so grotesque that it could be seen as a threat to readership (it makes readers stop reading) then it might be suitable to ask the writer to consider having the offense done “off screen” or, in other words, not in the view of the reader.

Format Critique- “Your story is too short/ long.” This is a critique that can work well, given that it has proper backing and the critique is also given with an identification of where the writer could shorten/lengthen the story. What a critic often means by this is that the pacing feels wrong. If a story is too short, then some of the scenes need to be fleshed out more, or there needs to be more background information. Focusing on description rather than action can also lengthen the feel of a scene. If a story is too long, then perhaps certain scenes need to be cut, focusing on those that would not impact the story’s arc. A solution for this problem is to take a favorite book, highlighting slow portions of the text with one color and the fast with another, to get a sense of how these even out in a story.

Factual Critique- “What happened in your story is impossible due to… (the laws of physics, human behavior, my experience, etc).” There are three versions of the factual critique to look out for: those that have been researched, hearsay, and overgeneralizations. Two of these are not professional and should be avoided during workshops: overgeneralization and hearsay. Overgeneralizations are not facts. An example of an overgeneralization is, “You can’t make the dog the hero in this story, because one time a dog bit me, so therefore all dogs are evil.” Hearsay is when a critic points out a flaw based on assumptions they’ve heard, but has not bothered to make sure that their critique is a fact. It allows for reasonable doubt about that comment’s accuracy. A well-researched and established fact is the most productive input.

Specific Detail Critique- “I don’t like when I can’t pronounce the character’s name. If you ever want anyone to read your work ever, you should change it!” –. The above statement, which is common in critique groups, is simply not true. A lot of great books have characters with difficult names, most notably “Hermione” in J.K. Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series. In her fourth book, after massive amounts of fans requested the pronunciation, Rowling cleared up the confusion by having one of her characters sound out the name phonetically. Few would argue though, that no one read the Harry Potter books until after book four. The best way to approach a specific detail critique is to look at the work as a whole. Does changing this detail cause any change to the theme as a whole? Does it help improve on the theme or verisimilitude of the piece? If not, then the detail might be inconsequential and a matter best left to the writer’s personal choice.