You’ve received criticism on your novel. Now what?
But, hopefully, you’ll never see this on your manuscript!
So you’ve engaged beta readers, a critique partner or group, an editor, or someone else that has seen your work and has an opinion on what’s not working and how to make it better. (I’m assuming you trust the people you’ve chosen and they have no ulterior motives. Pick your critiquers wisely.)
Now what?
You stare at the email, written ink on the page, or track changes in your manuscript and you _____ (fill in the blank).
Before you even look at the critique, always assume positive intent. Then prepare yourself to read it and walk away afterwards. It takes time to process some critique.
I don’t think there’s a writer out there who hasn’t received constructive criticism that hasn’t ruffled their proverbial feathers. Now that you’ve received it, how do you filter and process it?
Start with this as your filter: “Within every critique there is a seed of truth.” This is especially true if multiple people point out the same issue. If these people see it, so will an agent or a reviewer, only quicker.
Bucket it into three categories in your mind: tweaks, small adjustments, and substantive developmental changes with ripples.
The tweaks and typos are no-brainers. Just do them. Small adjustments that make sense? Just do them too. Comments that show the reader obviously missed a key point? Determine whether you need to add more for the reader, or if this person just missed it. The key to that one: if multiple people made the same comment, add more. If not, think carefully and possibly discard. Good rule of thumb I learned from one of my editors: don’t “dumb things down” to your lowest common denominator. It’s our job as the writer to make sure our reader’s get it—but within reason—and without insulting the intelligence of the rest of our readers.
When it comes to the larger issues, what then? Those require more thought, and that’s where you need to put on your ‘accept / reject’ hat. But before you snap that beanie securely on your noggin, take a step back and ask yourself: would this requested change make my book better?
To illustrate this for you: under a tight final copyedit deadline for my upcoming novel my die-hard core group of betas gave me a few substantive items:
All of these scenes were pivotal with a ton of ripple impact.
So what did I do?
The first change, I discarded. I polled my other betas and they voted it down, plus it would have made for a double Prologue. The one already there couldn’t go anywhere else.
The second change, I held back my second round edits and rewrote the entire scene, expanded it, and raised the stakes. In doing so, I came up with a much more convincing conclusion and stronger ending.
The third change? That was the hardest because I had to get my character’s reaction right based on his issues that will surface over the next two books, so I sent him to “The Character Therapist”! http://charactertherapist.com/ Jeannie Campbell has an awesome blog where she analyzes characters just like she would a real person. So, I packaged up all his scenes, trauma, and baggage and sent it over for a special session. Based on Jeannie’s feedback, I made changes to his scenes and added a pre-scene to make his reaction much more plausible.
The bottom line: if it wasn’t for the feedback I received from my ‘village’ as I call them, and all the time they spent, TRINITY STONES wouldn’t be as strong as it is now.
Any advice on receiving critique to share with us?
Write on!
