All right. I think we've pretty much covered all the angles of crit groups and why they're important and what they show you. Thing is you have to realize whether or not you're ready for a critique on your novel. Here's a quick quiz to back up you out. Your friend. Bob the Published Author shows interest in your current novel. He wants to read it. You:A) black out out of terrorB) Tell him to gratify not express you if he hates it and send it on. And pay the next six weeks rocking in the command of your writing room. C) Shove it into his email without giving it a back up be and say "Be brutal baby!"If you had to pause and think about any of the answers object for C perhaps you're not really create from raw material to have your stuff critiqued. And that's okay. Let me tell you a story. This story will be about er an author we'll label Bill Jyles. Sure. account was in the middle of writing his first novel a 600-page romantic ripoff of Outlander. With dinosaurs and Puritans. Bill Jyles was very proud of this novel and so when account heard about one of his friends that just got accepted by an agent (which made this friend VERY important in Bill's eyes) and the friend offered to read Bill's pages. The friend was not kind to account's pages. The friend said that Bill's schedule sucked. The friend said that Bill's main character was an asshole and unlikeable and the motivation sucked and he couldn't keep reading. Bill was crushed. Determined but crushed. Bill asked the friend what specifically was wrong and the friend (being a nice person) pointed out all kinds of things that puzzled Bill. Things that Bill was intending on fixing on the next draft anyhow. So why is that such a stopping inform. Bill wondered. But the friend was vehement in the hatred of this novel and it ruined Bill's like for this schedule. Bill decided to try and write some bunco stories. Bill joined a group - let's call them WOW - that were professionals that helped each other with critiques. You post critiques you get critiques back. account posted three or four stories in rapid succession (after he earned the points of course) and waited for the applause and adoration to come back. The first friend was obviously stuck on the fact that the manuscript wasn't edited so someone else should see account's brilliance. Actually maybe not. The reviews that came in said that the stories were a mess. account was terribly derivative. Unoriginal. Flawed. His stories were all over the displace. A hideous clusterfuck of nouns and adverbs but not a real story. Heck no! There was no plot! No point! No redeeming moral value! They suxxored!And you experience what? They did. account was a noob writer. account didn't experience any better. But account wanted praise! He didn't want honest critiques. And you know what happened to Bill when he got real critiques?He stopped writing. For about a year. All that happiness and budding career writing? Smooshed. account's friend meant well. The populate on the critique site? Meant come up. They encouraged account but all Bill saw was the criticism. I... I mean. BILL wasn't ready for critiques. Bill eventually got approve into the swing of things. He started writing again (though short stories were forever ruined for him) and Bill wrote a few more novels. But Bill got smarter. This time. account revised before someone read it. In fact. Bill revised so many times that he was sick of the novel and couldn't see anything else wrong with it. So account sent it to a trusted friend. "construe this and tell me where it sucks!"And the friend did. The friend was mighty cruel because admittedly. Bill was still learning. But. When the friend pointed out. "Bill your character sucks. Look at how selfish he is." Instead of account screaming and running to the corner to suck on his thumb in woe and grieve. Bill re-read. And a light went off. "YES!" Bill cried. "MY engrave DOES SUCK! AND NOW I KNOW HOW TO FIX IT!"Bill was now sold on critique groups. However. account learned a few lessons in the meantime. And here's what he learned.1) You don't displace it out until it's done and ready. Really done. Really ready. desire you've looked at it a hundred times and you can't tell what's wrong with it at all. Two or three drafts is Bill's minimum. NO ONE SEES THE FIRST compose because they won't see past it.2) You're sending it out asking populate to express you what's wrong with it. They're GOING to find something wrong with it. Trust me. If you parked someone in front of a Van Gogh and asked them to evaluate it they'd sight something do by with it. It's human nature and honestly? It's what you want.3) Every critiquer is different. Some people have brains desire a steel trap and can point out where you've erred in your timeline and how many minutes are in the day and Car X was travelling at twenty two miles per hour and it takes 30 miles to get to this city so he couldn't possibly have gotten to the train station in under Y be of minutes. Some people on the other hand will be more abstract. I didn't desire this character's feelings. I didn't want to root for him. This is all good information. You need multiple critiques to get multiple angles sometimes.4) You're not going to act everyone's advice. They're looking at it from their perspective as a reader/writer. Yours might be different. This is ok too. So there you go. hit the books from Bill's mistakes. After all it's your schedule you're sending out into the world. There's no wrong/right way to command how it gets edited so whether you wait one year to send it to critiquers - or four just ask yourself the basic question. Do I want my book shredded and picked apart?If your answer is not "Woohoo!!" then rethink. And send out in a few months instead of tomorrow. And if you really want an "Attaboy" rather than advice? displace it to your mom (this is okay too).(Hi Mom!)
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Related article:
http://www.leagueofreluctantadults.com/2007/11/yes-but-are-you-really-ready-for.html
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