{"id":7686,"date":"2013-02-22T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=7686"},"modified":"2013-02-22T06:00:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T12:00:48","slug":"tique-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=7686","title":{"rendered":"‘Tique Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Did<\/a>
Did I like it? I’ll always like it. But there may be some things you want to take a look at. Here, I’ll tell you…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the best parts of being a writer is getting to read another writer\u2019s work before it goes out to the public. It\u2019s one of the most stressful times for any writer, too. Getting any kind of report back on one\u2019s abilities to tell a story can be nerve-wracking. No one wants to hear \u201cyou suck\u201d or \u201csorry, I just didn\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I try not to do that.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m reading someone\u2019s work I\u2019m always going to make a note of what I liked. Always. \u201cThat\u2019s a nice phrase\u201d or \u201cthat made me chuckle\u201d or \u201cROFLMAO\u201d are nice to see in any notes.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself. Let me reset just a second.<\/p>\n

Okay.<\/p>\n

First, I like critiquing – actually prefer – by using PDFs rather than Word docs. There\u2019s nothing wrong with Word, we use if for notes in the Actionopolis books I write, and just about everyone has it. It\u2019s an industry standard. But what it does is line up all the comments on the right side of the page with arrows pointing into the text. When there are four people commenting on a piece, it can get more than a little hectic.<\/p>\n

Acrobat Reader. I can\u2019t recommend this enough for anyone who sees a lot of PDFs. When I\u2019m adding a note to a text I can move the call out box right into the paragraph and it points to exactly the point that caused me to want to make that comment. (I\u2019m not sure if this is available in the basic free version you have to download in order to read PDFs from the web. I invested in Creative Suite and that\u2019s the version I use. Your mileage may vary.) I\u2019ve gotten feedback from one writer who says that it\u2019s a lot nicer to scroll through and see those little boxes in the text than a rainbow bar of comments and changes on the right side.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the visual stuff.<\/p>\n

As for how I read for critique, generally the questions I ask of the author start with \u201cHave you thought about\u2026?\u201d because I\u2019ve found that really, really helps me. I live comment the first pass through, then delete things as I think are necessary. I\u2019ll tell the author what I\u2019m thinking as I read. \u201cDid he really say that?\u201d \u201cI bet this is going to suck.\u201d \u201cOh, yeah, now I hate you for what you just did.\u201d I think this is so helpful because we don\u2019t get that kind of feedback from \u2018regular\u2019 readers. It speaks to pacing and foreshadowing and all the little things we do to draw the reader in.<\/p>\n

Finally, I offer an overall opinion and suggestions for improvements. Everything I offer is up to the author to take or leave. I make no judgement because I don\u2019t know enough to be snooty about someone not taking my advice. I think it\u2019s important that when I\u2019m saying \u201cyou might rethink this passage\u201d that I at least offer something that sparks an idea for the author to pursue. It probably isn\u2019t what I would do (else I\u2019d be writing the story) but that\u2019s the process.<\/p>\n

By the way this is what I want from people who are critiquing my work.<\/p>\n

Look, I\u2019m not a line editor nor a strict grammarian. You\u2019re not going to get that from me. What you get are thoughts and alternate solutions. I think that\u2019s way more helpful than pointing out misspellings and the common errors in usage. That stuff is for later drafts and the author will catch it as she\u2019s editing herself.<\/p>\n

Or at least I hope so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the best parts of being a writer is getting to read another writer\u2019s work before it goes out to the public. It\u2019s one of the most stressful times for any writer, too. Getting any kind of report back on one\u2019s abilities to tell a story can be nerve-wracking. No one wants to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[239,498,894],"class_list":["post-7686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-critique","tag-have-you-thought-about","tag-questions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}