I have a confession to make: I am a terrible critique partner. In the last year, I\u2019ve offered to read manuscripts for five of my writing group members. I\u2019ve gotten through one and a half of them. I had one for so long that it went through two new drafts and was submitted to a publisher before I had gotten more than a few chapters in.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m slow. I take critiques pretty seriously, so I like to be meticulous and pay very close attention to what I\u2019m reading. That makes critiquing very time-consuming for me, and time has been my enemy lately; I do not have enough of it. Or rather, I have the same amount of time, but too many other things I have to do with it, so reading the manuscripts of my friends has taken a back burner.<\/p>\n
I also lack confidence in my ability to give good feedback. I am a voracious reader, and a decent writer, but those are the only qualifications I have to be a critique partner. I\u2019m currently taking classes for a copyediting certificate, so I\u2019m hoping my copyediting skills will be honed by the end of this year, but I\u2019m still not sure that helps me with the fundamental edits.<\/p>\n
All I can offer people is my opinion: what I feel works and doesn\u2019t work for me. I can tell you if I feel like a scene needs more development, clarification, or elimination. I can tell you if I feel like your characters are acting out of character. I can tell you at what point, if any, I was pulled out of the story, for whatever reason, or when my suspension of disbelief failed.<\/p>\n
Basically I give writers my reactions as a reader. I tend to give a broad \u201cI liked it\u201d or \u201cI didn\u2019t like it\u201d and why. I\u2019m not as good at suggesting ways to fix what I feel is lacking, but I do try to throw out ideas to at least help brainstorm.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m much better at collaboration than critique. I thrive in a group or partner setting, throwing ideas back and forth, rather than sitting alone with a manuscript.<\/p>\n
But I still love to read, and I really do enjoy reading what comes from the minds of my fellow writers. They never cease to amaze me with what they are able to put out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a confession to make: I am a terrible critique partner. In the last year, I\u2019ve offered to read manuscripts for five of my writing group members. I\u2019ve gotten through one and a half of them. I had one for so long that it went through two new drafts and was submitted to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[242,908],"class_list":["post-7756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-critiquing","tag-reader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}