Good VS Bad Criticism
We have talked about levels of thinking and types of feedback and criticism you can receive or give. With all that said, we now have two more main topics to talk about and those are good vs bad crit and where to find different types of criticism. This week will be about good versus bad!
Good criticism=helpful!
Bad criticism= not helpful
Whether you are giving or receiving criticism from a classmate, friend, editor, or proofreader, there are certain things to recognize. First, you need to know what criticisms and advice is actually helpful. It’s nice for someone to read your story and say “Cool story bro!” but that does not help you improve in anyway. As a writer, improvement is a continuous cycle. You are never perfect, your stories are unending cycles of editing, rewrites, improvements---and that is all a good thing! Being a writer and the craft of writing is all about GROWTH. Never stop, never fall stagnant.
Ways to push farther or get more than bad criticism—ask your critic follow up questions to advice—what made you feel or think or infer this in my story? –They need to tell you something specific in the writing. This will help pinpoint what you are doing right, wrong, or what you can improve.
The same goes for art. If someone comments “nice!” “cool art!” “it’s so pretty!” these all are great and of course make you feel good but if you are looking to improve, you don’t have much information to go off here.
GOOD ADVICE
In depth
Specific
Challenges
Suggests improvement
Points out weakness with a solution
BAD ADVICE
Obviously, anything mean, bullying, backwards compliments—do not do that!
These are unhelpful:
Simple/ unconstructive comments
Compliments but no “why” or advice/ suggestions on how to improve
No improvement
Inconclusive
I like to think of good and bad criticism as a plot. If you give me good criticism, I will understand what you are talking about, what is going on, and what I need to do. If you give me bad criticism, I will be confused asking—where did you see that in my story? How did you infer that? What part of my story or detail makes you think that way? We. Need. Specifics!! Give the writer something to work with so they can improve.
Random Example:
In class, I had one student who was on a streak of not so great comments. They said, “there is no meat—only bones—I want more meat!” and that was the only comment. I read this out loud in class and said, “if you don’t tell me what you think the meat, or the bones are—your comment is only shouting at an empty wall. This is not constructive; I don’t know what I need to work on.” The class agreed and were further confused because it was a story that was admittedly confusing but was well fleshed out so the comment sounded like it was randomly copied and pasted without reading the story.
This is bad feedback because the parts in the story that need more are not pointed out or mentioned. As the writer, you won’t know where to begin.
If the commentor said, we have an interesting plot here, but I am not sure what is happening with x and y, and I think you can give us a stronger picture of this very interesting detail—it’s only bones for now but with more, we can get to that meat!
Approaching Touchy Topics
Sometimes there is something really, really wrong, or poorly done. Because you are nervous about confrontation etc. you can’t let this slip because the writer will never learn from this mistake. I usually treat these carefully and let the writer know I think it is important that they learn from this and I really mean no harm. “This piece in your story—I want you to know, I like what you are doing, I think you are going somewhere very good, but I need to explain something that I don’t think is working—but it is not a lost cause, I think some changes need to be made, and you will get a stronger piece as a result.” –that opens the floor for something that might be sensitive. It is imperative that you do not leave this alone.
Receiving and Improving Bad Crit
If someone reads your story and their feedback is not on point or helpful, you can ask them questions to further their reading, and deepen the conversation. If someone says the story if good, you can ask what parts of it stood out to them or made it feel good. That will make them think of specifics and point a few out to you. Then ask, did you feel lost and confused at any parts? Phrasing it as “lost” is more effective than asking “what parts were bad?” because they might not want to answer that question and your writing might not be bad either. This makes room for conversations about specifics.
Hand in hand with finding someone who can give you good versus bad critiques, it all depends on who you ask. For example, writers and editors, friends, teachers, classmates, and family all have their own twist to this process or ways of doing things. (for simplicities sake, lets pretend none of your friends or family are professional writers or editors)
This is kind of self-explanatory, but I’m throwing it in here anyways. I think it’s helpful for young writers especially to grow their network and see who else can give feedback because sometimes you think you don’t need anything beyond friends and family.
This fits into two categories. Your friends and family are difficult to work with at times. Usually it’s harder to receive more than a “good job!” or a pretty plain response when editing work. Here you can have the conversation of what made you think this or feel this way to get a little deeper. Usually the edits or criticisms are surface level because they are the readers who are looking at it from an enjoyment level. So if you want to know if your main character is loveable, relatable, and realistic, or your bad guy is as villainous to them as you want him to be—this is a good opportunity to learn these things. They can also pick out parts that are confusing but you the writer will have to sit down and figure out what incorrect technicality is making it so.
If you are looking for more serious feedback and want to publish or polish a story, reaching out to a teacher, tutor/ writing assistant, professional writers, proofreaders, and editors is a great idea. These individuals do not only know what makes a story tick, but they know all the tiny detail in between on how to make your work enjoyable, impactful, and absorbing. When they read through your story, they are looking at plot points, archs, character development, telling versus showing in the story, the impact your sentence and word level work has on the storytelling, and so much more. You will get more in-depth constructive criticism here.
Conclusion
That’s all I have to say this week! I’m sorry I missed last week and today I wanted to wrap up the journals on giving feedback. It’s all pretty self-explanatory but it’s a good refresher or it’s a great thought if you haven’t thought about this before! I know this journal is a little shorter than normal—I have a hard time digging into such broad topics. I’m going to pick something ultra-specific for next week and make it a little spooky themed 😊