GUESTBLOG: REDNECKGRANOLA'S GUIDE TO COURTEOUS CRITIQUE

Everyone needs to be able to give valid critique every now and then, lest we end up with a friend embarrassed before the nation when Simon Cowell pronounces her tone deaf and fat (then despite listing "female" on her entry form, he continues to inform the world that our friend is most certainly a "dude"). Terribly devastating, as you can imagine. And all because you never learned how to tell your friend that she really wasn't a great singer.

But contrary to popular belief, critique doesn't equal criticism. Plus it's not as simple as "calling a spade a black icon that looks sorta like an upside down heart skewered on a stick. It's takes some skill and practice. Like anything you have to practice, it's best to start with the basics.

To get us started in the proper vein, I thought I would include a short rant about how ludicrously inept most people seem to be at offering proper critique. In true blogpost, bullet-rant form, here are my five things a critique isn't and should never been confused with:

1.  A tweet is not a critique.
2.  "I liked it," is not a critique.
3.  Spell check is not a critique (nor is grammar check).
4.  Critique is not an opportunity to mock someone's ineptitude, or to stroke your own ego. If you need to blather on to feel smart, write a book rather than critiquing one. (Or start a stupid blog for goodness sake).

For those of you critiquing my blog post, you'll notice I said, "five things a critique isn't." Well Mr. and Mrs. Smarty Pants. The fifth one is for you to post in the comments.

Part One: Compliment Someone, Stupid.

Learning the skill of critique in our po-mo (post modern) world is handier than a grave digger learning how to sharpen a shovel. Bitching and moaning has become a competitive sport and a matter of pride. Without spending more than a few seconds considering this statement, it's the only thing that unites every generation from youngest to oldest.

But sadly, most people think genuine critique is as simple as farting his or her gut's first-churnings onto paper or into the digital aethers. Not so. Today we will deal with the first rule of courteous critique: Compliment someone, stupid!

Match your slash and burn with at least an equal amount of praise.

This might sound one of two ways to you. If you're a big teddy bear, this might sound obvious or even insufficient. To that I say, most of society's woes are you're fault, Mr. and Mrs. Never Spank!

This is critique we're talking about after all. And when compliments get more than a few deep, they start to fester. How are naughty writers ever going to learn the difference between active and passive verbs if we as a community don't take responsibility for each other. "You dangle another participle Mr., and I'll spangle your hide!"

But, if you are more like me (a pedantic jerk), then matching compliment per complaint might sound like both an empty exercise and impossible task. To that I say, get over yourself and learn a new skill. You might even find you like it, you gnarled old pontificator! (I mean, what a wonderful sweater you're wearing.)

Lastly, when applying the compliment per complaint technique in your critique, always remember to prime with compliment and finish with complaint. Compliments cover over all sorts of rough spots, moldy stains and greasy surfaces. When a writer is appropriately rubbed down with compliments, you'll discover that your complaints tend to stick and have a much longer lasting effect.

Part Two: Get in Their Head Before Their Jock

We all know truffles are just bottom-dwelling, fungus balls leaching off the decay of other plants, and that it takes a pig to sniff them out. Yet most of us will jump at the chance to eat the truffles for dinner and then turn on the pig for breakfast the next morning.

So it shouldn't surprise us that as critics we always want to add salt to the gravy before we've tasted it to find out it's caramel sauce. (Am I inside your head yet?) On that note, it's time for our second rule of giving courteous critique: Get into a writer's head before you get into their jock.

For those of you who never played high school sports in the 80's or 90's, "getting into someone's jock" isn't as provocative as it sounds.

It simply means staying in their face and playing tight defense--moving with their every movement as if you were sharing the same jock strap (one of the more delightful images I remember from my adolescent year of athletics).

When applied to critique, this jock-strap-buddy concept means that the critiquer should make sufficient effort to match the mind and intent of the writer before attempting to ride them into the front row of the bleachers and convince the referee it was charging.

If a writer is attempting satire or allegory this could be important for you to grasp before tearing them a new one for their unrealistic representation of the social behaviors of barnyard animals. Nothing is less helpful than gathering critique from someone who clearly doesn't understand what you as a writer were trying to do.

If things are simply too blurry for you as a critiquer to be confident about what the writer's intentions are, then start there and simply ask for clarification.

The second take home here is to challenge yourself to help the writer improve their writing, not adapt to yours. It's fine to share jocks with a fellow bard, but only if your tough defense is all about helping them improve their own style of offense. You aren't allowed to cry foul every time they shake rather than bake (or versa vice).

Part Three: Haterade is for Sipping

Get on the love train folks, because it's time for rule three of giving courteous critique: Haterade is for Sipping.

There, I said it. Now don't get me wrong. Haterade is a powerful elixir, and has its place and purpose around the sphere of artistic endeavor. Where would we be if Milli Vanilli hadn't received the heavy dousing of haterade they so rightly deserved? Or if reality T.V. hadn't gotten booed from the primetime stage... (oh, crap).

Anywho, haterade is fine and dandy, sour candy. As long as its consumers understand the difference between a snifter and a cooler jug (a snifter is a snooty glass, narrower at the top, used for brandy) (thus the difference is that one of them is refined and small while the other is big and clunky and used at foozball gatherings) (okay. Good to go?).

Just like a seventy-year-old, overweight football coach with heart issues standing on the victorious sidelines in freezing weather moments before the end of football contest, an artist (or creator of any sort) can be quite negatively impacted by a cooler-jug-full of haterade all at once.

Not only could he or she die, but even if said artist only suffers hypothermia for several hours, your lambasting will only be remembered as the blathering of a petty individual who needed more love from his or her mother. Thus, legitimate criticism will be dismissed along with the torrent of overdone, gagamagging verbal flatulence.

So if you fancy yourself as a sophistimacated critic of the arts and you wish to be taken seriously while sitting around the table of artistic endeavor (I know it was a sphere earlier. Well now its a spherical table. Get over it.) then try drinking from a glass rather than a trough.

• Make it a rule to never use exclamation marks in your critique! If you find something like this!!!! in anything you've written delete it and start over.
• Don't write a critique the same way you try to win arguments with your spouse. (ie. "Why do you always do this?") bellyaching via superlatives makes you sound whiny and pathetic.
• give specific examples or numbers to back up claims. Something like "The author must have used the phrase 'dirty Mexican' every third sentence," when in fact the author didn't use it at all, can make you seem crazy.
• Along those same lines, react emotionally, but then critique rationally.
• Finally, always remember rule number one: Compliment them, stupid!

If you can follow these guidlines, then you will be well on your way to drinking haterade responsibly. And that, folks, is enough to preserve the community of artistic endeavorers sitting around the spherical table of artistic endeavor well into the future so that our children will benefit from the same long-endeavoring arts that we do.

Part Four: Jackasses Will Always be With Us

For the fourth and final installment of The Green Porch's Guide to Courteous Critique, I'm expressing my confusion. Is it fashionable to hate apples because they don't taste like oranges? So why do people think it's legitimate to read pulp fiction and then hate on it because it isn't teen romance?

And has anyone noticed hate-nastics often include all the same buzz phrases? Are these auditions for The Next American Jerk-A? Look, I get it. It's easier to sound smart when criticizing something than when praising it. Every monkey loves his banana. But to describe it as thick-skinned, moldy and lacking pungency makes me sound like one cool gorilla.

That's why part four of the guide is about ignoring the inevitably erroneous critiques when we get them. Ignore them, they won't go away.

What was it Jesus said about the poor? That they will always be with us. This wasn't intended to let us of the hook when it comes to caring for them, but it was meant to help us prioritize. If Jesus were writing this post he would tell everyone that jackasses will always be with us.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything about de-jackassing them, but that we should de-prioritize them.

If someone offering critique has failed to follow steps one, two and three of this guide, then they are either a struggling jackass or a hopeless one. Either way, their comments will be tainted by their own mental and emotional instabilities. While there might be useful information, it will undoubtedly be sleazed over.

So as an artist, do yourself a favor, and just ignore it. Find the same critique in more lucid and helpful manner elsewhere. Yes, I'm telling you to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 'Cause this baby ain't right. Jerks will always be with us. You better learn to ignore them now.

RedneckGranola (aka David Mark Brown) writes Reeferpunk (a Weird-West Diesel-Punk mash-up) novels and short stories under the clear skies of Montana. His first two novels Fistful of Reefer and The Austin Job are available from www.Amazon.com now! You can read more about Reeferpunk here: www.reeferpunk.com and more about the man, the myth and the legend here:  www.thegreenporch.com 

DON'T WRITE THE SECOND DRAFT BEFORE YOU'VE WRITTEN THE FIRST

You're not going to write a perfect manuscript the first time around, so don't try to. When you're writing the first draft the goal is simply that, to write it, from start to finish. Once you have that pile of pages you can worry about shaping it and crafting it into the finished article in the second and subsequent drafts.

You shouldn't write a first page based on what you think an agent wants, or employ plot devices simply because you've heard someone say a publisher is interested in them. There's no magic formula for successful fiction. If there was then agents, editers and publishers wouldn't bother agenting, editing or publishing, they'd all be writing bestsellers! Keep abreast of developments in the market and what is selling vs what gets nowhere but remember that you're not trying to be an also-ran, you want your book to succeed on merit so make it as good as it can be, not as good as the constraints you've placed upon yourself will allow it to get.  Write what makes sense to you and your story and then you can worry about what other people will think after that.

Your first goal should be to write something that makes sense all the way through. Something that people can read, even if they're not engrossed, without getting lost. Then you've got a coherent story, the most important thing in starting any book. Who cares about the writing or the characters or the world if, essentially, readers don't understand what's going on.

A finished book is like a luxury car. You don't go into a Lexus dealer to buy an engine and four wheels, even though (like the cohesiveness of your story) it's the most important thing. The engine is the foundation of the car, without it nothing else works or matters. Still it's not what SELLS the car, it just makes it run. The features that sell it are the paint job, the shape, the gas mileage, the safety, the brand, the leather interior. It's the same with books. After you've got your story is when you can start worrying about dressing it up and making it all glossy and pretty so that people WANT to drive it out of the lot and take it for a spin. But noone taking it anywhere if the engine doesn't work!

WORDS' WORTH

A dictionary is a tool not a magic wand. 

Sometimes when people are concerned about their writing they make the mistake of thinking that the way to make it better is to use more “grown-up” sounding words. They aren’t confident in their own ability to tell the story they’re attempting which leads to a belief that, as far as words are concerned, bigger is better.

Now, I’m not suggesting that those in possession of an expansive vocabulary shouldn’t use it to it’s fullest potential. It’s certainly a great attribute for any wordsmith to possess and one shouldn’t apologize for it. From a personal point of view I enjoy the flow of words just as much as I enjoy story and it’s just as inspiring to me to read the work of someone with an expansive word pallette as it is to look at the colours in something like Van Goghs Starry Night. I’m in a minority nowadays though. The problem can be that when writing fiction for today’s markets, even when used correctly, fancy words can sound like the ingredients on the back of a can of soda to a lot of people. Flow and voice are more important than ever and that is usually achieved through comfortable rather than complex prose. 

Compelling prose doesn’t have to be complex. I don’t know of anyone who ever sold a million copies of a book because people were blown away by the complexity of the wording. There are those like Cormac Mccarthy who can use words better than most to create heartbreaking scenes of staggering beauty, but by the same token a book like the Alchemist is written very simply and does the same job. 

Some lucky writers who get seriously good can combine the two. Ernest Hemingway is an example of how someone with the vocabularly of the entire Collins corporation can use it in a way that sounds simple. If you’re half decent then the chances are if you need a dictionary to understand a word, so will th reader, and the object isn’t to bedazzle readers with words they have to look up, its to draw them into your world, story and lives of your characters to make connections. The word that should encapsulate your prose more than anything is “appropriate”. It wouldn’t do to write Fantastic Mr Fox in Dickensian prose just as Pride and Prejudice wouldn’t work under the pen of Edgar Allan Poe. Your wording needs to be cognisent and appropriate for those who are going to read it.

A Thesaurus can be an equally fatal object if relied upon too heavily. The main danger is that people rely on a thesaurus so heavily that they substitute words to try to appear more word-smart. Oftentimes however these people don’t really understand how to use words and the result is misused wording, which is MUCH worse than clear, simple sentences.

If you really want to improve your wording then the best education is going to be to read more. Read and read and read and you’ll find that you’re phrasing and vocabularly expand greatly, quite organically. Writers always “borrow” things from each other, there’s ony so many words after all and so many sequences they work in so there’s no shame in using words and concepts that you’re read in other places if it enhances your own work and inspires you and your readers.

When you do your rewrite it’s important to understand that using words for words’ sake in an attempt to sound clever isn’t going to get you very far. If I can understand the prose then that’s half the battle, if you overcomplicate it to sound clever I’m probably going to put the book down unless you’re one of my favourite authors already and I’m prepared to invest in your material and work a bit more.

So rememeber a dictionary is not a shortcut. It’s more useful for spelling corrections than anything else, it won’t take away the hard work of a good writer.

WRITE SHORT FICTION

We've discussed already the need to make your work engaging. In order to do that one needs to use every word to their advantage to ensure a reader simply can't put your manuscript down. Nowhere is this practice of making every word count more prevalent than in short fiction. I myself must confess that I am not a fan of short fiction. I can't claim to enjoy it particularly and most of the short fiction I've read (even by some of my all-time favourite authors) can't really keep me interested or move me like their novels can. I do like the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and I do like some of the stuff in Men Without Women by Hemingway and some of Haruki Murakami's stories in After the Quake however.

In today's world writing short-fiction is not what it once was. Ray Bradbury was so prolific at short-story writing at one stage that he was selling over 50 stories a year and making a living off it. I don't know that there's much more than 50 publications left out there that will pay an author for short-stories nowadays. Likewise, Stephen king used to write short-stories to provide supplemental income for his family, something that would be very tough today (not that it was a walk in the park for you Mr King if you're reading this). There's some very good University Presses that one can get published in and some journals and magazines like Glimmertrain and Crazy-Horse but the days of getting published in major newspapers and magazines is (for most) well and truly over. Even so it's still worth trying to get shorts published because many agents like to see any publication credits that you have on a query letter. If someone has seen promise in your work then agents are more likely to take a look at it.

Anyway, how does short-fiction help you with a second-draft? Well as I've already stipulated writing short-fiction requires a writer to write lean, crystal clear sentences. Every sentence you write needs to either build character, establish setting or drive the story. No words can be wasted. Writing this way is very tough when you start because you'll need to constantly try to trim the fat off your wording to make it cleaner and crisper and to get into the heart of what's happening as fast as possible without losing tone and style or clarity. Because it's short fiction and there are word contraints you need to start as close to the end as you can but still achieve the same kind of character relationships and world establishment as a novel has to in it's opening chapters.

A good exercise is to take a story that you like and try to paraphrase the first few chapters. Then try to inject the same kind of tone that the original author does in the novel in that short block of words that you've just written. It will become apparent how important word choice is, how important sentence structure and length are and what kind of little nuances can help you to really propel narrative.

As I've said I don't like reading short-fiction. I would be lying if I told you that when I've finished a peice of short-fiction I think it's going to get me anywhere, no matter how complete a peice I think it is. Having said that I beleive in making everything I write of as good a standard as I possibly can and I do beleive whole-heartedly that writing short-fiction, even as just an exercise, makes me appreciate more and more the need to be concise and clear in my work. To that end the benefit of writing this kind of stuff, even if you never submit it for publication, is massive. If you can get to a level where you can take a paragraph of 200 words and get it down to 75 without losing the tone an style you're after then you're moving in the right direction.

Writing for enjoyment is important, but you still have to be able to actually write in the first place and that takes effort. It's important to me that I gets better and so sitting behind some cliche' like "I write what I want for my own enjoyment" because it's easier than stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to get better is very ugly to me.

Top novelists write whatever they want. If they get lucky they do that from day one but plenty of writers are writing what OTHER people want them to in order to earn the right to do what they want in the future. They write what editors tell them to, what publishers want, what agents tell them will sell, what newspapers and magazines need for their readers. They write text books and technical fact-sheets and how-to-guides. They guest blog they edit other peoples work, they prepare legal contracts. They keep diaries, write court minutes or letters for their bosses. They write just to write because that's what makes them better and getting good and developing their own style is what's going to get them noticed! Being a good writer isn't just about the fun of writing from your own imagination, sadly. You shouldn't just say "I don't want to write that," or "I can't write that," because it's tough. Try new things and keep moving forward. Even if you don't think it was a relevent experience for you, if you learned one thing from it then you're getting better and that should always be the aim, from new writers to best-selling novelists. So my advice is to try some short fiction. Even if, like me, you don't like reading it you will get better at condensing your writing and making every word count. I look back now on the short stories I've written and I see a massive improvement, so much so that I've now had some things published, and that, let me tell you, is a great feeling and something that keeps me motivated.

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

Sometimes when I solicit feedback I get something like, "I wasn't sure who Sandra was referring to in the cafe," or "what was the relevance of the cheese on the radiator." Even worse sometimes I say something like, "what did you think of the silver shark being a key," and the answer I get is "oh, I didn't really get that." It's very annoying when things I think are very obvious and that are really important and fun in my mind fail to transcend to my readers. The reason that this kind of thing happens is because I don't have to explain anything to myself, I'm already aware of what's going on so when I write a sentence I don't need to worry about the meaning getting lost or the scenario in which it occurs not being set up aptly. Obviously that's not the case with someone who is not privvy to my minds warped ways.

All the way through your work you have to have painted a picture so clearly that a reader knows EXACTLYwhere they are, what's going on and that the characters have been developed (or are developing) so clearly that they're acting in a way that the reader can accept. Imagine if F.Scott Fitzgerald hadn't made it clear who the Great Gatsby was or if one didn't know Captain Correlli was an Italian. The deck of cards would come tumbling down.

When you solicit feedback try to get people to recall the story to you. YOU know what the important parts are in your work, if people fail to mention them then you need to go back and refine those passages and really make the important details stick out.

If you want to try to do this yourself then make an ordered list of the main parts of your work. Think about what the important aspects of each part is and how they link with the others. You need to be sure that you have addressed all of these links succinctly so that a reader doesn't skip something important that could throw off their interest level. Remember if the reader can't follow it they'll just reject it out of hand. When you're as reknowned as John Le Carre then maybe someone will work through your mishaps, but without a loyal readership you can't afford such slips.

Be aware I'm not talking about mystery or suspense here, I'm talking about downright confusion. Being sparse with details to create intrigue is a good technique, but even in this instance the intrigue needs to be clear. Your reader needs to KNOW that they're not being given info and that somethings amiss or it simply reads like a narrative full of holes...ad who wants to read that.

IT'S ALREADY THE END FOR YOU IF YOU'VE WRITTEN A NON-STARTER

Something I have discussed with people a great deal is what the most important part of a new novel by an unpublished author is. Universally, the answer agreed upon is; the Start. You only have one chance to make a first impression. The slush piles over at Literary Agencies and Publishing Houses aren't getting any smaller. You have a very limited number of words to grip someone and make them decide that out of the hundreds of manuscripts they're going to sift through that week, yours is worth spending a little more time on and may warrant a closer look!

So, what makes a good start? Well that's very genre specific but typically engagement is the key word. There's a lot of ways to engage readers, a few of which are mentioned below for you to think about. If your start doesn't do any of these things then there's everychance a reader will simply go "meh, who cares," and never get into the real substance of your story...and wouldn't that be a shame?

1. Add an Element of Peril
If there's no reason for the characters to get excited or worked up about something then how can you expect a reader to. Whether it's action or intrigue, give me something that makes me interested in what's happening!

2. Make me care for the characters -
Stereotypes are Ok but original well rounded and often flawed characters that affect me in new ways are really great. Don't have a hollow set of characters that are along for the ride. If your story is like a road then the characters are the vehicles that carry me along it. As nice as a Volvo is when I need entertaining it's got nothing for me.


3. Tell me something new-
Even if you're telling a story that's kind of been told before, tell it in a way that surprises me and makes me want to get deeper into it. It's not particularly good when I kind of know what's happening next.


4. Make me beleive it- 
Even if you're writing science fiction or fantasy, make sure that when something happens I'm not like "yeah, right." I can beleive that Ian Flemming's James Bond is going to knock out a badguy with one punch because of the way he's written and the style of the writing.


5. Put me in the action-
It's a very cliche' concept that every agent and publisher talks about but SHOW ME what's happening don't just tell me. It's much more rewarding when I have to do the work with the characters rather than just being spoon-fed what's happening. I may as well just read a synopsis.


6. Don't give me more than I need-
I need to be dragged into the world of the charaters and get gripped by the events and story. If you waffle on too long things can get sterile and then I'll put the book down. Balancing story, world building and action is, in my opinion, VERY challenging and the thing I personally struggle with the most.


7. Make sure it makes sense! 
Rememeber also that if you make a balls-up of the start then there's every chance the rest of your novel simply won't make sense. There's nothing worse than wanting to get into a book because you can see kind of where the writer is going and the concept is good but I just can't follow what's going on. When you've got to flick back and be like "who's that character again?" or "what are they talking about?" it's a big drag...and a failure on the behalf of the writer. Reading is linear and pages should only be turned from right to left not the reverse.

Are there other ways to sart a novel that we haven't touched upon? Of course, writing is not a science it's an art and therefore people are always breaking the mould and wowing readers in new ways. For every book that does what I've just mentioned above there's writing that does the complete opposite and works. Typically however a writer needs to earn the right to be this adventurous. Even these out-there books that defy genre and style though will have a great start though. So even if you are planning on writing that 900 page Dune meets Pride and Prejudice mash-up as your first book, make sure the start is good.

Now let's put this in perspective. A good start won't get an unpublished author a six-figure advance or a seven book deal over at Bloomsbury. What it WILL do is give you a chance of getting to the next step towards publication. You can't get published unless someone who matters reads your work, and you have to MAKE them want to by being so engrossing at the start that they simply can't NOT read it. There's a great Kurt Vonnegut quote where he's discussing short stories that fits with this idea quite aptly; "use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel like the time is wasted." Essentially if you don't do this then you'll be doing far more than watsing their time...you'll be wasting yours! Most of us don't get paid to write (yet) so the biggest commodity you have is time...don't waste it, you can't afford to!

THE ROLE OF CRITICISM

Everyone says my work is great, do I still need to bother rewriting? In a word.... Yes!

Anyone who's getting nothing but positive criticism after a first draft is soliciting feedback from the wrong sources. Think about WHO you're getting criticism from and what gives them the right to criticise you. Feedback is important and it's nice to be praised but essentially what you need from those looking at your early efforts is what you've not done well and how to improve it. If people like it, great, but it's secondary to what you really need at that stage. Your Grandma is going to think that everything you do is better than In Search of Lost Time, whether or not she can even understand it. This is no good to anyone.

It's ok to take negative criticism personally if that's what's going to drive you on to make the work better. There's no right way to react to feedback other than ensuring it makes you go back and fix the issues, no matter how big they may be. An agent recently told me that my style was great and the tone I set in my novel was awesome, but thereafter the plot moved too slowly and I had to basically rewrite my entire first five chapters. This prompted me to completely change the starting events and that was tough as I thought what I had was well written. When I looked back however I decided that he was right. It became very obvious to me what the issues were and after that I could plan how to effectively alleviate them in my next draft. Essentially YOU have to understand enough about what you want to say and then make decisions on who to trust to tell you whether or not you've succeeded. When you don't, it's back to the drawing board.

Finally, don't get feedback after every chapter. This is tough for some people. Everyone wants to be told they're doing great. It's tough to write for weeks or months before giving someone a completed peice of work but essentially (unless you're Charles Dickens releasing a novel one chapter at a time in the Evening Standard) your manuscript needs to work best as a whole. Some people like to give a first chapter to people for feedback to get feedback on things like tone and style, this is probably not a terrible idea.

Always keep in mind though that feedback is merely someone elses opinion. If someone gave me the Hunger Games I'd say it was terribly written and a rip-off of the Running Man and Battle Royale. Be true to yourself and accept criticism but, essentially, the final edit is still firmly yours.

If you can't find decent people to give you feedback then look online. There's plenty of people willing to critique your work. Oftentimes they'll do this in return for you looking at their work so be prepared to do unto others. As an aside, this is also a good way to meet other writers who can help you later in your career.