Kill With Your Critique ... the Good Way

You can offer serious, honest feedback without crushing a writer's soul.

As The Picture Book Whisperer and Editor for Bushel & Peck Books, I'm regularly invited to conferences to give manuscript critiques. Most recently, I participated in the Florida SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) Critique-aPalooza, and from the feedback I received on my critiques, I scored like a champ. Since these involved 15-minute Zoom conversations with the authors, I already knew that I witnessed how my written and verbal comments were difference-making.

Best of all, no one cried.

You might think that last sentence was left in for the comedic value, but here's the truth-when I started teaching writing at the college level 20-whatever years ago, I did make someone cry. Maybe even a few someones. Why? Because it'd been commonplace in my grad school writing workshops for students to get blubbery during or immediately after a professor's critique. After all, when speaking about critiques, don't we often use words like "destroy," "tear to shreds," and "rip apart"? How can that happen without the writer taking a few-or many!-blows as well?

This all got me thinking: What do I now know about giving critiques that I didn't know then? After serious reflection-and talking to a few dynamite pro critiquers-I offer the following.

DISCOVER INTENTIONS

I used to assume what the author and the story needed. These days, I ask. Small wonder then that if I learn a writer wants a lot of attention on plot, and then I give lots of feedback on plot, they're super happy.

In my college writing workshops, I invite authors whose work is up for group critique to bullet-point three specific things/areas/ideas they'd like feedback to touch upon. Of course, people can and do give more than that, but this guarantees we all have the same primary bull's-eyes.

It's so simple, yet many critiquers skip this high-impact, author empowering step!

GO HIGH AND LOW