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Young Writers Society


Critiquing Prose: The Basics



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Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:50 pm
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Trident says...



You might start by clicking the link to a story and scrolling down to see how long it is. Do you really want to read that much? Yes! After learning the basic steps of prose critiquing, you’ll not only want to read that much, you’ll write that much in your critique!

You might ask yourself: What should I say? or What should I be looking at to critique? We can help answer those questions.

Starting Off


Critiquing starts the second you start reading the work; this usually works one of two ways. The first is to read the whole story without thinking about the critique and then go back. The second is to think about the critique as you go along with the story. You should decide how you want to do it. Whichever way is more comfortable for you is the better way.

However, it is best to read the whole work before starting your critique. After all, something not explained in the beginning could become perfectly clear at the end!

Line-by-Line? Or Block Critting?

Some critiquers like to take lines out of the story and then comment line by line. This is perfectly fine and is a great way to get very specific about things you like or don’t like. What you shouldn’t do is go line-by-line for every sentence only to say one or two words. Your thoughts should be expansive so that you can help the author.

There’s also block critiquing, where you don’t quote any of the piece, but instead simply comment on it in paragraph form. You simply say what you want to say. This version can work better if you don’t want to be too specific and just want to comment generally about the whole piece.

The Good, the Bad, and the Because

A critique is a mix of several elements. When you are critiquing, you will find things that you like about a story and you will find things that you hate about a story. Just remember, you want to let the author know about both. A good critique not only lets the author know what they are doing wrong, it also lets them know what they are doing right. You learn from your mistakes, but you also learn from your successes!

And if you cannot seem to find anything you like, think again! There’s always something you can compliment the author on if you look hard enough. Examples:

- “I really like the way that your character is unique with her purple hair. It makes her seem like an individual and that she doesn’t care what other people think.”

- “Your heroes were all amoebas? Wow, I would have never thought to do that!”

- “That was really cool, the way that the clock was ticking like it was the man’s heart. It really brought the story together.”


But remember that not everything should be a compliment. Every once and a while, you find a story that is so terrific, so awe-inspiring, so marvelously epic that it should be on a pedestal in the Smithsonian! Not so fast; surely there must be something that can be given a second look by the author. Examples:

-“The beginning was a little weak. I thought it could use more action and less exposition.”

- “Your characters were fun, but they weren’t completely believable. I suggest making their dialog less silly.”

- “The story was great, but I thought some of the grammar errors really detracted from the piece.”


Giving out compliments and pointing out flaws are great! But here we come to “the because”. It’s important that when you critique that you give reasons as much as you possibly can. Just saying “The title is poor” isn’t much help. Explain why!

- “I think the title is poor because it doesn’t really help me understand why your character committed the crime. The title really had nothing to do with the story.”

See! Now the author can use and take your advice if they choose. Sometimes it’s really cool to look back at a story and see that the author has used one of your suggestions!

What is Form and What is Content?

Written works can be broken down into two main ideas: form and content. Form is the way that something is written. This includes grammar, but also other concepts such as paragraph length, a story’s tone, point-of-view, sentence structure, and the flow of the story. These are easy things to comment on. Here are some examples:

- “Your story moves along very slowly with very little action. I found myself thinking of other things as I went along and had to reread several passages.”

- “Your sentences are extremely choppy and it interrupts the flow. I think you should maybe combine some of your sentences, or maybe rewrite them completely so they’re not so short.”

- “I don’t know if I was a fan of you using the second-person point-of-view. I felt like I was being bossed around.”


Content is what is contained in the story or what the story is about. Critiquing content is a lot more opinion-based because we all don’t share the same ideas. You can critique content, but realize that you have your opinion and the author has theirs. You are doing them a favor by critiquing their work, but they don’t have to listen to what you have to say. Here are some examples:

- “The little girl who keeps all those dolls is really creepy. I don’t know if that’s what you meant, but I feel like she would murder me in my sleep.”

- “Your section about the tornado didn’t seem realistic. I don’t really think tornadoes behave that way and since you didn’t specify that it was some special tornado, it made the story feel untrue.”

- “I felt that by including a suicide scene, your story gets really clichéd. A lot of newer authors try to make their stories more important by adding a suicide, and I felt like that with your scene.”

Lastly, I would like to say that ultimately you are there to help! If something is too short or too blathering, you are not being terribly helpful. Our goal is to give writers our best opinions so that they can become better writers. In the end, it’s all about having fun!
Perception is everything.
  





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Sun Feb 03, 2013 11:13 am
GlitterGabbi says...



I agree.
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