I’m in the editing phase for one of my novels, one that’s especially
close to my heart, and I recently got notes back from my trusted critique
partners and beta readers. One of my
betas is a very dear friend of mine, and when she was done with the manuscript,
we went to a local microbrewery to have pizza and beer and talk about the
book. We sat down at one of the shiny,
dark wood tables and whipped out our laptops. My beta started scrolling through
my manuscript and telling me all the places where she paused, thought something
was off, found a typo. At one point she asked me, “Joan had sex with Alex*,
right? I mean, is that what you meant to imply in this scene?”
It was not what I meant to imply.
“Thanks,” I said. “It
doesn’t really matter what I meant.”
And it doesn’t.
Step one
of handling a critique is to receive it.
No explaining, not to your reader, not to yourself. No
attempts to justify the inclusion of, say, llamas in your contemporary romance.
There are only two things you may ever say in response to a critique. The first is, “Thank you.” The second is
something like, “When you say you thought the chase scene didn’t make sense,
did you mean the one where they chase llamas across the mall
parking lot, or the one in the kitchen where she’s running after him with a
frying pan?” Thanks, or a request for clarification. That’s it. No explanations, no “But the llamas are
crucial to the plot!”, no “Maybe you just don’t like llamas!” Shut up and
receive.
It’s crucial that you make every effort not to spout off
these explanations and justifications even
to yourself. Just for a little while, pretend everything your reader says
is the absolute truth, because in a way, it is. Her experience of the book is
valid, even if it isn’t the same as your experience. That’s why you asked for her
help in the first place. When those explanatory voices pipe up, have another
beer and say, “Thanks, that’s an interesting point.”
Now you’re ready for step
two. Take that critique and ignore
it.
Critiques are like jumping into too-hot bathwater. They sting. (For me, anyway. If you’ve
figured out how to take the pain out of statements like “I kind of hated your
hero…sorry!” please tell me your secret.) The way to get through the pain is to
live with it for a little while. Don’t think about it too hard. Let that
critique sit on your hard drive for a day, a week, whatever it takes.
Ignoring your critique doesn’t just take away the sting. It
helps make those persistent voices shut up. If you think about it too much, the
need to EXPLAIN! will take over. You’ll get into a useless conversation with your
critique and convince it that the llamas are necessary. You’ll be very
satisfied with yourself, because the critique will just sit there saying the
same thing over and over again. Easy argument to win. And the book will suffer.
Once the critique has been sufficiently ignored, you’re
ready for step three: deal with it.
Now that you’ve calmed down and realized the llamas really are unnecessary, it’s a lot easier to
cut them out. There may be points on which you simply don’t agree with your
reader, and that’s okay. It’s critical here not to write off a response as “a
personal thing.” All responses to
books are personal. But it is okay to
sift through those personal responses for the ones that ring in harmony with your
vision of the book.
Many, many times, I’ve gotten notes back from multiple critique
partners, and everybody has a problem with a particular scene. Say this happens
with your parking lot llama chase scene. Somebody hates the llamas, somebody
else thinks it would work better if it took place in an amusement park,
somebody else thinks the dialogue between the hero and the heroine
sounds stilted. What this means is that something is wrong. Nobody—including you—is
sure what, but it’s your job to figure it out, and figure it out you will.
So there it is, handling a manuscript critique in three
simple steps:
- Receive it.
- Ignore it.
- Deal with it.
You may have noticed a secret step in there at the very end.
Step three-point-one: Believe you
will get it right. Having faith in yourself during a critique may be
the hardest step of all, but keep believing. Trust in your voice, in your
vision, in your characters. It may take time, multiple re-writes, lots of
chocolate or bourbon or macaroni and cheese with bacon. But as long as you
don’t give up, there’ll be a better book on the other side.
What’s your favorite trick for handling a critique?
*Names have been changed to protect the unpublished.
