Packing Heat 077: Critique with Care
Categories: Word Choice,Editing
Tags: snark critique day job
| Download | Duration: 00:12:33
Critique with Care
Want to know a sure fire way to lose your critique partner? Tease their writing in an attempt to be funny — that'll get rid of 'em fast!
Assuming you'd like to keep your critique partner around, here are my ideas of the tone you'd aim for:
Yes
- Direct
- Persistent
- Exacting
- Ask for Clarification
- State your Feelings
No
- Blunt
- Hurtful
- Melodramatic
- Insulting
- Snarky
My samples
I read these two writing sections and crit partner reactions, but I thought I'd include them here in case you want to refer back to them.
If I’d said, “Dad didn’t have to answer that phone,” I knew damn well Sal would’ve understood what I meant. But even now, it was too raw to go poking around like that. [A1] So instead, I said, “Tell Chip he’ll be the first one to know if I get sick of the business.”
[A1]I can sense something significant here that I'm missing the significance of. What you're communicating here, why it's important, needs to be clarified more.
No. Not now, not after that first awkwardness was past. I wasn’t willing to let him back away now; that would be worse then having never kissed at all. I cupped the back of head and let his hair thread through my fingers[A1] . Not quite short, not quite long, and damp with sweat from the heat of the kiln.
[A1]I'm starting to see variations
on this phrase in all the recent m/m that I've read lately. Just so you
know. It's a pretty phrase, but
it's becoming one of the new clichés.
Your assignment
Be on the lookout for snark. It's not your friend. It's not cool. Honest.
Yeah, totally agree. I'm a serious CP and treat it like a business meeting. If the boss cracks a joke, it's okay to smile and nod, but not return fire. In general, I steer clear of any sarcasm, humor, or even careless remarks because getting your work critiqued is always touchy, even for the most thick-skinned of artists.
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Hi, Kat! Thanks for stopping by!
An editor of mine once started calling a supporting character by an insulting nickname (that referred to his penis) -- really, who would find that funny? Talk about another good reason to self-publish.
Maybe it has something to do with anxiety, a need to crack jokes at an inappropriate time, jokes that aren't funny and make everyone uncomfortable.
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