The Importance of an Honest CRITIQUE

The Importance of an honest Critique

I have found over the last few years that it is almost impossible to get a really honest critique. I think it is because people are too afraid to tell the truth in fear they might upset you, or the person that gave them the story to read. Then there are those that give a critique that I as the writer thinks, this is too good to be true.

What follows is a critique of the book I sent my editor to read to get the hard word. It is the exact transcript with only the more personal and private words deleted.

ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE

ANTHONY M [Italy]

 

Sunday, 3 February 2013, 10:06

Hi Ian,

I’ve just finished reading XXXXXXX

It’s a very good story, and ought to be worth publishing. But (and you did ask for realistic criticism!) I don’t think, as it stands, it’s worth you spending a lot of money to get it edited and published.

The way the story is told is good and quite well structured for a novel of this length. What it lacks, I think, is much depth to the characters, even the main ones. Whilst detailed descriptions of the characters aren’t needed (and, in fact, I think you often try to give too much descriptive detail about the characters in your writing), what I feel they are missing is much of how they feel and think, and anything that makes the reader able to “identify” with one or more of them and really feel part of the story when reading it. Simply, there’s very little that makes the reader either love or hate any of them to any great extent, or even to care about what happens to them. It lacks emotion. Perhaps it would be a little harsh to say so, but it almost could be a history book just telling what happened, rather than a novel.

As with much of your writing, I feel it doesn’t quite have the “flow” that makes a novel really “readable”. It’s not just a matter of grammar or punctuation, although there is a lot that needs correcting, but rather the way that much of it is phrased. It feels clumsy and it’s also “flat”, by which I mean that you don’t use language to create high and low points in the story – such as using shorter, sharper sentences for action scenes; soft, flowing words for friendship and love; words with hard, violent consonants when there is anger; and so on.

A good editor will correct any grammatical and punctuation errors. A really good editor will attend to the phrasing, although that’s beyond most of them. What an editor can’t do, is put feeling into the story that comes across to the reader and draws the reader right into the book. That needs to come from you, and at the moment I don’t think you’ve quite got it. Unlike XXXXXXXXXXXX this sort of book won’t sell simply because it’s a good story. It needs very much more than that.

Regards,

XXXXX

CITY OF LONDON SKYLINE

The critique above is the reason that I am now taking another look at my manuscript. I have read through it and I’m in agreement to all that has been said. There is a lot to do but I am up for the challenge. I knew there was a lot wrong with the story, but because the story was born from my imagination I could not see the problem. This kind of criticism is precise and to the point. I just ask myself why others can’t be as honest is a mystery. I take all criticism seriously but not the ones that say the right things but for the wrong reasons.

If a writer allows a friend or relation to read the book they inevitably arrive back at your doorstep with the words you want to hear. I doubt very much though that they will be the words of the whole truth, as no one wishes to upset a friend or relation. So the writer is left with the only option once more and return to the editor that is set in his ways.

The problem here though, is the fact that an editor has not always got the time to read your story. This leaves a break in the chain of writing the story and getting it published, either by publisher or self publish. I have been pondering this problem for over a year now and I have finally come up with a solution. I have a plan that will give me the critique I need from the people I am writing for. What is the plan? Well until I know whether it is working I will keep that to myself.

Be well Ian.

EDITORS and English grammar

EDITORS and English grammar

I have written a few short stories that have been published under another name, and I enjoy the royalties. They are not enough to make me throw everything down and take a world cruise, but they do help make life a little more comfortable. I have a very good editor that I get along with and trust to get things done. Due to his other commitments I send the longer stories away to be edited by another. It is here that the problem arises, [conflict if ideas].

As I told you in my earlier post, I have limited English grammar skills. This problem to any editor worth the money should not be a problem. I had a story edited which I paid good money to have done. On receiving the manuscript back there were one hell of a lot of changes. I expected a certain amount of changes because that is what editors do. The manuscript also returned with the loss of fifteen-hundred words.

What I never expected was the amount of red line through certain paragraphs and sentences. In place of all my writing was left just a few words that caused me a little anxiety at the time. I didn’t have to use what was in red as it was suggested words and sentences. This is where I had major problems in trying to work out which way to go. I could either go with the words in red belonging to the editor, or I could use my own words that sounded better but grammatically could be wrong.

TOWER BRIDGE

David illif

I chose right or wrong to go with the editor and yes it all fitted neatly together. It was not until I had read the whole story from beginning to end that I found out little segments that held the story together were missing. The editor had edited the book without reading the story first. This meant that where parts had been edited out, I now had to go back and replace with what I thought was grammatically okay.

During the time before I changed a lot of my work, I was not very happy with the editor. After I had read the story through once more I had even more reservations about the work. He/she had used a lot of words that a person using forethought would use, and not a person that was living on the edge of death and danger. It annoyed me that this person was getting paid money that I could not really afford, and he/she had let me down so bad. Yes the story was now grammatically correct even if the story was now 25% written by the editor. I was feeling let down and started to question my own ability.

Over the next few months I read the edited story many times and always felt uncomfortable with the finished product. In the end I had to put it to the test with someone that would give me a real insight to what I already knew. I sent it to my own editor not for publication, but for him to read and give an appraisal and me a first class critique.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

I was not disappointed because after a few weeks he had found time to read it. Yes there was a lot wrong with the story, but not grammatically. He picked out sentences and replaced words that while in the Special Forces I never used. They were never used by the officers. He pulled paragraphs apart, and with the same words almost he had written another paragraph supplementing some of my short words for ones I would never use. The story would have been then 25% his.

Yes, I was losing my story, in fact 50% to two editors. It was at this point I e mailed him back saying, “You used a lot of words that I would never use. You have changed the paragraph but not the content by using your words. The story is no longer my story but yours because it would now be written the way you read.”

His reply was fast, and he agreed that there was a fine edge between what the editor changes and what belongs to the writer. I was told by another editor that stories are edited to a format that good old Joe/Jane public is used to reading. I think that is a lot of bull giving the editor the legal right to put his mark into a story.

St PAULS

I cannot believe that Joe/Jane public would like everyone to write their stories with the same format. [We are not living in the matrix.] What right has an editor got that gives him the impression that he knows what I am thinking? What right has any editor got to choose the words that he thinks are softer to the eye, when/if Joe/Jane public reads a story? What is the point of writing a story that to you is a manuscript of great beauty in your own words and style. Then after it is finished the editor carves it up to place long words that only the grammatically correct minority use?

On my short stories I trust my editor to do the correct thing, and he has never let me down. By my being unable to write in the grammatically correct way is ending up being a disability. I am giving away a free story on this blog with people reading it every day which makes me ask the question. “If no one has complained after reading my unedited manuscript, does this mean they are enjoying the story? The bigger question is, if these people are enjoying the story, does this mean that my English grammar is not as bad as the editors make out?” It’s more food for thought.

Be well Ian.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Now this really is a subject that really that gets right up my back. Why is it necessary to write a story in perfect English grammar, when most of the population in the UK would never know English grammar if it hit them in the face? Those that do talk it are looked upon as trying to be something they are not. With comments from the majority like, “Listen to him/her with their airs and graces.”

Walk along an English street in any big town and ask a direction or a question of a passer-by. Most will give you sentences with mms and errs, mixed with the local dialect that leave you wishing you had not bothered asking in the first place. In some cases after hearing the answer you can only scratch your head in a state of confusion. It’s at that point you wonder if when you walked out of the last shop you stepped through a time warp, and are now on doppelganger planet. However, very few people of any age will answer you in plain English, and even less of them will answer using English grammar.

STONEHENGE

Take the music industry and ask yourself, when was the last time you heard a song that was being sung with English Grammar in mind? Yea right, let’s move on. Take Rap for instance, a series of words spoken at speed with music thrown in to make it sell. As yet I have not heard a Rapping song/whatever that sounds remotely like the way we talk or the way we read. Then how do we expect our children that have been at school for the best part of eleven to fourteen years to speak or write properly?

My first school was in 1952 and a junior school, and from that day forward my education was abysmal. It started in a dip where I lay for ten years while the basics in education bounced off of my imagination. I was twelve years old and there were far too many things to learn. Did I really want to know how to make a fire extinguisher in science? Could I make one in time to put out a raging fire in an emergency, and where would I find all of these tubes and glasses?

WIDECOMBE IN THE MOOR

Dennis redfield

I was pulled out of a dream one morning in the middle of a lesson by the history teacher, “Johnstone, when did the Normans arrive in England?”

I focused my eyes once more as I scratched my head before I looked around the room. The entire class was looking back at me waiting for an answer. I replied with conviction, “It must have been last week, Sir, when I was not at school.”

The class burst out laughing while the teacher banged his forehead on the desk. While he was going through this self inflicted pain his hand was pointing to the door. I stood up behind my desk to follow the pointing finger. I then walked to the classroom door before stepping through it into the corridor. The sun was shining so I went home and went fishing on the lake all day. It was not until the next day that the same teacher told me, “I only wanted you to stand outside the door until the end of the lesson. You never learned a thing yesterday.”

I was going to tell him that I never caught any fish either, but decided it might be to much information.

There were so many useless subjects being pushed inside my head that there was no room for the ones that mattered, English literature, English grammar, mathematics. There was never a correction for a wrong spelling, just the red line denoting it was wrong. It was marked that way I suppose, so that the twelve year old student would go and find out the correct way to spell it. Let’s see now, where was the only dictionary in the school? Yes in the school library with one major problem. The school library is out of bounds to all except during reading lessons.

WASTWATER LAKE DISTRICT

Alan Cleaver

Now here I am on a Monday eager to find out why my essay has had the word “FORREST” marked wrong. I was still wondering [or maybe not] when the bell rang at four in the afternoon. Telling me that I can give my tired little brain a rest and go home, and forget school. I had no homework, because in those years some of the teachers were as lazy as the students they were teaching. When I get home that night, school was just a memory. The sun is out and it’s free time. If the teachers could not be bothered to teach me the correct way to spell the word “FOREST” while in the classroom, then I can assure you all that there was not a chance in hell I would learn it at home sitting on the river bank fishing.

Over the past fifty years I have taught myself to write stories of my fantasies and imagination. I have learned to spell words correctly while teaching myself history and mythology. The computer and the www taught me geography which helps me in most of my stories. To be honest I have taught myself to write by reading other authors stories.

Now I have another person telling me that my grasp of English grammar is not to his way of thinking. You don’t say. Yes I am once again talking about editors. I am not going to disagree with him because he is correct. I write as I think and talk and I don't talk like the book of grammar. No one has yet  told me that I don’t talk correct. No one has ever told me that they could not understand what I am talking about. I have held my own in conversations with teachers, lawyers, priests, and business men that were talking no different than me. 

Watch a film on television. Apart from the dated films, how many people speak grammatically correct as they do in the written story? I will leave you with these my thoughts for the moment, but I am not finished on this subject, not by a long way.

Be well Ian