How to Critique Other Writers’ Work

The purpose behind writing workshops is to give and receive feedback on your creative works. 

I’ve noticed a trend among creative writing students to only focus on the aspects of the story that are working and shying away from the parts that do not.

Some students feel that they are not experienced enough to offer critical feedback on another student’s work (‘who am I to say their story is bad?), and many are afraid of hurting their peer’s feelings.

This is understandable because sharing creative work is incredibly venerable, and sharing new work (stories the writer has spent little time with) is even more so. 

The critiquing process of creative writing workshops is a flawed system because writing is subjective—at least to a degree. I would argue that most of us know good writing when we see it… 

The workshop model has been criticised for favouring realism, stifling creativity, and encouraging students to write more or less the same. 

However, workshops and critiques can be very valuable. We can’t see our work clearly, and there is something really wonderful about getting to discuss early drafts of our work with other people who understand writing craft. Ideally, these critiques are offered in an environment that is safe, supportive, and encouraging. 

Critiques are the most helpful when they are specific. And this is one way we can combat the fear of hurting someone’s feelings. If you describe a story as boring, confusing, or bad, the following can happen: 1) the writer’s feelings will be hurt (obviously) and 2) the criticism is too vague to be meaningful. 

Instead, if you described the story as slow because there was too much exposition or a transition between two scenes as confusing because there is no signposting…  then it is clear that you have engaged with the work, thought deeply about what exactly the problem is, and the criticism also hints towards the solution: reduce the exposition (more show, less tell) and use signposting (or scene breaks) to make transitions clearer. 

This is invaluable information for the writer. 

This is the type of feedback that can guide the writer as they move into the revision stage. When you focus on the writing rather than the writer, your comments are less likely to be personally offensive or hurtful. 

A good critique will not hurt a writer’s feelings. Instead, it should make them excited to know, very clearly, was aspects of the work could be further developed and what can be left alone. 

The critiquing process is a way for you to fine tune your ability to think about a creative work critically. It is always easier to do this with someone else’s story than your own, but by practising this skill, the hope is that eventually, you’ll be able to do this same process for yourself. 

Critiques can support us during the revision process, but it is also important that we eventually develop the ability to trust our own instincts and decisions. 

And that’s the strange thing about writing. This process is both fiercely solo and collaborative, you just need to know when to engage with these strategies and at what stage.  

Need help finishing that short story, novel, memoir? No problem. The Follow-Through Formula is a free video training which unpacks the five strategies you can use to go from idea to completed project.

To access, click here to join my email newsletter and you’ll receive a thank you email containing the link to the free video training.

You’ll also receive my weekly newsletter which is sent out every Thursday morning. This is where I share links to my latest blog and YouTube video as well as other inspiring goodies that I only share via email.

What to do during the second draft of your book

First drafts are about getting the story down. Maybe you are working from an outline, or you are writing intuitively, but either way you are transforming a blank word document into a book-like thing. 

As you already know, I’m really not precious about first drafts. I do not put any effort into making the writing good, the descriptions polished, or for my language to be poetic. 

For me, a first draft is one version of the story, and more often than not, it is the wrong version. I once heard Holly Black say that she has to write the story the wrong way before she can write it the right way—and this is the purpose of the first draft. I’ve also heard Leigh Bardough say that you cannot outsmart the first draft–a comment that is both liberating and heartbreaking. 

First drafts aren’t about good writing, at least not for me. First draft are just about the story. The interesting thing about first draft is that, at least for me, they improve the further into them you get.

Drafting is making decisions and then responding to those decisions. This is how you move forward. As you write further into the story, there is at least some level of clarity about where the story is heading and who the characters are. As you continue to work on the story, you often generate more ideas, or at least more interesting ideas, then you may have been able to come up with during the outlining or planning stage. 

After completing a first draft, you’ll likely realise that the story has taken a shape you’re not happy with, but this is what second drafts are for. 

Second drafts are where you get to look at the book as a whole and reflect on important questions about structure, plot, setting, and characterisation. 

You get to ask yourself whether the story has everything that it needs and whether the events are in the right place. One quick trick is to create an outline for the draft you’ve already written, summarising each scene in a sentence. At a glance, you can see how the book hangs together as a whole and whether you need to move or adjust any of the scenes or events. 

Seconds drafts, like first drafts, are not concerned with good writing. In fact, spending too much time polishing a scene at the line level can actually be a disservice to the story as it will be harder to cut it later if you realise it’s unnecessary. 

Second drafts are still very much a work in progress, and during this stage you should be looking at the big and little building blocks that make up the narrative. Are these blocks well built, flimsy, or missing something?

So, when do you start to worry about perfecting your prose? The short answer? When you’re arrived at a story shape and plot that you are happy with. The even shorter answer? You’ll know.  

We spend a lot of time talking about first draft because many hobbie writers never make it beyond this stage. We often put a lot of effort into the preparation stage before beginning a first draft, but it’s also worth pausing, and coming up with a plan for how best to approach the writing of our second draft. Ask yourself what you hope to achieve within this space, and be realistic about how much work happens between a first and second draft. 

It often takes a lot of work to fix all the problems that exist in a first draft, which is another reason why you don’t want to further complicate the matter by editing the work on the line level during this stage. Only spend time making your writing sing once you’re happy that all the building blocks are in the right place and that the story is working the way you had hoped it would. 

Need help finishing that short story, novel, memoir? No problem. The Follow-Through Formula is a free video training which unpacks the five strategies you can use to go from idea to completed project.

To access, click here to join my email newsletter and you’ll receive a thank you email containing the link to the free video training.

You’ll also receive my weekly newsletter which is sent out every Thursday morning. This is where I share links to my latest blog and YouTube video as well as other inspiring goodies that I only share via email.

Writing while Working a Day Job

Writers love talking about their creative routines because it’s comforting to give shape and reason to what is often a mysterious and shifting process. 

We need a slew of tools and strategies to support us because our lives and schedules are constantly changing, and for most of us, writing is a passion that fills the fringes of our time. 

I once read a productivity article that said when things get busy, the first activity most people drop is exercise. 

For myself, that activity is writing. (Followed by exercise.)

To clarify, I stop working on personal fiction projects that no one is waiting for or wants. (Yet.) 

There are two things I know to be true: 

1. Resisting writing is harder than writing 
2. It is easy not to write. 

These two points may seem contradictory, but it’s not that simple. 

Resisting writing refers to the troubled relationship we can sometimes have with our craft. This can look like procrastination, perfectionism, impostor-syndrome, and the inner-critic. Resistence happens when the idea of writing makes you feel anxitious, restless, not good enough, or clueless (where is this story even going?)

It is easy not to write when the demands of life increase. It is easy not to write when there is a mountain of important and urgent tasks that need to be completed. Why? Because it plays into the idea that writing is a waste of time; writing is optional. 

Of course, there are times when it is correct for writing to go on the backburner and for other aspects of our lives to become a priority. Maybe you’re moving house, changing jobs, having a baby, grieving a loss, or dealing with a health issue. 

And then there are times when, unintentionally, writing slips away. You’re not necessarily dealing with any of these big life changes; you just got caught up on the hamster wheel of life. Maybe work is busy and your social life is full. 

So how do you make writing happen when your life is busy?

For myself, personally, I’m a habit tracker. The best thing about this ludicrously simple strategy is that I can see, at a glance, where I am spending my time. 

A week without writing is one thing. A month … that’s when I know I need to make changes. 

This is when we need to lean on the tools and strategies that we’ve gathered through all of the writing advice we’ve read. And I know you’ve read a lot of it. 

If your work day is spent in front of a computer, you probably don’t want to sit on a computer when you get home. Yes, you could work with paper and pen instead, but another option would be getting your writing done before you go to work, or during your lunch break. If that doesn’t work, consider dictation. Maybe you leave writing for the weekends and during the week you engage with your story by doing content research (reading non-fiction books or articles that would inform your story), sketching out scenes on paper, building character profiles, editing a print out of a chapter…you get the idea.

If you get home from work feeling burnt out and like you have nothing else to give, maybe reach for a ‘micro’ win. Write two crappy sentences. Spend five minutes researching your topic online. Watch some ‘infotainment’ videos on YouTube that are relevant to your book. Do an outline for a scene that you can write tomorrow. Sit on the couch and think about your book for five minutes, or my personal favourite, turn your daily walk into thinking sessions. Instead of listening to a podcast, music, or audio book, spend that time daydreaming about your book. 

It is so easy not to write, but it is so important that we find a way to engage with our work on a regular basis, even if only in a small way. If you’re a writer, then you have to write. That doesn’t mean you need to pump out 2000 words every day, but it does mean that in order to feel happy, to feel as though you are making progress, to feel connected to that aspect of your personality, you need to look for opportunities to engage with your creativity and imagination. 

For most of us, finding the time to write will be a never-ending struggle. Creating and then protecting your writing time takes effort and a willingness to expend energy that we don’t always have. But even a little time spent writing can give us a small boost, a hit of dopamine, and the thrill of a big tick in our habit tracker. 

You don’t have to write every day to finish a book, but you do have to write some days and you’ll be a happier creator if you do.  

Need help finishing that short story, novel, memoir? No problem. The Follow-Through Formula is a free video training which unpacks the five strategies you can use to go from idea to completed project.

To access, click here to join my email newsletter and you’ll receive a thank you email containing the link to the free video training.

You’ll also receive my weekly newsletter which is sent out every Thursday morning. This is where I share links to my latest blog and YouTube video as well as other inspiring goodies that I only share via email.

How Writers Procrastinate Evolves: Stopping writing when the writing is going well

Steven Pressfield is well-known for his books about resistance, particularly in regards to writing.

Resistance, as Pressfield presents it, is the internal struggle we experience every time we sit down to write. 

Resistance can stop us on the macro level, beginning a new project, and the micro level, setting a timer and writing for thirty minutes. 

Procrastination is the most common way that resistance can show up, but it’s note the only way. Self-doubt, criticism, perfectionism, fear, limiting internal narratives and so on.

When you first start taking writing seriously, it is easier to spot how resistance manifests for you. But as time goes on and you develop ways to manage your unique form of resistance, Pressfield argues, resistance becomes sneakier.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this weird habit I have of stopping writing when the writing is going well.

It seems to happen whenever I’ve ‘tipped’ over into a flow state. 

I’m a big fan of using the pomodoro technique as a way to measure my writing sessions. I set a timer and write for 25 minutes and then have a five-minute break. If I write for three or four hours, the first session is by far the hardest, the second is easier, and then the middle sessions are the easiest. I sort of wind-up into the writing, and then wind down towards the session’s end. 

Sometimes, just as I finally start to warm up, something might happen; I get an idea, write a really great line, or I notice an unintended connection in the story and I get really excited. This sudden insight causes a spur of energy and my inspiration increases because of all the possibilities this new information brings, or maybe I just feel a little bit chuffed with myself… 

But then, and here’s the weird thing, this burst of energy pushes me out of the story and as my cognitive mind comes into play I feel compelled to do something else, like make a cup of tea or check my emails, or check social media (otherwise known as the productivity kiss of death). I almost never post about these moments in real time, but there is this weird compulsion to tell somebody about this sudden insight. 

The problem is, there’s no one around to share this information with, or they don’t know the story like I do, and even if they did, it can be difficult to recreate this strange feeling of ‘eureka’ in an email. 

Sometimes, even when I’ve slipped into a flow state or I’ve managed to otherwise immerse myself in the story’s world, there is this weird restlessness that can occur and this too can eject me from the story. 

It often happens when I am finally starting to get somewhere with a project. The words are coming out and I can feel the story steamrolling ahead. This is every writer’s desired state: we long to reach this point where the writing is more play than work. 

I’ve heard so many people–including myself—talk about how writing is always hardest at the beginning. And what I mean is, the first 10-60 minutes of any given session (I’m giving a wide berth here as we’re all different!). 

We all talk a lot about how to eliminate distractions and impose self-discipline while writing so that we don’t self-sabotage by checking email or social media etc, but I’ve heard few people talk about this weird form of procrastination that occurs during a writing session, when the writing is going well, and frankly, because the writing is going well. 

And this is what I mean about resistance becoming sneakier. 

You might have some solid habits and rules when it comes to writing, such as switching your phone off, writing in a distraction free environment, and ignoring your inner-critic, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve beaten resistance for good. 

When we make writing a habit, not writing feels weird, but it doesn’t magically become easier. Usually, we just get better at sitting with the discomfort of not knowing what we are doing or the discomfort of how difficult it can be to make something out of nothing. 

The self-sabotaging behaviour of stopping when the writing is going well is just one more way resistance can present itself. So how do you deal with it? Surprisingly, the same way you deal with most forms of resistance. You need to be able to identify what is happening and know that your sudden impulse to check emails or make a cup of tea instead of continuing with the scene is Resistance’s attempt to keep your story small. 

There are a number of general ways to deal with resistance and they work just as well for this particular scenario as any other. For instance, Pressfield often talks about the idea of choosing to act like a professional rather than an amateur. A professional would stay with the work and see the session or scene through to the end. If the impulse to stop writing is too great, you could spend a few minutes writing about this urge as a way to pacify it and get it out of your system. You can quickly remind yourself why you are writing this book (hint: it’s a great idea to have your ‘why’ written on a notecard near your desk) as a way to recommit to the session, or if all else fails, bribe yourself with the promise of a reward when the session is complete. 

None of this advice is original, but it’s free and easily accessible which is probably why you’ve heard it a million times already. Plus, they work. Usually. 

This post wasn’t written for the sake of neatly solving this sticky problem, instead, I wrote it simply to bring light to the issue. 1) because it’s important to be aware of all the ways that resistance can appear in our writing routines 2) resistance becomes sneakier over time and 3) maybe this is something that happens to you but you’ve never heard anyone talk about before.

I hope it helps! Now go forth and write into that flow state without fear and without the need to hit the eject button!

Need help finishing that short story, novel, memoir? No problem. The Follow-Through Formula is a free video training which unpacks the five strategies you can use to go from idea to completed project.

To access, click here to join my email newsletter and you’ll receive a thank you email containing the link to the free video training.

You’ll also receive my weekly newsletter which is sent out every Thursday morning. This is where I share links to my latest blog and YouTube video as well as other inspiring goodies that I only share via email.