When critiquing, or being critiqued, what do you look for?
Some would have it that a nice:
Ah! Beautiful!...would be sufficient. Others, more critical, or perhaps experienced,
would offer that ripping a piece to ribbons is all that matters.
Here's part of what I think. . .
I think that it really depends upon the writer.
Let's say the President's speech writers are working
on the State of the Union Adress.
Well. Fuck. It's important, right? It needs to be precise,
and it needs to be informative, and sometimes it needs to be persuasive.
What about a workshopping site where there are writers new to writing,
learning to hear their voices for the first time. Am I going to be worried
more that the writer find every fucking comma, and punctuate the cocksucker
acurately, or am I going to be more concerned with hearing the author's voice.
It's a delicate thing. I want to encourage writers, but I don't want to
feed them lies either. So there's that balance.
What do I personally look for in crits? Everything.
Call me names, call my mother names. Cal lme my mother's name.
I don't fucking care. But I want to know why. I want to learn.
I think that's the bottom line. Learning.
But there are degrees to learning. I should know my grammar.
I should know my voice. Newer writers may not have that yet.
Conversation and Pie
