Would anyone be interested on a reading/reviewing exchange recurring thread?
For anyone who is writing fiction, it can be difficult to find suitable readers who are willing to provide extensive notes on their work, especially when writing anything over 300 words. Generally speaking, the longer the story, the harder it is to get notes on it.
One of the most successful subreddits for fiction criticism is /r/DestructiveReaders/. That sub has a series of rules and recommendations for its functioning, but, to summarize, you are only allowed to request feedback on a story if you have previously provided quality feedback to a story of equal or larger length than yours.
Each critique you make gives one "credit" that you use to receive a critique on something of your own.
It's a great idea and, by and large, it works.
The issues of /r/DestructiveReaders/ are, essentially, the issues of Reddit as a whole, as a consequence of the existence of downvotes. Members can take the notion of "quality critique" to an extreme, going way above what the rules actually require. They may require something overly lengthy, or something that appeases a subjective criteria. Some may even downvote the "competition" so their own posts stand out.
That can lead to some unfair, frustrating experiences the mods can do little to prevent.
In this post, I am proposing that we create a series of recurring posts that function in many ways similarly to /r/DestructiveReaders/, but in a way that is more flexible and adapted to the needs and peculiarities of the Tildes community.
The posts could be either monthly or created when the previous got too long.
I would maintain the "credit" system, but I would use a notion of "effort" which takes everything into account, including the length of the review, but other criteria we can come up with as a group. We could possibly have a scheme in which the authors themselves would say how useful that review was. Sometimes, three paragraphs can be useful, and I would like us to have a way to ascertain this.
I wouldn't have any powers to remove anything, so the whole thing would be in the honor system. Essentially, I would be merely suggesting behavior, and, if someone decides to simply not follow the rules, I won't even try to admonish or shame anyone.
I would track credits and submissions on the body of the post itself. At least in the beginning, I could serve as the sole organizer, but anyone else who wishes to contribute will be welcome.
And, oh: we could be open for non-fiction as well. That could mean biography, history, or even technical writing. But I'm not sure how to incorporate everything into that idea.
What does everyone think?
Sounds like a grand idea! However
I'm not sure this is a good idea. For one thing, maybe that three paragraph criticism was better than the three pages one, but I wouldn't like to be the one to have do make that judgment, essentially telling that those 3 pages some else wrote sucked hiney. I much prefer just going by word count.
Also, generally, the more sophisticated a system is, the more anal people will get about its implementation.
One thing I disliked about r/destructivereaders was it's name. There is a tendency of reddit subs name to take on a life on its own. For instance, the cozy sub r/casualconversations decided it needed a place for those casuals musings on somewhat darker topics. So r/seriousconversations was born. But because of that name, it naturally attracted some, uh, real dark stuff. Like seriously, don't go there. It's the same with r/destructivereaders. Because of its title, some users took a curious pride in being as aggressive and crude as they can in their feedback.
Anyways, I don't mind the actual implementation much, the idea is quite good.
I'm pretty sure /r/DestructiveReaders didn't start being the sub that it is now. So the name feels a bit odd.
I think the best way to avoid being unfair in regards to what you're saying is to be generous in crediting both. I wasn't really trying to convey that a 3-page criticism might be considered invalid, but rather that, on occasion, something short could be valid as well. Not necessarily, literally 3-paragraphs. That was just an example.
One thing I dislike on /r/DestructiveReaders is that they care so much about length that critiques can be needlessly wordy, long-winded, repetitive, etc. Length for length's sake.
The excessive preoccupation with length may also make some people not share critiques at all -- and maybe they have something awesome to say!
I checked out how the sub looked in 2013:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131112002219/https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/
Back then, the rule was to "PLEASE" comment on someone elses work first. Also, the name seems to be chosen because
Anyway, I absolutely agree that criticism on that sub tends to take on on the nature of academic dissertations. Word count is all well and good, but sometimes a little can go a long way.
If you are able to find the right people and establish the right culture then this could be very useful. But as a writer, digesting all the notes of a random assortment of strangers sounds kinda like sticking my face in a blender.
Giving criticism effectively is a skillset that approaches an artform itself. Nearly no one knows how to do it. “Criticism” to both creators and critics almost always means a kind of gotcha negativity, especially online, that is the exact opposite of what I would want. Nor am I looking for other peoples’ ideas. Finding positive ways to be a useful sounding board that helps unlock the remaining problems in a work is what helps, and that is part editing/part psychology.
My most effective work with editors and critics has been very personal and very focused. I I’d be glad to participate but these are my concerns.
I would love to have access to editors and critics, but I don't :(
I never published. I can see how something like that would be unattractive to a professional writer.
I share short stories online since I was 13 (mailing lists back then), and have done so many times since. My experience sharing fiction online is not nearly as dark as you're anticipating. Much to the contrary. People are usually, just... kinda nice. Even on Reddit.
To be honest, I usually find the feedback from non-professionals extremely valuable. They're excellent to help me understand if I am being clear and unambiguous.
You might be surprised by the crowd of Tildes ;)
Then you have had more luck with non-writers than I. In principle I agree with you, but in practice I've never met someone outside the writing field that was able to express what worked and not worked for them. It never goes really beyond "I liked it" or "I did not like it", no matter the follow-up questions I ask. Even something simple as "What did you (not) like about it?" often falls flat.
Thanks. That’s encouraging. I’ll keep my eye out for further developments :)
Even when dealing with polite and well-intentioned critique, you bring up a central point: what is the purpose of the criticism? Is it editing comments, notes on the overall direction of the story, or a review of the story as it exists? Reviewer ideas will permeate overall story direction notes. Even for mechanistic editing, reader preferences will sneak in when they comment about sentence and paragraph length.
Yeah it really is a deep subject. I’m heartened by OP’s optimism but my experiences show how complex this process can get.
If it’s just an opportunity for writers to share their work with those who will give it a close read that’s one thing, but for anything more it often becomes a matter of coaching the writer through the process of receiving/digesting/incorporating the notes.
My experience is that you receive multiple conflicting notes nearly every time. You have to go into a critique session with the discipline and focus of a monk. You have to already know what you want from the notes or you’ll just get lost in the multitude of viewpoints.
But I’m willing to give this a try. When done well it can be a real help, especially to those who are still experimenting with craft and looking for their voice.
I really like this idea! Workshop has been one of the greatest helps to developing myself as a writer and having a place to do that online on a forum that is more tight-knit and overall level-headed than others would be nice.
For giving constructive criticism, especially as some people will inevitably be new to a workshop-type way of giving critique, may be to have a set format for people to respond in. One suggestion that I've used in my IRL workshops is the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process. It was originally developed for theater critique, but works great for fiction as well. In this scenario a response to a piece that an artist submits would looks something like this:
My note: these take on a more neutral and informative tone, not necessarily critique, but observations.
My note: a person submitting would submit with maybe 2-5 questions that they'd like to ask about their work. These could range from asking if individual sentences work well, or could be as large as asking if the piece might work better if the artist changed the point of view of the story, for example. Gives responders something direct to respond to, especially great if responders don't otherwise have many notes, makes it so we avoid "it was good" or "it was bad."
My note: this could be a great thing for engagement and making sure the artist is interacting with the responders for a productive conversation, and encourages responders to make the artist think about their own work by observing the questions others are left with after reading.
My note: Were we to use this method, a person posting their work would have to include specific consent for people to respond with their personal opinions. Sharing your work can be scary for fear of getting negative reactions, and that's just not helpful for anyone.
Obviously we don't have to use the Liz Lerman method, but this is an example of what something structured could look like to make sure everyone is getting the most out of the experience. I think this is a good idea for this platform and I hope it takes off becuase nothing brings me more joy than having others read my bad sci-fi lol.
I've used CRP in a workshop I was leading before. I was pretty brand new to the idea and the workshoppers were as well. I'd say it was mildly successful (though that workshop had a bunch of other unrelated problems that makes it hard for me to really evaluate the model).
In my view, step 4 is where the process works or breaks down entirely, for a few reasons, and I think it really depends on how experienced the participants are, both with their craft and with the experience of workshopping/receiving feedback in general.
In the workshop where I tried it, all the participants wanted all the feedback and they said so at the start of their session, so we were essentially skipping right over it and it became a traditional workshop with a new coat. Which is fine and it worked for that group.
Where I see it really breaking down, though, and why I wouldn't use it in an introductory workshop with novice writers, is for folks who either are resistant to/afraid of critique or who are too new to the practice to understand why certain areas of feedback are necessary. For instance, if a writer only wants feedback on their use of dialect in the exposition, sure, we can spend the class time talking about that and only that, but if the characters are two-dimensional and the pacing is off and the plot is confusing, then tweaking that dialect isn't really going to improve the story in the grand scheme of things.
I've been in bad workshops, and I've been in workshops with bad writers, and I've been in workshops with good writers who are bad at workshopping. In grad school, my very first workshop had a writer who was very smart in his field (English Lit PhD) but was not a creative writer. He wanted to workshop the novel he was working on. Fine, great, happy to do so. But he'd never been in a workshop before and he quickly became defensive and antagonistic when we were talking about his chapters. By the end of the semester, he sulked that he didn't even want to bring more work because all we were going to do was tell him what was wrong with it. But what he perceived as attacks were critiques on pretty common shortcomings in a first draft of a novel. Too many characters, voices were stilted, plot was confusing. All of this is supremely fixable and are things every other writer in that room had faced and would face again in their own writing (and have heard from other writers about their writing in this same setting) but he only wanted us to talk about the ideas he was trying to get across in his book. Okay, fine. But the book isn't going to get any better that way. And sure: it's not my book. It's not anyone's but that writer's. But it feels like a waste of everyone's time at the end of the day, then.
I recently came across an "a la carte menu" workshop practice that Rebecca Makkai uses and if I'm ever in a position to lead a workshop again, I think it's one I'd implement. Essentially, before the group meets for the first time, she distributes this (non-exhaustive) list of options for how class can operate (which also borrows practices from CRP). The writer whose work is being discussed gets to pick and choose what they'd like to do. If something they're interested in isn't on there, they can request it. These things include traditional/silent-writer workshops, group discussions, round table This is what I really liked, close-reading/editing of a paragraph/scene, and others. I think it's a really cool idea that does give that consent/power back to the writer like CRP does but it's also open enough to let the writer do what's going to be successful for them as an individual.
Do you think maybe the novel had autobiographical aspects?
I have "taught" or "facilitated" (I don't know the correct word in English) three story-related workshops, with varying degrees of success. I mostly repeated the methods used by my teachers, which may or may not have been the best.
Anyway, I learned in the last workshop that autobiographical or semi-autobiographical stories are highly problematic, especially when the student does not state that their story is about themselves.
So I criticized their story as if the characters were entity fictional, which sometimes meant questioning the reasoning behind the actions of their characters, as well as their worldviews. On one occasion, this led to an unfortunate interaction where I, inadvertently, demolished a student while thinking I was merely deconstructing a character.
Since then, I vowed to never allow autobiographical stories in any project I am invented to teach.
In something like what we are proposing here, I would probably ask the writer to state in advance if something is either autobiographical or semi-autobiographic. I wouldn't want to cause trauma under the pretense of criticism.
No, it was a sci-fi climate novel. I mean, it might've been autobiographical in the way any novel could be, but I've workshopped far more personal stories. Truthfully, the biggest issue in his draft was that he began with rigid ideas he wanted to represent and created characters to model those ideas. Everyone was two-dimensional because they weren't people. (As Steve Almond says, I don't want your stinkin' ideas.)
Also: I don't think you did anything wrong. The student might not have taken it well, but this is part and parcel of growing as an artist and a writer. The craft is deeply personal. Sharing something you created is fucking hard and scary, especially if comes from personal experience. But the writer also needs to learn not just to listen to criticism and but to hear past the part where it sounds like a take down and realize what's being said is for the purpose of improving. If the audience is questioning a character's decision, maybe the reason for the decision hasn't been sufficiently grounded. Maybe things have been unnecessarily summarized, or maybe the way it happened in real life isn't actually logical and they need to recognize that.
I don't remember who said it, but advice I often give is: Fiction is harder than reality because fiction has to make sense.
If someone is recasting an event from their life as fiction, they have to give themselves permission to change details, condense or expand as necessary, tweak reactions, decisions, dialogue in order to charge the story with energy, emotion and logic. That's vital feedback in a workshop because oftentimes the writer is too close to the situation to see it clearly.
So my question to that student would be are you writing fiction or CNF? Because they share a lot of DNA but they aren't quite the same.
Most inspirering. Just for fun and giggles, I tried penning down how I think criticism should go about. See what you think. Criticism welcome!
Try to read the piece normally, without being too analytical. I think sometimes, beta readers don't read as much as they scrutinize for bits they can do clever criticism on, even if they wouldn't mind those if found in a "real" piece of writing.
Remember that it is not your story. You would likely write it entirely differently if it were, but it’s not, so try to avoid criticism where you try to push it toward how you would go about it.
Sometimes, beta readers feel that some bit doesn’t work for them, but they fail to do enough introspectrum to truly understand why. So they try to justify it with some fact and logic sounding reasoning, and on that faulty foundation they try to construct a solution. Don’t do that. If some bit of a story doesn’t work for you, saying that it didn’t work for you is fine criticism in itself. You don’t have to understand why, or come up with a solution. It’s fine if you can clearly spot the problem, but you should also be able to just feel something without rushing to justify it.
Your criticism is never better than your ability communicate it clearly. If you are being misunderstood, your writing have room for improvement. As an author, you should be able to do your fancy author-stuff too when you communicate with others on a one-to-one basis. It's the authors job to get his point across; that's his whole thing. If he is misunderstood, it is not the readers who should read better.
In Noah Websters ‘An American Dictionary of the English Language’ (1853) the word Criticism is defined as “The art of judging with propriety of the beauties and faults of a literary performance, or of any production in the fine arts”. So criticism isn’t just about negativity; it is just as much about recognizing the beauty. So also remember to point out the good bit. I always forget this because my focus is on “criticism” i.e. finding faults. Pointing out what works is not just about sugarcoating. Often, writers are blind to the parts of their writing which actually works. Having those pointed out can help them gain awareness of their strong suits.
Try to end on a positive note. Something not-too-harsh at the beginning is good too.
Be upbeat and engaged! You should absolutely bubble with excitement at the opportunity to analyse this very interesting and unique piece of fiction. Such a rare opportunity! So remember to run through your criticism an extra time before you post and see if you could add a bit more Upbeat and Engaged while still keep it somewhat sincere in appearence.
Avoid delivering your negative criticism in a passive-aggressive manner. This only makes it worse. Contrarywise, exaggerating your criticism can sometimes blunt some of the edge, if you can pull it off. "That simili is likely the worst thing written in the english language. Please don't use these words in that combination ever again."
Doing criticism is hard writing. So don’t be afraid of using a little more time on getting it right.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to everything you said!! Having something like this as a sort of "statement of how to engage" would absolutely help shape something like this into a very productive workshop for artists and responders. Thank you for this contribution, I hope OP takes it into account!
I am definitely taking all these sensible, excellent suggestions into account, even more so because it is not my intention for this project to be something I do by myself, but rather something the community can embrace ;)
That said, I wouldn't have the ability to control what anyone writes, so everything will have to happen on the basis of suggestions and mutual agreement.
That is actually a great idea! It focuses on the human, and would clearly help us achieve a great dynamic.
I get the impression that this would be most applicable to in-person events, where the exchanges are more fluid, and the participants have access to forms of communication and self-expression that are not available online. So we may have to adapt some things.
Talking specifically about #4 I would think that, by merely sharing their work on a Reading/Review exchange, permission must be implied, otherwise they are not really participating in it, are they?
To be clear, I think we should be using this. It's awesome.
You are correct in that this method was developed with the idea of in-person sessions in mind, though I think it could be developed into a written online asynchronously format fairly easily.
The way I was envisioning part 4 of the Liz Lerman technique in this scenario would be, in the post where an artist is sharing their work to include some extra sections alongside their word doc. A post would essentially include three parts: 1.) Their word doc/whatever they use, 2.) a set of specific questions that they want responses to, 3.) consent/rejection for people to give personal opinions on anything and everything. I agree it's not really feasible for an artist to make a list of what they do and don't give consent for personal opinions on, so it might be better for an all-or-nothing type deal.
I do think consent for personal opinions is a good idea to have, for those who want personal opinions they can 100% still get them, but for those that don't this'll open up a space to get useful feedback without the anxiety of someone telling you they hated what you made. I think it could help attract more people and avoid people from being discouraged to continue their writing.
I'm not aware of workshop techniques developed specifically for use on text-only spaces, but if anyone knows of any I think they'd be great to consider! I used the Liz Lerman method while doing an online-asynchronous Uni class during lockdowns and it worked well personally.
I actually reviewed my commend and removed most of it because I was clearly misunderstanding the whole thing, I think you are answering to something I cut.
Sorry about that!
I agree that it is a good idea to allow the writer to express things they are comfortable or not comfortable discussing.
We have lots of awesome ideas here!
I really like how everyone's concerned with critiques being respectful of what writers are comfortable with in terms of feedback. I will probably post new updates here when I have something more concrete. In the meantime, keep the ideas coming!
And just so everyone knows, this project will only start a good amount of time after November 5, which is the day of the Timasomo Showcase Thread. It wouldn't be right to take the spotlight from @kfwyre's awesome yearly event.
I do have further questions for everyone:
I appreciate the consideration, but you don't have to worry about pulling focus from Timasomo! Do what you like, when you like -- I won't be offended in the slightest.
Tildes is big enough that we can run things in parallel, and I actually think having different things going concurrently is a sign of a healthy community. I'm actually about to kick off a separate event in ~games for November myself.
Nevertheless, I appreciate you being so thoughtful (as you always are), lou. Thanks!
I understand and appreciate your response very much.
I would never imagine you would be offended, but there is a limit to the amount of people being creative at a given time!
And I am taking a lot of hints from how you create events ;)
Glad that you're keeping up and going forward with this! I'll answer the questions as they relate to my previous workshop experiences, keeping in mind those were in-person save one during Covid.
1.) Length limit: I would say that the max length for a workshop should be about the max length for a short story. If we're using the standard manuscript format (like what you can find a template for on Word) that's about 20ish double spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font, pages. Or about 10,000 words. Any more and we're approaching novella territory. Anything at, or less than, is accepted. We could talk about allowing flash fiction or not as something so short might get more attention than something closer to the length limit. 20 double spaced pages is no problem for me to read, but for others it might be a bigger ask.
In previous workshops we've had people submit a small section of their longer stories/novels at each workshop and I think that worked well enough even when people hadn't read the authors previous submissions, as long as those people go in knowing that that selection is part of a bigger body of work and they may be missing some context.
2.) Frequency: If the submission is monthly, maybe two submissions per month? Kind of randomly pulling out a number here, but something important about a workshop is ensuring that the author is getting the most of of responders to their work. Having a lower frequency allowance I feel might encourage an artist to engage more with critique for one work than they would be able to engage with less critique for many works. They might also be able to use critique for one work to improve their writing overall which might improve other works.
3.) Formats allowed: IMO, fiction and creative non-fiction is the way to go. I find that those are usually the most accessible for responders to give good critique on, while poetry and screenplays can might take a little more effort and knowledge of the medium to give successful feedback on. That being said I don't have much experience with either for those formats so someone can correct me if I'm off-base.
I've already been writing more in anticipation of having a less anxiety-inducing space to share my work, so I'm excited for this to get a start!!
What I would add are rules about how to post it. You can submit your fantasy novel, but host it elsewhere. Don't copy/paste it into a comment. Keep things nice and readable for everyone.
I think some limit is good. I would forbid any begging for a review, or bumping of the post if it does not go fast enough for the submitter.
Not sure. All kinds of writing deserve attention, but maybe it is good too keep things a bit focused in the beginning?
I like this initiative, BTW. I don't think it is appropriate for me however, because I mostly write in Dutch and this is an English site
Thanks ;)
I do not write fiction directly in English. I've had good experiences simply using the Translate option in Google Docs (which, as far as I know, doesn't have a size limit like Google Translate), and then fixing and improving it by hand. I get suggestions from Grammarly as well.
I see Grammarly mentioned often, I have to try that out.
I did an experiment once and let ChatGPT translate one of my short stories. It did not disappoint, it was an acceptable first draft. But I noticed that I kept shaving and improving it. Just like I do in Dutch, only much, much slower. It felt like writing the same story twice, but the second time with a handicap.
One day I will call in the help of a professional translator to make the jump to English, but for now I decided to not spend time on it. First develop my Dutch writing more.
Frankly, this does not seem like a conscionable thing to do when writing for writing's sake. A story in one language is different from a story in another—if you would like to write good English story, it seems like a bad idea to start by writing it in another language. And you will not get better at writing English if you do not practice.
Edit: I discussed this somewhat previously, but let me now make the point much more concisely. If the prose is not intentional and does not cohere with the rest of the piece, then it could as easily be any other prose, and therefore it does not matter what the prose actually is. So there is no point in having it.
Maybe I did not express myself well.
My English is already quite good. I communicate every day in English, watch movies and TV shows in English, and read entire books in English.
I'm not really looking for an education at this point, but I still learn English every day.
When I use automated translation, that is both a practical and creative step for me. After doing so, I read and proofread the entire story, making numerous fixes, changes, and adjustments.
Some things actually sound better in English, and I'll sometimes "retrofit" that sentiment to my native language. There are also things I add because thinking in English makes me realize something about my story.
I could translate manually, but then I would have to do it much less frequently, and to no advantage. And if I wasn't using automated translation as a first step, I would be using online dictionaries and Google Translate on individual sentences anyway.
The English version of my stories is still something I authored. From start to finish.
I can't speak about anyone else's experience, but automated tools only improved my English. And, even in my native language, I wrote on Microsoft Word my whole life so it's not like my writing was "pure" to begin with.
Editing is of course a process—and I find very intriguing the idea of translating into another language and using the translation to inform the original; would be interested to hear you expand on this or give examples, if you're willing—but I think that if you want to produce a good story in English, you should think about its composition in English from the beginning. Otherwise, you may end up with a story which is less fit to be rendered as English prose. This is quite a subtle thing and I cannot really give overt examples which don't seem contrived—though I do commend you to look at the examples of Tolkien and Gardner that I mention in the linked comment—but I think it is something that is important and valuable to think about. (Similarly, because of the subtlety, it is difficult to suss out in editing; of course it is theoretically possible to, in the process of editing, wind up with any string of words, but that doesn't mean it can actually happen.)
I believe it is safe to assume that you have read a good translated story before, no?
The first reason I do not write straight in English is because I wish for people around me to be able to read my stories.
The second reason is that there are certain emotions that only come up in my native language.
The third reason is that I like it when the way my native language works has an impact on another language.
The fourth reason is that I don't believe it is true that a story is necessarily better when written in the target language -- especially if that is not your native language.
That's what works for me.
Samuel Beckett was Irish and wrote in French ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
His works in English are translations he made himself.
I love this idea! I had no idea that /r/DestructiveReaders existed (which is probably a good thing, since the comments here suggest it wouldn't live up to my expectations) but I've been on the lookout for a quality reading/reviewing exchange for some time. I'll be watching this thread closely in the hope that the recurring thread becomes a reality.
/r/Destructivereaders is not so bad. But it's Reddit, and that comes with baggage.