I recall a time when I could amble through a mall and be approached by marketing interviewers. If I fit the criteria, I could spend twenty minutes of time providing my opinion in exchange for a few dollars or coupons for free products. I preferred those interviews in which I could sample foods for a company trying to create a new flavor. No one was upset at my choice among multiple shades of flavor to determine which was the most popular. It is much more difficult to present precious words for sampling to a writing critique group. Of course, literary critique groups only expect one variation of your work, but rarely is everyone in the group pleased with it. After belonging to a number of critique groups I began to recognize the paths that different members followed.

The grammarians are very precise about grammar and usage rules. Therefore, they will point out all known errors. Some even ask the author to correct preferences that are not errors, such as using a preposition at the end of sentence or using a conjunction, such as “and” or “but” at the beginning. People tend to learn usage rules that are acceptable during the time of their education. Then, they stick with these even though the language continues to change. Even when people change their writing style with the time they should not expunge all adverbs, dialogue tags or passive verbs. These have a legitimate place in writing.

The trendsetters have read current bestsellers and books about writing composed by currently famous authors. They direct me to change all writing to follow styles used right now. Some of these comments may be useful. For example, I really don’t want an “info dump” following my exciting first scene. However, I do not always have a dramatic first scene, but one that hints at the drama to follow may suffice. I don’t want my coming of age novel forced into a horror/suspense format.

Content critics uncover events or character’s actions that are not ringing true. They may be true for the life I have lived but not theirs. Or perhaps the book is beginning to drag. and they think I should add a bit of tension or trim some excess details. This is where I find my own strength in providing critique information. It is also one of the hardest to quantify when it comes to the usefulness of the advice as it is not rule driven.

Because opinions are a matter of taste it may work better for group members to read each other’s work and provide comments before the critique group meets. That way people will receive comments from these different viewpoints. The other option is providing written feedback. Nobody has to hear what the other members said about your work. But the people providing the critique do not receive any feedback on the usefulness of their comments either. I’ve often heard that criticism should only provide an indication of what is wrong without ever telling the other person how to fix it. This provides a safe place to hide for the person who tells me to get rid of passive tense. If I request to know how to reword the passive text, I put the other person on the spot. Their results must sound better than my own writing. 

Perhaps critiquing should be more like the marketing interviews. The “interviewer” asks specific questions about their writing, we all give answers, and then enjoy our free samples and treats.