The Art of Constructive Criticism

What a great story. Loved your story. Excellent writing. Keep up the good work. Who wouldn’t want to receive such praise in the “Comment” section under your posted Vocal story? I am right up there with those writers whose endorphins, or “happy hormones” are released if I am the recipient of such effusive compliments.

Conversely, my heart would sink if I read derogatory statements such as …. Your writing sucks. Don’t quit your day job. Meh – you could do better. All comments I have seen as feedback.

Both these seemingly opposite comments are equally useless. They do nothing to assist the writer in improving his/her skills. Constructive criticism accomplishes this, and it is exactly what I want when I ask for comments on my writing.

What is Constructive Criticism and how does it help a writer improve? I found a general definition on a website related to reviewing job performance in the workplace, but it is certainly applicable to any situation:

"Constructive criticism is a helpful way of giving feedback that provides specific, actionable suggestions. Rather than providing general advice, constructive criticism gives specific recommendations on how to make positive improvements. Constructive criticism is clear, to the point, and easy to put into action."

Applying it to writing, my own definition would be that it is knowledgeable targeted advice aimed at a specific word, sentence, or paragraph in the story that explains exactly, with examples, how that piece of writing can be improved.

Here is an example from my experience with Vocal criticism. I posted the story I submitted to the Vocal+ Fiction Challenge and asked for feedback. One of the commenters said that paragraph 6 needed to be broken up into smaller sentences or the structure needed changing a bit. This is the paragraph to which he referred:

By the time dusk crept in at the end of the first 3 days of the project, both Angie and Frank, with jeans, t-shirts, hair, faces, arms, and hands covered in grit and grime, lungs coughing up dust, muscles aching, and arthritic knees and backs screaming in pain, even Angie was questioning the wisdom of her “treasure hunt”. All they had managed to do in 3 days of physical torture was clear enough debris to reveal a cellar floor. Week after week, they cleaned, sorted, swept, and organized, until five weeks later, both attic and cellar rivaled the best of the behemoth warehouse retailers in merchandise stacked in categories on rows and rows of shelves.

I found it interesting that his comment targeted a paragraph that had bothered me since I first wrote it. Its wordiness ( something I abhor and try to avoid at all costs), niggled at me constantly. I must have re-written it 10 times, and although I still wasn’t satisfied with the result, I let it go and submitted it. This astute reader picked up on it right away.

It definitely could still use more trimming, but by removing just a few words, I think it worked much better:

By the time dusk crept in at the end of the first 3 days of the project, both Angie and Frank, with clothes and hands covered in grit and grime, lungs coughing up dust, muscles aching, and arthritic bodies stuck in neutral, even Angie was questioning the wisdom of her “treasure hunt”. All they had managed to do in 3 days of physical torture was clear enough debris to reveal a cellar floor. Week after week, they cleaned, sorted, swept, and organized, until five weeks later, both attic and cellar rivaled the best of the behemoth warehouse retailers in merchandise stacked in categories on rows and rows of shelves.

Another piece of advice this reader gave me was to spread out my sentences a bit more, so the eye finds more blank space between the writing. He said that today’s readers prefer the space for ease of focus. Again, what was interesting about this comment was that I had been noticing that I, personally, found it difficult to read long paragraphs. It was easier for me to read shorter paragraphs with space in between each. I thought it was my aging eyes, but apparently, it is true for everyone.

I was extremely appreciative of this commenter’s specificity. I felt it was invaluable to the improvement of my writing.

The third beneficial nugget of advice I received was from a commenter who was critiquing Part 2 of my Weightloss Through Bariatric Surgery Series. I thought it was a well-written, compelling installment. (Who wouldn’t think their own writing was laudable?) However, it was getting very few reads. She said that I needed to put a link to the previous installment at the top of each new one.

At the end of each installment, I always wrote – Stay tuned for... “name and number of next installment”. She suggested that as soon as that next installment was written and published, I should return and put a link to it at the end of the previous one.

Such simple advice. Why didn’t I think of it? I did as she suggested, and my views increased immediately.

In my effort to emulate the critically positive advice given to me, I tried to pay it forward by offering a constructive critique to another struggling Vocal writer. This person asked for an opinion of the opening paragraph of his novel. In my opinion, it violated every rule of Writing 101, specifically wordiness and extraneous details unnecessary to the story. Thankfully, many other Vocal readers agreed with me. We offered him our rewritten versions of his paragraph, explaining in detail, how our improvements helped his story. A few days later, he posted an edited version of his paragraph, which I was gratified to see, incorporated sentences from both my version and two other helpful commenters. (I am sure you noticed that I did not post his paragraph as I did mine. The reason is that private communication between writers at Vocal was not allowed at the time I wrote this article, so I was unable to write to him to ask his permission to print his work.)

Such positive, specific critiques help improve the writing skills of all of us, whether we are seasoned writers or novices striking the keys for the first time.

Whether we like it or not, our postings and comments seem to be currently limited to Vocal Facebook Groups. (Again, this was written before the very recent change allowing direct communication between Vocal writers.) There is a variety of these groups that offer:

General Support

Opportunity to share your stories

Social groups to discuss writing, but not promote your stories

Social groups to get to know each other on a more personal level

Groups to promote each other’s work

Groups to critique each other’s work

Groups to teach writing technique

A group dedicated to promoting and discussing Vocal Challenges

Based upon my experience, the following is a list of the groups I have found to be the most helpful in what I am looking for, which is the title of this article – Constructive Criticism. If you prefer others, please list them in the comment section and tell us why.

Great Incantations: A Group Dedicated to Vocal Challenges

Vocal Creators Support Group

The Vocal Creators Lounge

Vocal Writer’s Sharing Community

The Writer's Forum

In summary, if you are serious about helping your fellow authors improve their skills, follow these tips for imparting constructive criticism:

*Be specific. Chose a word, sentence, or paragraph and explain exactly what you think is wrong with it and demonstrate how it can be improved....as the commenter did for me by specifically citing that "Paragraph 6" needed structural changes and smaller sentences.

* Give examples of what will make it better - as I and other critics did by rewriting the part of a piece of work with which a struggling author needed help.

*Advise the use of a thesaurus. A rambling 3 sentence description can often be pared down to one dynamic sentence when the appropriate specific words are used.

*Be positive and polite. These are rules listed in every Writer’s Facebook Group, but they are necessary. No writer is going to take your advice, no matter how well-intentioned, if you are rude and insulting about it - As in a commenter who wrote to an apparently new writer, “Don’t quit your day job.”

Constructive Criticism Rocks! It helps us all become better writers. Isn’t that what we want when we put pen to paper, or in the modern vernacular – fingers to the keyboard?