There's an interesting discussion going on over at chez the_monkey_king about the best way to critique writers with relatively low skill levels.



When I was very young, I used to subscribe to the Harlan Ellison notion that the obviously untalented needed to be discouraged, and with flourish. Now, a decade and a half later, that approach has lost its appeal. I am a much kinder, less rabid sort of person. Also, I have become less convinced that I am a sacred, unique snowflake of special, unique specialness. Simply put, I do not have the capacity to be that kind of a prick anymore.

In my twenties, I put the brakes on the assholery, and made an effort to engage the lower-proficiency writers honestly. Thought I made a point of identifying what was right with the manuscripts, I also tended to disassemble lower-level manuscripts completely, and to comment on absolutely everything the writer was doing wrong. It took a lot more time than it needed to take, and I think that for most of the newer writers, it was confusing and felt just as bad as the Ellisonian approach. I don't know if anyone really benefited from it.

More recently, I've employed a philosophy somewhat akin to Damon and Kate's, reserving harsh-but-honest, detailed critique for people who (in my estimation) were skilled and committed enough to use it. People at lower skill levels, I critiqued lightly, breezily, and encouragingly. When I found myself in critiquing a beautiful train wreck (something full of both brilliance and glaring problems) I would begin the critique by saying something along the lines of, "I believe in this manuscript, and because I believe in this manuscript, I have to tell you _______." I think that a lot of my friends do something similar. It feels nice, and it means that you don't have to labor for hours and hours cataloging every tatter and stain on a hopelessly filthy rag of text.

But lately, I've come to feel like there ought to be a better way. The approach is a friendly one, but it's also dismissive and lazy. I'm doing a little bit of teaching these days, and if all goes well, I'll soon be in graduate school, where I'll be doing a lot more. I need a new way to critique beginners.

This year, I've been studying TESL, so I've had occasion to do a lot of thinking about how language is acquired. It seems to me that there are probably a good many parallels between the experience of learning English and the experience of learning to write fiction, and that some of the best classroom practices for teaching one ought to be transferable to teaching the other. With that in mind, I've come up with Communicative Language Teaching-based set of principles and practices for critiquing manuscripts by beginning fiction writers:

Principles:

(1) Enjoyment of writing is good. A person who enjoys writing is more likely to buy and read books and magazines, and is therefore a valuable and estimable member of our community. He is valuable and estimable, even if his prose makes you want so scoop your eyes out with a melon-baller.

(2) Much of the art of fiction is acquired, rather than learned. That is, it is picked up unconsciously and used unconsciously. The fact that it is acquired accounts for the belief, common among academic writing teachers, that fiction cannot be taught.

(3) In order for a learner to acquire language ability (and by extension, fiction ability) she must be exposed to a rich bath of language (or fiction), and must produce a large quantity of same.

(5) A learner will produce and absorb more language if she finds the process enjoyable.

(6) Appropriate feedback is essential to a writer's development, and the ratio of correction to encouragement that a writer needs rises as the writer's skill and confidence rise. Appropriate feedback recognizes strengths and progress, and lets the reader know where he should focus his attention in the future. Appropriate feedback aims produce a-ha moments for the writer. It is not mere affirmation, nor is it a means of punishing literary transgressions.

(7) Critique that causes excessive anxiety renders the process less enjoyable. It also raises the learner's affective filter, making it more difficult for the learner to incorporate the information given to her in the workshop.

(8) Critique is less likely to cause unproductive anxiety when it is given in manageable quantities, and when the skills and concepts targeted by the critique are ones that the writer is capable of working through and understanding at the time of critique.

(9) In order to grow as a writer, the learner must also be exposed to critical and craft issues that are just beyond his understanding. This exposure can come, in part, from listening to others being critiqued.

Though there are echoes of the Kate and Damon-derived theory here, there is at least one very substantial difference: Under my old system, the critiquer did not have to do an in-depth analysis of a lower-level writer's strengths and weaknesses. The in-depth work was reserved for people who were working at something approaching a professional level. Under CLT principles, however, the critiquer does have a very significant, rather labor intensive responsibility to lower-level writers. Critiques of lower level writers should be made as follows:

(1) Assess the writer's strengths and weaknesses broadly. Compare and rank the writer's achievemet levels in the following five areas: (1) Dramatics, (2) Characterization and setting, (3) World-building and genre-specific craft, if applicable, (4) Grammar, usage, style, and composition, and (5) Other artistic issues, such as poetics, choice of subject, mimesis, quality of observation, etc. Identify at least one example of good craft in each of these five areas, even if that goodness is relative.

(2) Identify at least two but no more than five straightforward rules or techniques that the writer can use to improve the text RIGHT NOW. These should be specific, and should be immediately understandable, i.e., "Always capitalize the first word in a quoted sentence," or "Use modifiers only when they convey something that the modified word does not." Provide examples, and whenever possible, explain the rationale behind the technique.

(3) Identify at least one but no more than three broader concepts that the writer will be able to understand and apply with a modest amount of effort and thought. Again, explain the rationale and provide examples. Appropriate concepts include (but are of course not limited to) the rule of three, identifying and eliminating excess dialog, unsnarling portmanteau sentences, etc.

(4) Identify one or two fundamental principles of craft that, if understood and applied by the writer, would dramatically improve the text. These principles should, ideally, be a little beyond the writer's current grasp. They are points for the writer to experiment with, and to contemplate at length. Provide the writer with an explanation of how you would apply the target principles to specific parts of her text. If possible, provide her with an example of a published piece in which the target principles are at work, to good effect. Appropriate principles include heightening tension, using setting to establish character, making sure that scenes turn, etc.

(5) If appropriate, emphasize the value of habitual writing and habitual reading. Emphasize that, ideally, a writer ought to read ten times as many words as she writes.



Next month, I'm going to a retreat with writers of a wide range of skill levels. I'm going to try this there, and see how it goes.