Finding The Right Critique Partners or Betas
Trying to find a critique partner can sometimes feel like trying to track down a unicorn. Where are these magical creatures hiding?
But if you know what you need, it makes finding the one, or the several, that little bit easier.
When you’re starting out on a new project, getting the right feedback is really crucial.
By the ‘right feedback’, I’m not talking about the kind of feedback that says ‘everything’s wonderful’. I’m talking about the tough but fair stuff that focuses on the fundamentals of the story before we get to the window dressing.
Unless you never re-write (and I’ve yet to meet anyone who falls into this category), giving it to someone who’s specialty is spelling, copy editing and grammar is likely to kill the idea dead before you can get it written.
That input is utter gold dust, don’t get me wrong, but it comes after the story has flexed and breathed and changed its clothes a few times. If you’re anything like me, you can’t spend your whole time in fear of writing the next sentence in case you accidently (horror of horrors) include an adverb. I can prune that later.
Write something, anything, and move on.
It might be in the least poetic language possible, but if you put something down, then the bottom line is that you then have something to edit. If you never write those words, you have nothing to refine.
I often end up using ?s or Xs as placeholders for locations or characters names when I haven’t worked out the details yet, but know that I need someone to speak or a person to go there. More specifically, a background in film means I personally write all the key story beats first and add the linking passages in after. That won’t work for everybody, but if I wrote chronologically, and didn’t allow myself to move on until I’d written that perfect link, I’d never get anywhere. And then I’d be grumpy and not very productive.
Find people who will love the story as much as you do.
This is also a pretty big one when you’re at that first-round-of-feedback stage. It can refer to genre readers but doesn’t have to. Find a critique partner who not only is going to look at structure, motivations, and world of your novel, but who also likes the bones of what you have and wants to help you make it the best version of it that you can. If someone’s not interested in the story, their feedback isn’t what you need to hear anyway.
Of course, if no one’s biting, then it might be time to take a long hard look at what you’re doing, but hearing from someone who thinks you should cut all the elves from your book specifically about elves because they personally don’t like elves? Not helpful.
Once your story’s had feedback on the first draft, grown, wriggled around in its own skin, and starts to feel really solid, that’s when you open it up to the free for all. At that point, it becomes useful.
Find the kind of people who you know are going to stick with you.
That writing, that passage, that snippet of dialogue may not be working but these are the people who will help you see that it’s not working (and this is the crucial bit) right now. And right now means that, with some prodding, and a little bit of love, it might work in the future. They want you to find a way of making them love it. So, you work damn hard to make sure that you do!
Some of best advice I’ve had so far has been from a CP who didn’t back away from pointing out key structural flaws in a MS’s opening, but also showed that he believed me capable of fixing it.
If you don’t have a local writing group, try ladieswhocritique.com, and agentqueryconnect.com.
Both of these are online forums centered around writing craft and have been incredibly helpful to me in sourcing CPs and betas. Think about your ideal imaginary reader, then pitch to them!
Set expectations about the frequency of feedback, content, and what blindspots and weaknesses of yours that you’d like them to look out for. Then, crucially, listen to the replies. They’ll help you cut through the fuzziness and possible misinterpretations of your scenarios that you never saw coming.
And your narrative will get leaner and meaner and ready to take on a wider audience. Like those who might go into the reading of it ambivalent. Perhaps even those who expect to hate it. And this time, just maybe, the story grabs them and doesn’t let go until they’ve turned the final page.