Our Critical Friends have been working hard for one another, almost to the neglect of their own writing, and we'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for their efforts. We promise it won't be in vein! It's also important to note that this process slows or quickens based on how many questions there are left to ask and how well the writer wants to answer them.

And it's the writer's role we'd like to begin with today.


Is this a Revolution?

When receiving critique, especially on the internet, the rules change from site to site. However, the unfortunate and common consensus seems to be thus: the critic critiques the piece, the writer thanks the critic, and revision is assumed to occur at a later date. It's rare to see a conversation with the critic and the writer beyond the traditional "Thank you" unless it's the writer making points and the critic accusing the writer of getting defensive and being ungrateful. Every now and then a real conversation occurs with the writer asking for clarification and the critique responding, but it happens far less frequently than it should. That's the benefit of having a Critical Friend.

Sometimes these critiques are anonymous and, while we'd like to say we don't, we often try to judge a person's motivations for critiquing our text. If it's a stranger and a particularly harsh critique, the writer is more likely to become defensive and/or to ask for clarification, and the critic is less likely to respond favorably in either circumstance. However, slowly building a relationship with your Critical Friend helps the writer feel more comfortable hearing that 'searing' advice because the writer then knows that the Critical Friend truly is there to help and support--not to tear down beyond repair or toot his/her SuperCritic horn. And this is an important step in the revision process. Why? Because a writer has to trust the advice of someone else when taking the knife to their own text, and trust--as we've all learned--is hard.

Wouldn't it be great if Writers and Critics could have conversations? Instead of blowing off a writer's questions about the critique or assuming the writer is getting defensive, the Critic actually responds in positive ways with additional commentary and, when possible, an example or two to illustrate his/her point? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the writer who received a critique--even the particularly painful kind--immediately assumed that the Critic had the piece's best interest at heart and could enter into a calm, productive discussion about where to start, how to start, what s/he agrees with and wants more information on, and what s/he disagrees with for these reasons that s/he is open to discussing rationally? Well, it's not all wishful thinking, folks, but it'd make on hell of a revolution on dA!

We help each other revise and improve by forcing ourselves to be open to the imprint others leave on our lives. One reason we've been focusing on questions, this month, is because questions demand answers. If the Critical Friend asks a question of you, the Writer, it's important that you respect the question enough to try to answer it. If the writer asks a question back, the Critical Friend should be willing to respond in kind. When our focus is Revision and not Critique, we allow ourselves to tackle small areas of the text at a time with the help and benefit of someone else's point of view--someone else who acts as our soundboard, our litmus test, and our number one reader.


So what's the writer's task? That's a lot to read up there.


Part One

Moving into this week, we would like our writers to read back through the advice that's been given--and the advice that will be coming in the next few days--and respond to the Critical Friend with more than just a "Thanks" or "That's a good idea". Now it's time to settle yourself and step back into your writing shoes and rejoice over the fact that there is a person here, at your disposal, who is willing and able to talk to you about your writing. By God, take advantage of it! What we want to see, by the end of this week, are productive conversations between Writers and Critical Friends.

Don't feel boxed in to just the topics the Critical Friends have covered, either. Is there something else that's bugging you on your text? Are you considering a revision of one section, based on the Critical Friend's advice, and want to know what s/he has to say about it? Well, by God, tell them! Show them! Write a comment reply with your revision in it and ask! Explain the areas where you are still stuck. Ask questions about things they said that you don't really understand. Now it's time to truly start working together to make your piece better.

Try to start a conversation before Monday, if you can!


Part Two

Based on the advice that your Critical Friend has given you, to this point, we would like you to revise one small part of your text. You do not have to revise the whole thing right now, but we would like you to take a section or stanza and try to implement the changes and advice the Critical Friend offered--even if you don't agree with the advice. Indeed, this part is very important. Sometimes people give us advice that we don't find valuable or useful so we ignore it. We make the conscious decision, as the writer, that we know best and never even give the other idea a chance. But the beauty of revision is in keeping the original handy. So revise without fear! Give those ideas a shot! Your Critical Friend was acting as a honest reader when they offered those suggestions to you, and you owe them gratitude by giving them a chance to see those suggestions at work.

Then, once you've made the changes, ask you Critical Friend for his/her opinion. Sometimes Critical Friends retract their original advice once they see the revision and sometimes, just sometimes, the Writer is persuaded to actually keep that 'bad idea' in the text.

Of course if you agreed with all their points this isn't a huge issue.


Guidelines for Revision


Just to reiterate: you are free to begin making revisions to your piece. However, we would like you to follow these guidelines:


Please do not revise the original text in the original deviation or document. You are going to need the text in its original form much later.

Feel free to revise in comments to the original text, to put the original text in Scraps and create a new deviation with the revisions, or put the revisions in Scraps and keep the original as a deviation. Whichever way you'd like to handle it, just be sure to keep the original available for later use.
If you do create a separate deviation for revisions, please make sure your Critical Friends and ~LaMonaca are aware of the new link.

Please try to incorporate all the advice the Critical Friend offered you on the chosen section of your text.
If you don't understand the advice or have a hard time implementing it, please ask your Critical Friend for help and/or ask ~LaMonaca for assistance. ~LaMonaca, especially, can often offer strong advice or techniques for incorporating revision into a text. Sometimes it just takes one right word to get you started.

Feel free to concentrate on only one small section of your piece instead of trying to revise the entire thing at once.

Let your Critical Friend know when the revisions have been made.


Next week we will talk about how to assess the revisions in relation to making progress with the piece.



The Critical Friend


~LaMonaca reports:


Phew! Take a little breath. You've been working extra hard for the Writers, and it's almost time to temporarily hang up your CF hat and be a Writer again. Almost, but not quite.

Last week we concentrated on basic questions designed around structure and organisation. Structure and organisation are not the only areas of a text, of course, but when looking at revision they are the areas you always want to tackle first. Why? Because they reveal the text skeleton. If the ideas are unorganized, if the beginning is less effective, if the end misses its point, if the rhyme is too distracting or the enjambment needs some work, the rest of the text can't stand well on its own. Worse, if the short story should be a drabble or the drabble should be a novel or the poem should be flash fiction of the novel should be short fiction, it's no use spending hours revising a form that isn't effective for the subject matter. Therefore, it's important to focus on a text's structure first.

Remember, the three parts we're most concerned with in revision are Organisation, Topic Development, and Style. Topic Development is something we work on from the very beginning by asking questions on parts of the text we didn't understand or pointing out sections that are missing something, but sometimes the best advice on how to further develop ideas on a topic can't happen until the oganisational or structural issues are out of the way. Then, once the piece is organised, we can really see where something is missing.

What's in a piece and what's missing might differ from reader to reader. We understand that. However, it's valuable for writers to receive honest feedback from any and all readers - whether they are skilled critics or freshman in high school, especially if that reader is part of the intended audience. Therefore, trust your own instincts as a Reader and Critical Friend. Once the Writer makes the first round of revisions, go back to the text - either in just a small section or with the text as a whole - and read to understand. Look for ideas that haven't quite made it all the way, for you, or things that are still confusing. Ask questions about characters or images or anything that still comes to your mind. It's all about helping the writer figure out what was in his/her head that never made it to paper, and your questions and comments could be the key to success!

Nothing formal this week. We just want to see conversations between Critical Friends and Writers that revolve around new revisions and begin in the simplest way: with a question.

If you are having difficulty coming up with something to talk about with your writer, please let me (~LaMonaca) know - either by note or through a comment - so that I can help stimulate some discussion.