Crit of whole novel worthwhile??

[Cosmic Geoff]

I've been working on a fantasy novel project for a while, and it has become a 5-book series, four of them being in existence as WIP or draft and the fifth as an outline.
I'm still learning how to write stuff that somebody might want to read, but am wondering if it's important or beneficial to get a crit of a whole novel rather than a detailed crit of a short excerpt.
Needless to say, getting a crit of a short except is easier than a crit of a whole novel and much less demanding of the goodwill of others.
Naturally, if one's excerpts are full of faults, one's ability or otherwise to construct a complete novel is rather moot.
Is it worth having a lengthy first draft read, or should one wait till the novel is more finished?
This is a rather rambling post, but has anyone any thoughts on this?

 

[Mouse]

Depends what your 'first drafts' are like. My first drafts are pretty close to my final drafts, so yeah, I've had 'first drafts' of whole MS's critiqued and it's been very worthwhile. I imagine if your first draft is rough as nuts*, it's probably not as good and your beta/critiquer might be a bit peed off.


*just realised that should be rough as nails. But I like nuts.

eta: it's not even 'nails' apparently. I have no idea what I'm saying, but you get the idea.

 

[MemoryTale]

Having swapped books with a few people on here and in my writing group, I can say it's definitely worthwhile over posting short extracts.

The main reason is because you're probably unlikely to post a scene on crits that you think is good, therefpore you might skip over that for something you're not as confident with. Which is fine, but I've found that by swapping books with other people they often see flaws in the bits I think are fine and I've learned that I have a terrible tendency to head hop - something I wouldn't have learned about myself through the parts I'd been posting on crits.

With that said I think it's better posting a few bits on the crits forums before offering to swap WIPs with people. See what sort of reactions you get, what sorts of problems people find, look through your WIP to see where those sorts of problems exist, and deal with them.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think, for the first time, the more polished the better. And yes, a full novel crit is very different from a short excerpt. It is also incredibly time consuming to do, so there would be an expectation of recipricity. I had a year where 90 per cent of my reading was doing crits in exchange for many many of my first book.

Also worth thinking about is a professional editor, but to get your money's worth, you need to be reasonably polished for that.

I now get crits on wips through a writing group who know it is an early draft, which is helpful, but the redpenning is painful if I don't at least strive to get each excerpt ip to scratch. It is useful for picking up when I am going awry, but we have been critting each other for a while now, so there is a certain amount of innate understanding in place.

Edit: just to say, though, choose your critters with care! Try to get someone who reads your genre. And too many voices can be a problem -- I had one critter, who doesn't write space opera, and I made big changes on the back of the crit, changes I later went back and largely removed. Now, I have about six regular people who read my stuff -- and I read theirs -- who I trust the opinion of totally.

Edit (again) - re Brian's point about getting an editor first and then readers, I don't entirely agree with this. I'd have been embarrassed to put my early drafts in front of Teresa (and, remember, I thought it was finished and brilliant at the time) and I would have learned nowhere near as much as I did from a later edit when there was something to work on outside of general clunkiness. My first crits were done -- I don't think they'll mind me saying it -- by Alchemist and Hex (Alc's was the first one that came back to me) and in terms of writing, both of them were more advanced/experienced than me. Having peers look at it and reflect back let me build it to the point where it, actually, resembled something I could let an editor look at. It also, I think, meant that when that edit by Teresa came back there were a lot of positives in it, which lifted me, whereas I think an early edit would have been, rightly, much more damning, and might have knocked me quite badly. (But Hex and Alc were terribly gentle, if honest, as I recall... )

 

[Brian G Turner]

Needless to say, getting a crit of a short except is easier than a crit of a whole novel and much less demanding of the goodwill of others.

Indeed, but the feedback from a short excerpt can be invaluable.

Even better, when you take criticisms on board and rewrite that section, post it upon again. Get feedback, apply criticisms again, re-post for feedback.

I think it's really, really important to get writing up to scratch before even asking for readers, and that means getting an editor in for at least the first chapters after critiques to see where you may be going wrong and apply corrections through the rest.

If your drafts are not polished, you'll end up testing the patience of readers and they may lose any appetite to read more once you have polished everything.

Additionally, think carefully about your readers - why do you want them to read? What will you gain from it? IMO you can't be general - you need to pick people who may have a better knowledge of your genre, or be widely read in it.

 

[The Judge]

Having someone read and comment on the complete book is very different from having a small section critiqued in depth, and it is very worthwhile. However, if you're still only at first draft stage, I'd suggest limiting it to, say, 4 or 5 chapters or 20-25,000 words to begin with. That's enough for people to pick up characterisation and pace and all the other stuff a 1500 word excerpt can't give them, but not so much that they get bogged down for weeks if they do identify problems in your work.

The advantages of getting a longer read on a first draft is that if you are going wrong, any issues might get identified before you spend hours honing them. The disadvantage is that if the draft is very rough indeed, you might alienate the readers a little. Perhaps, again, a mid-way point is best -- spend a little while doing some work on those chapters so they're not as rough as Mouse's nuts or nails, but don't spend months on them trying for perfection. But make it clear, also, that is is an early draft and you're just asking for help with the bigger picture, not a thorough review.

I'd also suggest leaving the paid edit until you've had feedback from others. A professional is worth the money, but to get the most out of it you want the editor to concentrate on things that you and your fellows can't see (or can't agree about!).

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

All the above advice seems sound, and I will heed it. I shan't inflict that 81,000 word rough draft on anyone else. Instead, I will concentrate on improving my writing.

Re paid edits, there are style checking programs available, which these days work better than some people may think. It would seem wise to ensure that a piece of writing passes the various basic checks offered by these programs before paying for an edit.
According to comments I have seen elsewhere, for all you know, the first thing the editor will do before starting work on your piece might be to run it through a style checker.