When you're asking for critical analysis from other writers...

[ThomasG81]

...is it better to have ongoing criticism as you write or should you complete a first draught then ask for help?

If possible, i'd rather avoid writing twenty chapters of drivel most of which will have to be chopped.

Apologies if i posted this in the wrong board.

 

[The Big Peat]

Depends about what you're worried about. If you're worried about whether the story is working, most of us wait until we've got a complete draft because without seeing the full story, it's hard to know whether certain writing choices are mistakes or not. But not all of us and it can work doing bit by bit - I think I've done that with bits of text around 5k each.

If you're worried about the quality of your prose, then chapters work, and we've got a great critiques section here (under 1500 words only) for just that once you've hit 30 posts.

 

[The Judge]

Once you've got the first novel done, then for subsequent WiPs it probably will help to give trusted readers a few chapters at a time as you've written them. That's what I've been doing for the past few years and it's worked very well.

However, if you're new to writing, I'd recommend that you write the whole thing then leave it for a time while you write something else, then come back and revise it, and only then worry about someone else reading it. I fully understand that you don't want to write drivel, and it might seem to be a waste of time and energy to write 100,000 words or more and then decide -- or be told -- it isn't working. But it really isn't a waste. It's important to learn one's craft, and the way to do that is to practice, so even if that first draft isn't very good -- and the first draft of most people's first book isn't -- you'll still be learning from it.

Having a critique for the first time can be really hard. I suspect that every single writer here has felt at least a tiny bit crushed no matter how kind and gentle that critique was. It's all too easy to hear "This needs a bit of work" as "This isn't good enough" and then "You're not good enough". That's dispiriting however much experience one has, and for someone who has only just started writing it might be enough to shatter confidence entirely and bring the whole project to a sudden halt. If, however, there's the novel already written, the writer knows he/she can do it, so there's more confidence there which (with luck) will be enough to sustain however much revising is required.

There's also the risk, if you're getting advice on a chapter by chapter basis, that you keep revising those chapters to get them right instead of actually ploughing through and getting the first book written. Plus, if the person critiquing has more writing experience, he/she might start taking the lead in suggesting how the story should go, warping your own vision of it.

If you're very, very sure you won't be distressed and deflected by criticism, and you're confident in your abilities and your story, then as TBP says, put up a few hundred words of your opening here in Critiques when you get your 30 counted posts. That will at least tell you if you're heading in the right direction.

Meanwhile, this is very much a writing issue, so I'll move it to Writing Discussion.

 

[ThomasG81]

Depends about what you're worried about. If you're worried about whether the story is working, most of us wait until we've got a complete draft because without seeing the full story, it's hard to know whether certain writing choices are mistakes or not. But not all of us and it can work doing bit by bit - I think I've done that with bits of text around 5k each.

it makes it difficult when your book is as complicated and narrative dependent as mine is and when other writers are only willing to review at most, 2K words.

 

[Dozmonic]

The above have said what's important, I feel. A line edit, the low level delivery, that's where the critique section excels. A high level edit, a review of the gestalt, that's where you want discussions on story structure.

 

[millymollymo]

i'd rather avoid writing twenty chapters of drivel most of which will have to be chopped.

Hi.
How do you know which is drivel and which is gold dust until you've written it?

Writing's slower than publishing is. Finding words is harder than editing them. Learning how to crit is just as frustrating as finding out what your voice is.
And then there's the need to keep reading published stuff too.

Get stuck in. I've been avoiding writing those 20 chapters for about 5 years now. They still haven't written themselves

 

[Jo Zebedee]

it makes it difficult when your book is as complicated and narrative dependent as mine is and when other writers are only willing to review at most, 2K words.

Reviewing 2k words for someone at the start of their writing journey (which, if you haven’t competed your first book yet, you likely are) is incredibly time consuming. I was really grateful when people were prepared to do that. To ask for more, having seen the journey ahead at that stage, would have used up some great betas who I needed more later.

 

[Alan Aspie]

...is it better to have ongoing criticism as you write or should you complete a first draught then ask for help?

After first, second, third or later draft.

No point for evaluations before there is something to evaluate.

 

[The Judge]

it makes it difficult when your book is as complicated and narrative dependent as mine is and when other writers are only willing to review at most, 2K words.

I'd echo Jo on this. Critiquing takes a lot of time and effort if it's to be done properly, and the longer the piece -- and the less experienced the writer -- the more time and effort is involved. I'm a nit-picker, looking at grammar, word use and such like, so I'm slower than most, but I'm pretty sure that I've spent longer dealing with extracts of a few hundred words here in Critiques than the author ever spent writing and revising them. Even giving general thoughts on larger aspects such as POV, pace and characterisation can easily take me an hour or more by the time I've read the piece carefully twice, formulated my thoughts and then done my best to express them in a way that will help the author. (It's easy to say "This is rubbish" but it can be very difficult to explain what is wrong so the problem is understood, and also offer suggestions for improvements.)

And critiquing is a two-way street, of course, unless you're paying for it. Are you able and prepared to give good, honest, constructive feedback? If so, hop over to Critiques now and start on the work that's up there. If you can show you know what you're doing as a critiquer, you'll find more people here willing to return the favour. If you find someone you can work with, you could start a writing group and swap chapters on a regular basis -- it might still be only a few thousand words at a time, but over the course of months that would translate into a sizeable proportion of the novel.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

What @The Judge said is true. You can learn almost as much from critiquing other writers as from having your own work critiqued. It’s far easier to spot common errors in someone else’s writing than in your own, but once you develop that critical eye, you can self-edit more effectively.

Also, as @millymollymo said: reading published work in your genre is invaluable. But beware! Once you learn to read critically, some of the innocent enjoyment in reading can be rubbed off. I kept on tripping up over massive style issues/grammar mistakes/etc in some of my favourite authors, until I learned to switch off my inner critic!

But definitely finish this novel, if you haven’t already. When you type -The End-, then go back and read Chapter 1 again, you’ll find that your writing has already improved, just from practice. It’s like exercising a muscle.

 

[-K2-]

Welcome to the forum!

K2

 

[Cydramech]

I was wondering this as well so I'm glad the OP asked, and certainly, I'm thankful for the advice being given about it.

 

[sknox]

Another voice of agreement here: learn to critique! If you want, say, 10k words of yours critiqued, you should commit to critiquing four sets of 10k of work by others. Yikes! Yes, that's a lot of work, but we learn not merely by doing but by doing over. Critique someone's work, see the reaction, critique another. Keep notes and take note of when your critique is helpful and when it isn't.

By doing so, you'll learn much about storytelling. You'll also start to get a sense of what to ask of a critiquer of your own work. And that's important. Asking "will you look at my stuff" is one thing. It's another and more useful thing to ask "what did you like or dislike about this secondary character" or "did the ending work for you" or even "how's my spelling" or "were my fantasy names ok?" Specificity, my dear Watson.

In any case, I do recommend submitting some shorter works. I also suggest trying to write something simpler for starters. My first project was a novel that turned out to be fairly ambitious (I didn't know what I was getting into). Luckily, though, during the long years of developing that, I happened into a short story that I got accepted at a magazine. Getting the editorial feedback on that, doing the necessary rewrite, helped me enormously. I also happened into a second story that I *thought* was short but turned into about 14k. Too long to submit to magazines, so it turned into my "learn how to publish on Amazon" project and eventually became my freebie to newsletter subscribers. I learned a ton of practical stuff there. Had I not had those, I would have made all those mistakes on my first novel instead. I do not recommend big and complicated to first-timers!

 

[tinkerdan]

It always a good thing to complete a piece.
That shows that you can complete something.
But if you are looking for real critical analysis then putting in the 30 posts to qualify for critique here and then submitting a 1500 word piece is the best way to go.

We and possibly other people you enlist will not be there to hold your hand through the entire process; however we can give insight into what you are doing that works and what doesn't and you can then apply that to your whole work as you edit back through.

That will give you something that will possibly be polished enough for you to finally send it to a real editor for some editing.

Or if you go the traditional route it might be good enough to send to an agent who will likely assign you some editing help and those people will be with you through the remainder of the process.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I would strongly advise you to complete a first draft first.
You need to write your novel - not other people's.
The temptation for a new writer is to get feedback - by which they mean positive feedback - in order to keep going. Keep going because you think you're on the right track.

 

[Brian G Turner]

...is it better to have ongoing criticism as you write or should you complete a first draught then ask for help?

If possible, i'd rather avoid writing twenty chapters of drivel most of which will have to be chopped.

If you're already writing, then get the first draft finished before anything else. Otherwise you will go into editing mode and that can stop you flat.

But, after the first draft, you'll probably see your own mistakes - anything that doesn't look quite right - and fix them up in a second draft.

Only then consider getting feedback.

 

[P Drysdale]

I've just finished draft 4 of a novel and it took that many drafts to get to a place where I was happy with letting someone read it. I was highly critical of the first three drafts, there were entire chapters I was unhappy with, and it's made the story a lot better. I also think it's particularly difficult if you know this is book one of a series you intend to write, the one I'm working on now is the first of six and I have to wonder when I get a critique of it should I explain the overall story and where it's going, or let the critique rest on the merits of the first installment only.

But...yeah I think be a ruthless critique of your own work for the first few drafts!

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Hey, @P Drysdale! Welcome to Chrons. Great to see you here x

 

[BrightSparrow]

I used to look for more feedback earlier on, but as I got more idea of what I wanted to write I left it till later drafts. Especially if I know I will be rewriting a certain part, there isn't much use getting feedback on an action sequence if I know it will change completely in my next go-through.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I will put in a small counter argument here - I do seek feedback at an early stage quite often. But I'm a pragmatic learner and I learn by doing, so getting that feedback can sometimes be what shifts me aong nicely. But I do think it's very easy to get bogged down in the feedback and never get on with finishing the story, especially for relatively new writers who maybe aren't just as confident around voice or processes.