# Critique and personal taste



## Alexxx-Returns (Oct 30, 2013)

Where do you draw the line between a suggestion which could really improve a story, and one which comes about from the reader's own taste or opinion?

What I mean is, I once had someone read part of my story, and would say "I don't like the word 'X' here, you should change that". I ended up eradicating all use of the word from the story, despite it being a big part of the way I write and even talk, even though I wonder whether the word just grated with them.

What do you think constitutes good critique of a work, and where do you hold back when critiquing others? Or do you think it's also important to let the writer know how it was to read as an individual?


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## Tailmon1 (Oct 30, 2013)

Critics are good and bad in their ways. You have the ultimate grammar critics that do nothing but pick apart a story
and never really read it or understand the plot or content.  

Personally your better letting friends and people you know read your work and let them give their opinions. Its
more realistic to the world and not hung out and flamed to the blackened sheet of the former page it was 
written on.


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## Conker (Oct 30, 2013)

You can never completely divorce personal taste from critique, which is why you should grab more than one reader and then make the final decision yourself. 

I try to keep my personal taste out of stories I read for feedback, but ti's hard, especially if the story in question already has objective grammatical problems. It's just easy to get angry and want to tear it to pieces


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## Alexxx-Returns (Oct 30, 2013)

Tailmon1 said:


> Critics are good and bad in their ways. You have the ultimate grammar critics that do nothing but pick apart a story
> and never really read it or understand the plot or content.





Conker said:


> I try to keep my personal taste out of stories I read for feedback, but ti's hard, especially if the story in question already has objective grammatical problems. It's just easy to get angry and want to tear it to pieces



When I critique a story I like to completely separate spelling/grammar from content, because grammar's just proof-reading. I'm extremely thorough about grammar but I try not to let it get in the way of the story.

When I read my ex's book I thoroughly enjoyed the story and connected with (and hated some of) the characters, but grammatically it was a mess. He didn't ask me for a critique, but I wish he had because I wanted to proof-read the shit out of it.


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## Schwimmwagen (Oct 30, 2013)

I think with critique for writing, you should _listen_ to all critique you recieve, but you don't have to take it all on board.

Value the feedback you get as it may contain something crucial that you have missed.

"The story feels very short and rushed" is something good to take into account.

"The characters should be vampires" is not.

"I didn't understand the story" is kinda... hmm. If you really believe that the guy who said this is a minority, then okay. 

But it may be worth looking back and thinking how accessible what you're trying to portray is. Some stories (and even drawings) are created in a way that all these little crucial things are only really spotted by the author. If you have to explain your story, there's something wrong. It's one thing explaining the underlying complex themes or ideas, as those aren't immediately obvious in any good story, e.g. Harry Potter being mostly centered around death, or the actions of the supporting character Sam Gamgee making him the "true" hero in LOTR, or the use of slow, oncoming zombie hordes as a visual metaphor for our mortality and the inevitable deaths of our loved ones and ourselves. It's okay if that's a bit hazy and open to analysis. Those are the things you spot after re-reading a couple of times or talking about it with your mates. Feel free to scoff at the plebeians if they don't get any of that unless it's explained.

The progression of the story, however, is something that may need adjusting in its delivery if you hear that feedback. The story itself at face value should make sense to those reading it and be easily followed if it's to reach more people. 

In your case, I don't think repetition is a good thing. It's okay to repeat things, but it gets grating after a while.

---

On a more personal offtopic note, it's all these little things that make me find it hard to write a story as in book. Scenarios and concepts and ideas I feel I do pretty well with, but it's something more suited to a comic format. Prose is a different ballgame. Visual storytelling, woo.


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## Alexxx-Returns (Oct 30, 2013)

Gibby said:


> But it may be worth looking back and thinking how accessible what you're trying to portray is. Some stories (and even drawings) are created in a way that all these little crucial things are only really spotted by the author. If you have to explain your story, there's something wrong.



Urgh, that's the worst thing about making [three] fictional countries for a story. So much has to be explained D:


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## Schwimmwagen (Oct 30, 2013)

AlexxxLupo said:


> Urgh, that's the worst thing about making [three] fictional countries for a story. So much has to be explained D:



Oh, I mean "explain" as in respond to a guy who is all like "yo Alex I don't get this explain it to me plos".

Anything that needs to be understood should either be readily apparent as the reader goes along (best) or explained in detail within the story (second best I guess?).

But when you explain, it really depends on how you explain this. An introductory omniscient narrator kind of thing tends to work the best for explaining fictional peoples and locations. "Concerning Hobbits" in LOTR, anyone? Even though I only remember the movie.

I have my own little fun fictional universe, but again, it's all visual. But basically, it unravels as the reader goes along. Then again, my world is not a story, just a fictional time and place to fap to.


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## Alexxx-Returns (Oct 30, 2013)

Gibby said:


> But when you explain, it really depends on how you explain this. An introductory omniscient narrator kind of thing tends to work the best for explaining fictional peoples and locations. "Concerning Hobbits" in LOTR, anyone? Even though I only remember the movie.



That was my exact strategy. My story is first-person anyways, targeted towards humans (as written by a dragon), so it begins with a "let me get you up to speed with my country" prologue sort of thing.


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## Schwimmwagen (Oct 30, 2013)

AlexxxLupo said:


> That was my exact strategy. My story is first-person anyways, targeted towards humans (as written by a dragon), so it begins with a "let me get you up to speed with my country" prologue sort of thing.



I imagine it'd work!


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 30, 2013)

Yeah, so I've been having the 'no one can understand it offhand' problem with a recent story I've written.  In terms of critique, I did get pretty consistent criticism on how inaccessible it was, but it took a lot of back and forth (in which I presumably made myself sound like a snotty pretentious douchebag to all involved) before I was able to realize that yes, there is a problem with the story regarding the overuse of cryptography, if you will.  That kind of discussion turned out to be necessary, though, because it was one of those circumstances where I had to decide where to draw the line in terms of audience alienation.  Like, do I leave it this confusing so that it's only pleasurable to people who love to solve puzzles, do I dumb it down enough so that general audiences can at least get a concept of what I'm going for, or what?  So the back and forth was extremely helpful for me in a.) deciding how to proceed, and b.) learning of a nice way to compromise between too obvious and too subtle.

Anecdote aside, I recommend everyone take all critiques with a grain of salt, and employ a little critical thinking regarding the critique you receive.  If you just take all critiques at face-value, you quickly learn that everyone wants your story to be a different way, and that different people have conflicting views about what to fix and what not to.  At that stage you just have to make the decision yourself.  But there are ways to tell what kind of critique makes sense and what kind is just stupid nitpicking or personal opinion nonsense.  Helpful critiques are those that help.  To boil it down to the barest parts, it's the difference between, "I don't like that you used the word [x] here," (purely personal opinion, no justification) and "I don't like that you used the word [x] here, because that word has connotations that conflict with the tone you've set up for this scene and it thus feels jarring" (personal opinion, but with justification for you to consider to make up your own mind).
Maybe a case in point:


			
				Gibby said:
			
		

> An introductory omniscient narrator kind of thing tends to work the best for explaining fictional peoples and locations.


Not everyone thinks so.  It worked for Tolkien because he was that kind of old-school writer, in the vein of Dickens (who was paid by the word and hence took large passages of his books to sit there and blatantly explain what was going on).  I personally find that type of expository writing to be incredibly boring most of the time (unless the writer has the command of English that Tolkien did, of course, in which case an essay about manufacturing toilet paper would be an interesting read), and much prefer when the writer manages to find a clever way of fitting all the necessary info into the narrative of the story, without stopping or slowing it down.  So because this is a matter of personal taste, telling someone something like this in a critique requires some kind of justification.  You know: 'this expository introduction doesn't fit because the rest of the story isn't written in such a professorial, storybook manner.'


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## SkyeLansing (Oct 31, 2013)

AlexxxLupo said:


> Where do you draw the line between a suggestion which could really improve a story, and one which comes about from the reader's own taste or opinion?



This is part of why you need more than one person giving you critique if you are REALLY serious about it. A lot of times critique like "I don't like word X here" is very much a matter of taste and background. Where you grew up and the dialect patterns you learned as a result has the potential to have a HUGE impact on what sounds right. But sometimes people are right about changing a word, so how do you know?

First is a matter of training: you need to understand 1) EXACTLY what you are trying to convey in both meaning and tone, 2) EXACTLY the meaning of the word you used as well as everything implies, and 3) The same for the suggested change including how it would affect the passage as it already stands.

This can get very tricky in some cases. For example, do you know the true difference between "Should" and "Ought"? Most people use them interchangeably but there are differences.

The second way is why I said you need more than one reader. For a lot of comments and critiques you get it (assuming you have done proper revisions already) the comments you get ARE a matter of personal taste - but that still doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong. By having many different readers, ideally with different tastes and backgrounds, you help account for that. If people keep mentioning the same things over and over again it is probably something you should fix.




AlexxxLupo said:


> What do you think constitutes good critique of a work, and where do you hold back when critiquing others? Or do you think it's also important to let the writer know how it was to read as an individual?



I've talked personally about what I think makes good critique on my blog already so rather than just copy pasting it here you can follow the link, but your question is a bit more expansive then what I already touched on. Personally I think it is best for critique to be utterly ruthless as long as it remains fair - in short it should address every mistake and plot hole and area where the writing isn't up to par without mercy. You should be forthright with if you liked the story and the writing (yes, the two are different!) and if you were able to enjoy yourself. And yes you should let the writer know your personal opinion on the story and why so they know what sort of things color your opinion, but things need to be done with tact and grace.

An example: If I were to read a story that was in a genre I dislike I would say "I do not really enjoy this genre so I wasn't able to get into the story and enjoy it." This is useful to the author because it tells them they are not able to capture a reader who's tastes lay outside the genre (if the reverse was true they would certainly want to know!). I would not say "I don't really enjoy this genre so the story was shitty."

In effect it is important to be able to separate your own tastes as a reviewer from the actual work itself.

Also keep in mind that is my own personal preference for receiving critique and others may prefer or even require a softer touch. Ideally a writer should lay out what he is expecting from critique before the reviewer looks at the story.


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## Jags (Oct 31, 2013)

AlexxxLupo said:


> Urgh, that's the worst thing about making [three] fictional countries for a story. So much has to be explained D:



...I had trouble picking out a name for a character. Jeez. Feels bad.

My main problem with critique vs opinion is the justification. If you can back up why you think something should be changed with a well reasoned argument, It's entirely fine. Just because 'I don't reeally like the name Jeremy, I much prefer Robert', doesn't mean the critic's right.

Though it works both ways. If a good argument is laid before you for a change, you can hardly defend keeping it your way because 'I prefer my way'.


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## Dover (Nov 11, 2013)

Tailmon1 said:


> Personally your better letting friends and people you know read your work and let them give their opinions. Its
> more realistic to the world and not hung out and flamed to the blackened sheet of the former page it was
> written on.



I want your friends. My friends can't critique shit good. Literally, they can look poo and say "Oh yeah that's a turd." That's about it. They don't go in detail whatsoever, but I got a critique from a stranger and was like "This is the poo, its in the toilet, its brown, floats and smells foul. This is what you should do because this is what I think and that's how you turn your shit into gold. Midas touch bitch." Basically, my friends suck.

I think its better to get multiple critiques and compare the responses so you know what really needs to be fixed if you honestly don't know. Also critique the critique given to you. If they don't let you know what's good and what's bad, its not worth bothering with it.


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