At this point we all know Stephen King’s golden rule, “while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine,” but how many of us actually use it (King, 128)? Not even “the king” used it in his 1986 novel, IT. The use of adverbs in the text was so overwhelming, I tapped out less than a quarter of the way through. However, I hold no grudges and shan’t dare to point fingers. This is the writing process. We make mistakes, we grow in our craft, and then we tell others they shouldn’t make the same mistakes we have in their work. Hence, why I’m telling you today that sometimes a beat is better than a tag.
The first time another writer said the word “beat” to me was in 2014. I was in a critique group with a hodgepodge of writers. One wrote women’s fiction, two of us were writing historical fiction, one was writing inspirational fiction, and one was writing her second mystery novel. The mystery writer was the most experienced amongst us, having won a St. Martin’s Press prize the year before and having previously been published in both the true crime genre and inspirational. Needless to say, I looked up to this writer bigtime. We all did. These meetings were totally old school. Printed submissions were handed out to each member every month and the next month we returned to discuss the submission, critique notes handwritten in red (GAH!) on our once pristine pages. Okay, not everyone used red. You get my point. Flipping through the critique from my mystery writing pal, two words stood out to me: beat here.
I stared at the words for a few minutes. The implication was clear, but I’d never considered using something before dialogue and nothing after. Is that what the great writers did? Certainly not the ones from the 1990s, and most assuredly not the ones from the 1950s and before. I had a serious thing for mid-century writing at the time. Needless to say, there were a lot of adverbs, my friends. I didn’t know it at that moment, but those two words would change everything for me. Yes, sometimes to write he said or she said is divine, but other times it’s even more powerful to leave them out altogether. In fact, there are some writers that believe you shouldn’t use end tags at all. I’m not completely on board with that. I enjoy Cormac McCarthy but trying to acclimate myself to no quotations and very few dialogue tags in The Road was an exercise in patience. I’m not team “no tags” but I’m absolutely team “use them sparingly”.
Before we get into the meat and potatoes of which is better to use, let’s talk a little about what they are. A dialogue tag is that delightful little indicator at the end of dialogue that lets you know who’s speaking. “What did you think of the concert?” Emily asked. Some people believe the end tag for this particular piece of dialogue would be redundant because the question mark indicates that a question has been asked. However, there’s a little problem of identifying the speaker without it. This is where a beat can be super helpful. Often called action beats or story beats, they are descriptions used before, between, and after dialogue that provide movement to a conversation. We don’t sit still when we’re talking to friends, and we’re especially not stoic during an argument or high stress time, so dialogue – in order to remain true to life – shouldn’t be either. To quote Noah Lukeman, “Characters are not to be quoted, but to speak for themselves” (Lukeman 80). Yes, it is divine to write he said or she said, but it is glorious to show their actions instead.
There are plenty of arguments for the use of story beats. Personally, I think they make a story flow better. This isn’t to say that dialogue tags should never be used. I mentioned my trouble with The Road, right? And McCarthy used about a handful of them in the narrative. No tags is a very stylized choice and it isn’t for every reader. I prefer a tag to no tag, but something tells me that the father/son post-apocalyptic story wouldn’t have had the same impact if I’d been reading he said, she said after every bit of dialogue. Let’s look at this passage from Mary Ellen Taylor’s Winter Cottage:
He lowered his head and cleared his throat. “I went to sea right away. I’ve not been back much since.”
“We needed you.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You were best to live somewhere else. There was no life here without your mother. I wasn’t enough.”
“You were.” (179).
From this passage we know an estranged father is speaking to his child, we know the child must be older now, possibly an adult, and we know this moment is fraught with tension. It’s evident in the way he lowers his head, clears his throat, and shoves his hands in his pockets, and it’s more than evident by the pleading in his child’s short, impactful statements. Would this passage have the same affect if each piece of dialogue was followed by he said or she said? I don’t think so.
Story beats give our characters a chance to move while they’re talking. They can shift, roll their eyes, roll out dough for the pie they’re going to make, whatever, and we – the readers – get to experience those movements with them. This, I think, is why so many of us prefer beats to end tags. Yes, you can still have that movement after a dialogue tag, but as Brian Shawver points out, “[w]e can only handle so much of he said, turning to the senorita and cackling in that distinctive way of his before we see the prose as mannered or repetitive” (Shawver 35). Your characters and their situations are supposed to feel real to the reader. They should see the scene playing out before them and a scene without movement won’t be jumping from any page.
I’m not trying to be down on dialogue tags. Every writer should use them. Seriously. But they should be used sparingly. Especially those nifty little additions new (and seasoned) authors like to use. You know what I’m talking about. Yes, those pesky adverbs! What did “the king” say about them? Oh yes, to write them is only human. In The Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr. calls the use of adverbs “cluttery and annoying,” and goes on to say “inexperienced writers […] do this, apparently in the belief that the word said is always in need of support, or because they have been told to do it by experts in the art of bad writing” (Strunk 75). Ouch. He’s not wrong. Take a look at these pieces of dialogue:
“Do you understand me?” Olivia asked questioningly.
The addition of questioningly to the end tag is wrong for so many reasons, the first of which is that it is redundant. To say someone asked something questioningly after using a question mark in dialogue is a lot like saying someone shouted after using an exclamation point in dialogue. We know, we know. Not to mention the fact that in this particular instance we’ve driven home the fact that Olivia asked three different times, once with the question mark, once by using asked, and finally by adding questioningly. If that isn’t repetitive, I don’t know what is.
“How could you do such a thing,” John scolded angrily.
“Because it’s my life and I’ll live it as I please!” Pepper retorted.
The use of scolded and angrily in the same tag is also redundant. People don’t ordinarily scold someone when they’re happy. The use of the word scolded would be more than enough if we were okay using the end tag, but as Allison Amend warns, “It can be dangerous to veer too far from the said paradigm. It’s tempting to […] have your characters utter, express, state, announce [etc.], but overuse will provide a trampoline effect, making it seem as though all of your characters are springing five feet in the air when they speak” (Gotham 134). With that piece of advice in mind, I think using a story beat during an argument is much more compelling than using end tags, and they also keep the scene moving in a more fluid way.
In the first example the repetition of the end tag can be eliminated with the use of a story beat.
Olivia dropped her head to the side, brows knitting together. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
We can see Olivia’s trepidation in the way that she drops her head to the side and knits her brows together. We know she’s silently urging them to get what she’s saying.
How about that second example:
John’s eyes were ablaze, his lips trembling. “How could you do such a thing!”
Equally ablaze, Pepper met his glare, jaw clenched. “Because it’s my life and I’ll live it as I please!”
I’m not a huge fan of using too many exclamation points in a narrative. Too many and it seems like your characters are in a perpetual state of excitement or befuddlement. But here, in this highly emotional moment, it stands to reason that both characters will be shouting. Remember, when it comes to highly dramatic instances in your narrative, less is more. If there’s a tragedy or fight in every scene your readers may become overwhelmed and too exhausted to keep reading. In addition to that, too many highly dramatic outbursts by your main character(s) may signal that they are underdeveloped and need to be fleshed out a bit more. As the queen of shallow, one-dimensional characters, trust me on this. Thank goodness for multiple drafts!
If story beats aren’t your thing there’s no need to despair, no one says you have to use them. I mean, it would be beneficial, but using end tags won’t kill your narrative, just like the occasional tell won’t. The thing to remember is that these elements should be used with a delicate balance. Too many instances of he said/she said in your narrative will become just as distracting as too many unnecessary adverbs. Find your balance, writers, and you’ll find your readers. At least I hope so, for my own sake if nothing else.
Resources
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Scribner, 2000.
Lukeman, Noah. The First Five Pages. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Shawver, Brian. The Language of Fiction: A Writer’s Stylebook. Hanover & London, 2013.
Strunk, William & White, E. B. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. Longman, 2000.
Steele, Alexander. Gotham Writers' Workshop: Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School. Bloomsbury, 2003.
Taylor, Mary Ellen. Winter Cottage. Montlake Romance, 2018
Further Reading
Brooks, Larry. Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. Writer’s Digest Books, 2011.
Oliver, Laura. The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers. Alpha, 2011
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Vintage International, 2006.
Updated: Feb 5, 2021
Hello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I am your host, Sayword B. Eller, novelist, short story writer, and podcaster. Today's episode marks my twentieth. I never thought I would have this many episodes. In truth, I should have closer to thirty at this point, but I'm happy to be at twenty none-the-less. Today's bonus episode is called Notes on a Scandal and is my review and reaction to the books Excavation by Wendy C. Ortiz and My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell.
Consider this my disclaimer: In this episode I'll be talking about a hard topic that many people don't like to face; sexual abuse. If this is a trigger for you, please exit this podcast episode now. I have 19 others you can listen to.
According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network, "every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted" (https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence). This violence isn't limited to a particular race, though RAINN states that Native Americans "are at the greatest risk of sexual violence" (ibid). Unfortunately, the scandal surrounding the release of Kate Elizabeth Russell's My Dark Vanessa may lead you to believe that white women aren't allowed to have the same brutal experiences of other races of women, and they certainly aren't allowed to write about those experiences and be paid well for them. Prior to the release of MDV, Russell was very publicly branded a plagiarist and unworthy of telling such a story.
As a survivor, sexual abuse is difficult for me to talk about and I didn't experience anything as harrowing as Wendy Ortiz, Mary Elizabeth Russell, and the millions of other survivors who've been subjected to sexual trauma, but I talk about it. Even "triggered" I talk about sexual violence against girls and boys, women and men, because I'm sick to death of those who have suffered being told they should just get over it and get on with their lives.
Here's a hard truth, we do get on with our lives, but those voices, those touches, those lingering stares follow us and when we least expect it, they sneak up and remind us they're there.
For these reasons, I've broken down my review into three parts:
Notes on a scandal
Review of both books
Final Thoughts
Notes on a scandal:
I took a particular interest in two scandals in the last year, that between Kim Michele Richardson (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek) and Jojo Moyes (The Giver of Stars), and Wendy Ortiz's Excavation and Kate Elizabeth Russell's My Dark Vanessa. In both instances there were claims of plagiarism, though in Ortiz's case those claims came from her fans and not directly from the author herself. It's easy to jump on a bandwagon, especially if you're a fan of an author's work, to defend them to the hilt regardless of what the facts really are. Let's face it, in both cases this boils down to subjective interpretation and misunderstandings. I decided I would read all four books in question and do a reaction review podcast episode for each pairing.
In 2019 I finished the first draft of a book I'd been working on since 2017, Catching Fireflies. This book deals with sexual abuse. I've been trying to find comps for this book for months. As you might expect, there aren't a lot written in the last two years for me to choose from and if there are, I haven't found them. Enter My Dark Vanessa, a book about a young girl's sexual relationship with a much older man. It would be the perfect comp given the similarity of the themes. So I immediately put it on my list of new releases to purchase. Then, on January 19, 2020 Wendy Ortiz, author of the memoir Excavation tweeted, "Can't wait until February when a white woman's book of fiction that sounds very much like excavation is lauded, Stephen King's stamp of approval is touted, etc" (Ortiz, Twitter). Immediately, I was struck. Did Russell, appropriate Ortiz's story? There was only one way to find out, so I immediately bought Ortiz's book and decided I would read them both and form my own opinion, especially since Ortiz admitted that she hadn't read Russell's book and was basing her opinion off of the synopsis she found online. Yes, you heard me correctly. Instead of jumping on one side or the other, I actually purchased both books to read and decide for myself.
Here’s what I learned.
Both books have the similar themes (sexual abuse) and subjects (teenagers having affairs with older teachers), but that's where the similarities as I see them end.
Excavation is a memoir about author Wendy C. Ortiz's long term relationship with her English teacher, Jeff Ivers. It covers their initial meeting, how fourteen year old Wendy tries to appear "disinterested," something she seems to do often in order to "simply observe, absorb," the world around her (Ortiz, Excavation). I found myself comparing my own teenage self and feelings to Wendy, sussing out our differences. She wanted to appear aloof whereas I'd already been introduced to the longings of boys and men by that age, so I wanted to be noticed. My fourteen year old self was all eyelashes and smiles where Wendy's was disinterest and observation. Wendy captures Mr. Ivers's attention quickly, sharing with him a racy novel she's been writing and sharing with her friends. I was also writing a racy novel in high school. I wrote it in journal form and passed it around amongst my friends. Ortiz's novel, however, starts something she doesn't quite anticipate, and is the catalyst for Mr. Ivers believing she is game for his romantic attentions. I'm not blaming Ortiz for what would become a long-term affair with her teacher, continuing long after she passed his eighth grade English class, merely stating what appears to be the beginning point. The move of a child to shock her teacher turns into inappropriate nightly phone calls that evolve into a sexual relationship that is consummated on a blazing southern California day in the summer of 1987. Ortiz at fourteen is suddenly in over her head with her almost thirty year old teacher. I know a little something about seeing things out or letting things happen. I know an awful lot about pushing boundaries and having nowhere else to go but forward when things venture into uncomfortable and inappropriate territories. Wendy pushes boundaries and then gets a bit lost when she has nowhere to go but forward. By the summer, of course, she's ready for something to happen, though I'm not sure she was ready for everything that happens. In true Wendy fashion, though, she goes with the flow even as Jeff is freaking out.
I didn't have overwhelming feelings for any of the adults in this memoir, other than Jeff, of course. They could've been people I knew or grew up around. The men whose eyes lingered on young girls longer than they should, the people who ignored the fact that a grown man would be hanging out with his former female student alone in his home, those who looked the other way when Wendy and Jeff would have obvious lovers spats. What teenage girl would rather hang out with her middle school english teacher than go to the mall with her friends or hang out with kids her own age? It was the 1980s, those questions weren't asked. A lot of things were overlooked and ignored in the '80s, especially if it was inappropriate relationships with young people. I did, however, feel an exception for Wendy's mom, a woman dealing with the dissolution of her marriage, becoming a single mom, and struggling with feelings of failure. She is an alcoholic, yes. She does allow her daughter to do things no mother should, yes. But she's really just doing the best she can.
Others have said this book is a tough read, but I think we should look at it as a necessary read. These things happen; molestation, rape, incest, inappropriate sexual relations, they all happen. We live in a society that insists on keeping these stories in the dark, where for no other reason than their own discomfort they say to stop talking about this. It's a society where even women scorn the #MeToo movement and where they insist that women who "wait too long" are liars only looking to end a man's career, a society where we expect women to sit down to dinner with their rapists and smile and just get over it. Books like Excavation are important. That this hasn't been picked up for reprint by a bigger publisher is beyond me.
Have you ever wondered about the women caught up in a scandal who have a legitimate story to tell but refuse to? Enter Vanessa Wye. It’s 2017 and her former English teacher has just been very publicly accused of sexually abusing one of his former students. The things is, despite the fact that Vanessa had a sexual affair with this teacher, she isn’t the former student accusing him of misconduct. Whether she likes it or not, Vanessa must make an important decision, tell her story to the world in an effort to bring a child predator to justice, or remain silent in the face of scrutiny. Told in dual timelines, My Dark Vanessa asks the question, would you protect someone you love even if you know firsthand how deceptive, manipulative, and devious they can be?
In 2000 fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye is beginning her sophomore year at Browick, a prestigious boarding school in Maine. Awkward and withdrawn, Vanessa doesn’t have any real friends. She never really fit in at her old school and she’s no longer speaking to her former roommate at Browick, Jenny. One of the great mysteries throughout the book is what happened between the two girls. There is a sense that it’s something major, something that they can’t quite come back from. The actual reason is a letdown, but not entirely unexpected from a teenager, especially one like Vanessa. She cares a lot about what people think of her. More specifically, what she believes they think about her. The most important thing for the reader to know about Vanessa is that she doesn’t have a clue.
Perhaps this is why Jacob Strane sets his sights on her. She’s a loner, quiet, and so obviously lonely. She’s everything someone like Strane needs. So he begins testing the waters with her. Little touches, winks, sharing literature with hidden messages. One thing I found particularly gross was the fact that almost every piece of literature he shares with her is filled with themes of sexual deviance. Always older men infatuated with or in love with younger women, usually girls. He tells her she’s special, that she isn’t like the other girls. He grooms her.
This is where I think everyone is getting it wrong with this book. It isn’t about the relationship between Strane and Vanessa, it’s about victimology and Vanessa being the perfect target. Strane is a predator. By the time Vanessa has him for a teacher he’s been teaching at Browick for more than a decade. It’s obvious, if only to the reader, that he’s done this before and will do it after Vanessa is far removed from his life. He knows what he’s doing, knows how to take it one step at a time, and he knows how to cover his tracks.
Russell did an excellent job showing how manipulative predators like Jacob Strane are, and she did an exceptional job showing how easily a lonely teenager can be duped into feeling loved and the ramifications of what happens to them after the affair is over. Vanessa becomes a master avoider, living her adult life in a fog of drugs, alcohol, and strange men. She is the product of Strane’s tactics, and he fails to show even an ounce of remorse. Russell has stated in interviews that she wanted Strane to love Vanessa. He’s far too narcissistic to love anyone other than himself.
I have a major problem with the author wanting to show that Strane really loves Vanessa in his own way. This relationship is unhealthy, it’s borne from a forty-two-year-old man’s inability to become sexually aroused by anyone older than eighteen. He is quite literally a dirty old man who I feel no sense of attachment or remorse for, a man who not only bends ethical rules but snaps them in half. This is not the sort of relationship to romanticize. The reader should despise Jacob Strane by the end of the book. Personally, I hated him well before. I also take major issue with the number of sex scenes featured in the book. As mentioned, this is not a relationship to be romanticized, it is a crime and is causing irreparable damage to one half of the couple. I understand the need to reference their intimate moments together, but to have so many scenes where their sex is told in detail was too much for this reader.
Finally, I’m angry that Vanessa didn’t grow more as a character. She deserves more than what she gets in the end of this. A slight admission in the closing pages doesn’t make up for hundreds of pages where she’s broken apart and pieced back together by a child rapist. It’s a step in the right direction, but after all of that I needed to see something more from her and she failed me. It is for this reason alone that I gave the book four stars instead of five.
After reading both books back-to-back, I don't believe that Russell appropriated anything. Not once while reading did I flash to Ortiz's book. The characters are made of different stuff, the situations are different, and the outcomes are certainly different. If you put a dozen survivors into a room and have them speak openly about their experiences, how they began and how they ended, chances are you will find commonalities.
I think the argument should never have been that Russell was telling anyone else's story as her own, but how the publishing industry approaches certain books. Ortiz has since tried to clarify her position, that she wasn't attacking the Russell, but was commenting on how unbalanced publishers are with acquisitions and the money they put into certain titles. She's right. If she'd written Excavation as a novel instead of memoir she might have seen the same type of interest as My Dark Vanessa.
RESOURCES:
Kircher, Madison M, 2020, What's Going on With My Dark Vanessa and Excavation?, Vulture, February 3, 2020: https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/my-dark-vanessa-and-excavation-book-controversy-explained.html
Ortiz, Wendy, January 9, 2020, https://twitter.com/WendyCOrtiz/status/1218999472224493569
Ortiz, Wendy, 2020, Adventures in Publishing Outside the Gates: On the Industry's Gatekeeping, Gay Mag, January 29, 2020: https://gay.medium.com/adventures-in-publishing-outside-the-gates-a06f089c372e
Ortiz, Wendy. Excavation: A Memoir. Future Tense Books: Portland, OR, 2014.
Oswald, Anjelica, 2016, The multimillion-dollar sums that celebrities make on books — and how they actually sell, Business Insider, March 9, 2016: <https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrity-book-advances-2016-3>
RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network): https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
Russell, Kate Elizabeth. My Dark Vanessa. William Morrow: New York, 2020.
Russell, Kate E., 2020, Note to Readers, http://kateelizabethrussell.com/note-to-readers.
We all have guidelines we stick to in life. Often they're developed for us and we follow them studiously, but sometimes we make them ourselves based on our experiences in certain situations. As we develop as writers we become more confident and more aware of what works and what doesn't in our creative process. In 2013 I thought I had it all figured out, that my writing was strong and my knowledge vast, and then I started a critique group and realized I had so much more to learn, not only about writing but about genres, using craft elements effectively, and publishing. Imagine my surprise to learn I'd only seen the very tip of the tip of the publishing iceberg.
Now, after years of working with critique groups and partners I've developed my own guidelines, my own approach, and my partners (as you can see from the testimonials on this site) have responded well to them. I shared them with you on the About This Writing Thing podcast this week and I'm sharing them here with you now.
1) Be encouraging - The work you're reviewing is someone's creation, their baby. The last thing you need to do as a critique partner is tell them it's ugly. Find the good parts and point those out. Not only will it soften the sting of critique, it will let them know they're not totally lacking in talent.
2) Be kind - This goes back to #1. In those moments when you're looking at your screen telling yourself you can't read another word because it's so bad, remember that every first draft (true first draft) is rough. Again, don't say how ugly the baby is, tell them what they may do to make the lighting better.
3) Make suggestions - You're not in a critique group to hear how brilliant you are (though it's always nice to receive that type of feedback), you're there to make your work stronger, to find out what works and what doesn't work, and to finish the damn book. "I liked it" is no more acceptable than "I didn't like it" when working with critique partners. Be specific but remain kind.
4) Be professional - The top guidelines of critique all work hand-in-hand. One must be encouraging and kind, and they must do so while making helpful suggestions. It is also important that the critique partner exude professionalism while critiquing. Remember, you're most critiquing work that is intended to be submitted. It deserves your full attention and a thorough read - thorough with thoughtful and helpful suggestions. In other words use "LOL" and other text language sparingly.
5) Line-by-line - This one is really up to personal preference. Recently my MFA class explored our personal rules for critique. I was surprised by the number of people who dislike line by line critiques. Personally, I thrive on them. I was astounded, though, by the number of people who only wanted their critique partners to read and look for the specific things they ask them to look for, nothing more. I am of the mind that my work isn't perfect and my partners may find something I wasn't aware of being a problem, so I rarely ask my partners to look for anything specific in my work. I think writers who limit their partners to only looking at particular things are doing a disservice to their work. I also thing they may not be 100% open to critique. This, as stated before, is all personal preference and should be discussed as a group to see what works best for everyone.
6) Be thorough - I spend a lot of time with the submissions I receive. Sometimes it takes me hours to do a read through because I am moving through the work line by line. This, apparently, is not how others do their critiques. In our class discussions I've found that many people believe you should read through a sample one to two times before going back through to critique. I don't like to do double and triple work, y'all, so I do it all in one go. This is why it takes so long for me to read through and critique. The golden rule for this is to give your partner's work the same time and respect you want them to give to yours.
7) Be patient - If you're fortunate enough to find a critique partner that is truly ready for critique, be patient. In a past critique group one of our members was writing a historical. This genre is tricky because you need to weave history in with fiction and keep it interesting. She had a great story but she made the standard newbie writer mistakes: too much description and information dumping. We all do it when we're starting out. We have our characters describe themselves right down to the cutesy mole just below their left eye. This doesn't work in all genres, it really doesn't work well in historical fiction. The key to working with tedious writing is patience. She wasn't a bad writer just because she went into too much detail, nor was she a bad writer for giving too much information. This is where your skill and expertise come into play. You have to help her get better without being a jerk and without doing a disservice to her work. Patience, as they say, is a virtue, so use it.
8) Know writing styles (but don't critique them) - For this term's first week of class we had to submit a creative writing sample. One of my classmates critiqued my work, suggesting that I change some of my stylistic choices. Because she isn't familiar with the genre I write in she was unaware that the pieces of prose she highlighted are actually quite common in literary, upmarket, and women's fiction. It is very important, especially if you're critiquing outside your genre, that you are familiar with and understand the styles common in the genres you're critiquing. Women's fiction narratives are vastly different from those found in mystery and fantasy. In other words, know your shit or stay in your lane. Two cliches in one statement, how do you like that?
9) Refrain from proofreading (grammar) - As you can, no doubt, tell from this and all of my other blog posts, grammar is not my thing. We all have our weaknesses, right? This is one reason why I don't comment on grammar while critiquing. Misspellings, yes. Sentence structure, yes. Rarely grammar. You do what you want, but I'll save the grammar issues for the proofreader.
10) Never, never, ever give an unsolicited critique - I learned this one the hard way. When I began critiquing I was so excited. Here I was looking at fiction in a whole new way. I wasn't analyzing it, I was taking a look at the bones of a story and helping other authors make them stronger. It was (and is) exhilarating! At the time I was FB friends with an Irish woman who was releasing a book. She'd been advertising it for months and it was her very first book. I was excited to buy and read it. Then I did. It was a good story, but it was clear she hadn't worked with a developmental editor (not that I knew what that was at the time) or any other type of editor. So after I finished it I sent her a three page critique. I was foolish and presumptuous. She hasn't spoken to me since. It wasn't until years later that I realized the error of my ways. It turns out we're newbie writers in so many different ways. Yes, my craft was improving, but I had a lot to learn about etiquette.
So there they are, my golden guidelines for critique. Are they similar to yours? I'd love to know what you think.
Until next time,
S
