Discovering the (Brutal) Truths of Manuscript Critiques

An integral part of putting together a book -- any book, or any substantial piece of writing, really -- is that you almost always need some sort of feedback.

It is inevitable in a couple ways. If you're a writer, by definition it means you crave some sort of attention. You have something to say, you want to say it and you'd prefer someone pay attention to it.

So you do want someone to read what you write down or type out. The only real questions here are whether you want honest feedback from those readings and whether you want that feedback before you bare it all to the world. Or to an agent or (real) editor.

This is where wives, trusted friends, former college professors and colleagues come in.

Sixsome of readers

Who will you pick to critique your work?

My cadre so far is six. My wife, three former peers, a read-a-holic and another novelist. These are the six people I picked over the course of several years to read what I deemed completed chapters and then have at me.

My wife over a period of years read the book from its first chapters to the last. She caught many, many oversights and blunders. She also hated a few developments I liked, and vice versa.

A friend a former colleague, Peter Brown, has read manuscripts for another friend of his, books that were eventually published and did well. I figured he'd know what sells (to a publisher) and what doesn't, and he was incredibly encouraging. He (and maybe his wife) read the first half of the book and were impressed enough to tell me to finish. The book worked.

Another of the six, another of my former peers, never got around to it. (I'll spare his name here.) And by the time he would have, I told him to forget what I'd given him, that I'd gotten enough feedback already to know that what he had in his hands wasn't what I wanted him to read.

Yet the number is still six. My read-a-holic buddy, Bit Shaw, an octogenarian who eats, drinks and sleeps with Kindle -- and also may take into the pool with her -- shared my manuscript with her daughter, Barrie, also a prodigious reader (and lover of writing and of writers. Bless them.)

The two of them, by all accounts, read everything I sent them (in stages) within days. I asked the mother for her thoughts, and she delivered those of a real reader. She asked about characters and actions. She pointed out omissions and things that didn't jibe.

And . . . she guessed the ending.

I rewrote the ending.

You can handle the truth

My other erstwhile peer, John Cherwa, more hit man than editor, got through 12 chapters before I put the brakes on him. He'd done enough. I had to save him.

He savaged the early part of the book. It was fantastic.

It was exactly the sort of honest assessment the book needed. Flaws in plot, development and character plus issues with language. It was all there.

The manuscript wasn't ready.

Fast forward several months, and the sixth reader emerged. Following SleuthFest, Florida's Mystery Writers of America gathering, Micki Browning offered to read. I sent her eight chapters of the being-revised manuscript, and she sent them back with a couple days with numerous thoughts and helpful suggestions.

More chapters are coming her way. In between, I agreed to read her unpublished crime novel, and it was only then that I felt the sense of responsibility that some of my readers may have felt.

Should I say what I liked and didn't like? Should I couch the critique? Or should I just go the brutal route?

I chose the latter. That's what helped me the most, and I think most serious writers, though ever-fragile, appreciate a good flogging now and then. We do it to ourselves, we expect it from others.

And let's be honest: agents and publishers are going to do the same.

Let's just hope we all have thick enough skin and the believe that others do want what is best for us.