How to Take Critique Advice

In one of last year’s tips I said that active critique group membership is the best way to strengthen one's own fiction. Anyone who's already used critique groups already knows it doesn't take long to wonder how, when, why and where to properly employ criticism in their work.

The old adage says consider the source. Don't make the mistake of accepting every tip. Be cautious about using advice. If you have a work critiqued by ten people, and seven give consistent advice about a particular item, you should consider making the suggested change. But if five give one type of advice, and the other five give contradictory advice, what does one do?

Consider my tip about purple prose. If the advice offered is about strengthening a verb, you still need to know if, and when, it's the right time and place to do so. Talking about your dilemma in your critique group is a good place to start, but contradicting advice means you've definitely stumbled upon something that you’ll need to research. Simply go to Google, or your favorite search engine, and enter parameters like strong verbs, language. Even if you can't find a concrete answer, remember writing is an art. Critique group members will all have different strengths and weaknesses, so learn who's mastered which types of criticism.

There’s a point to break every rule of writing. Even if one has more questions that when they began, the questions should be deeper. You'll come away with greater knowledge of language through the experience, and that is the path we all need to walk.