ISWG: My Dream Team Critique Group

 

Official trailer of Midnight in Paris from Youtube

One of my favorite writing movies is Midnight in Paris. In the film, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) travels back in time and meets the great writers and artists of the 1920s. He's ecstatic to have Hemingway and Gertrude Stein take a look at his novel.

I kept thinking about that movie as I pondered this month's question: who would like to have, living or dead, to be your beta partner? This is a hard question for me. There are so many authors, both living and dead that I admire. But being talented at writing doesn’t necessarily make you a good beta reader.

In my experience, the best writers aren’t always the best critiquers, because they understand the craft intuitively. And just as often, a not-so-good writer can give amazing critiques.

I decided I have four traits that I really like to have in a critique partner. They rarely occur in one person, so that’s why I  need more than one.
 

Here’s my dream team.

The living:

from Gail's website

The Encourager: Everyone needs someone who sees what you’re trying to do, even if you don’t yet. Gail Carson Levine, seems to have this gift. When she talks about critiquing other people’s work, she talks about using a light touch. And her blog posts about writing are infused with helping the writer feel confident in his/her choices. 

 

Photo by Carol Hart

Grammar Guru: Everyone needs someone like this on their writing team. The best person I know for this job is Carol Hart, who happens to be my aunt. She’s fabulous at writing humor, but I’ve never known anyone who can catch tense fluctuations or pronoun agreement errors like she can. I've learned so much from her and the writing books she's gifted me over the years.

Carol blogs about her random thoughts and silliness in alphabetical order at An Introvert Speaks Up

The Dead (otherwise known as the “Classics”):

Ernest Hemingway Hemingway, pictured in 1952. Photograph: Earl Theisen Collection/Getty Images

 

The guy who tells it like it is: Now I have to admit that Hemingway is not my favorite writer. He is, unfortunately, the reason I got a D on my first Honors English paper. However, I like that he’s brief and to the point. I imagine a critique from Hemingway a bit like this:

H: “This is awful.”

Me: “What’s wrong with it?”

H: “You’re the writer. Fix it.”

Unfortunately the tell-it-like-it-is critique partners might not be able to tell you how to fix your work, but at least they save you from sending stuff out too soon, right?

Photo originally from iStock via http:www.smithonianmag.com

The Big Picture Guy: Dickens might be one of those writers who is so talented that he can’t explain how he does what he does, but I don’t think so. From the way he’s described acting out his characters in front of the mirror, he seems like a guy who had to work at his writing. In fact, he kept a very rigorous schedule and detailed plan sheets to keep track of his multiple characters and plots.

For that reason, I think he’d have a lot to share about how to manage a plot and multiple characters.Oh, I’d so love to hear how he came up with his characters, even the minor ones are memorable!

How about you? Which writer(s) would you like to have as a critique partner(s)?

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