By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

To strengthen your story, look at each scene as a reader would.

We writers spend a lot of time looking at our work like, well, a writer. We study plot and structure, pace and tension, character and dialogue, but how often do we think about how the reader is going to react to our story?… Read the post

by Diana Stout, MFA, PhD

Have you ever asked for a beta read or critique and got back so many comments on the manuscript that you wanted to quit writing? Or maybe you cried, or became angry at the critiquer, then vented to anyone who would listen?… Read the post

by James Preston

Remember that great scene in “Jaws” ¹ -– no, not “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” -- where Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss are showing each other their scars? Well, I’m going to do that in this essay.… Read the post

by Tiffany Yates Martin

No creative soul likes receiving negative feedback on their work—no matter what we might tell you, beloved crit partners, beta readers, editors, agents.

Yes, we may admit we need it, and that it helps immeasurably to get objective input on what may not be as effective on the page as it is in your head, but as one author I work with memorably put it, having someone offer positive, constructive critique of your story is like an Orange Theory workout: You dread it going into it, hate every second while it’s going on, but afterward you feel great having done it.… Read the post

By Lori Freeland

Edits. Suggestions. Comments. Recommendations. Advice. Assessment. Evaluation. Feedback. Constructive Criticism. Not-so-constructive criticism. A knife twisted into your gut that burns like a thousand suns and leaves you bleeding out and crying in a corner.

No matter what you want to label it, all those things mean the same thing—what other people have to say about what you have written.… Read the post