Excerpt from
Getting Your Writing Into Print and Getting It Read
by Beverly Caruso
The Value of Critiques
No matter how experienced, each writer needs his or her material to be critiqued by another. We simply can’t see our own writing objectively.
A critique is not a negative thing. It is looking at a manuscript for the purpose of affirming its strengths and improving it.
The best person to critique a manuscript is someone who thinks like the intended audience. This isn’t always possible. The next best is someone very different from the intended audience. Again, it’s not always possible.
The worst person to critique is someone too emotionally close to the writer. The response will probably be to find fault too readily, or to say, “It’s just wonderful.”
A critiquer doesn’t need to be another writer, just someone fairly good in English, with common sense.
© Beverly Caruso