So--how should you critique?There are hundreds of discussions of this about online, and everyone will have their own preference on how to give and how to receive. These are my thoughts, for what that's worth, and it's only one approach, but I like to think I'm half-decent at doing this now.
Most importantly, be polite, and try to be kind. If you get someone's back up with an agressive or dismissive tone, they'll ignore you. People are more receptive to kindly phrased emails. I always try and find something positive to say, and I always try and open with it something I liked, and end on a positive note.
My first line, for example, might be "I thought this was a fast-paced, well-imagined plot in a setting that was weird in a good way." before leading into the
"However..."My closing line, in wrapping up, might be "All in all, there's some work to be done to polish this up and even out the tone, but there's a really solid foundation here, and your prose style is excellent; I think that, once your protagonist is more sympathetic, and your conflict is introduced earlier, you'll have a great story here".
It just makes the world turn a little smoother when you're nice, y'know?
You don't actually know anything. No-one does. Writing is an art, not a science. So "you must" is never technically true as a statement, and comes across as rude (see above). There's also more than one way to skin a cat, so saying "you should fix this problem by doing this" is also wrong--"you
could" is much better. And, practically speaking, forcing yourself to think of two or three approaches to fixing a problem will help you anyway.
You don't have to know how to fix a problem. It's ok to just say "the opening didn't grab me, and I don't know why". That's still useful to hear! It might give the writer a nudge to examine something more closely and spot the cause of the problem for themselves. Reader reactions are an entirely valid and useful form of feedback.
You need to think at a higher level. Critiquing is not proof-reading (though I can't help myself doing the latter as well). Think about things like: was there conflict from the start? Did you know what the protagonist wanted? Was there enough conflict to keep the tension up? Were decisions in keeping with a character, and did you understand their motivation? Did the ending satisfy you? Did you like, or were you invested in, the protagonist? Was the antagonist interesting?
I often make notes on prose as well--if someone isn't varying their sentence structure, or they're head-hopping in POV--but the stuff that you'll learn from is the sort of things I've listed above.
My critique structureMy critiques are a discussion of the story as a whole first, written in the same sort of tone as I'm using here, then a list of red-pen edits, which are both proof-reading corrections (e.g. typos, incorrect words, etc.) and as-I-read reactions. I quote a small passage of the original manuscript so the author knows what I'm on about, and then post my correction/thought below.
So I might correct something like:
>"Then have some of thos!"
*this
or I might offer a thought like
>I looked over at Gary, and he nodded in agreement.
Who's Gary? He's not been introduced before. I thought your MC was alone in the room.
I write these red-pen edits as I go through first time, and then go back and write the full body of the email above. I figure that having immediate reactions is useful, because most readers will only read once, after all, but then a more considered opinion is more useful for fixing a story (e.g. "When I first read, I thought Gary was his friend, and it was only near the end I realised he's his brother. It'd help to introduce that earlier...")
You'll settle into your own style of critiquing in time, and what works for me may not work for you; but hopefully this gives anyone unsure about what to do a nudge in the right direction, and gets you started.
Good luck!
but once I've got something revised & polished enough to send in, I'll make sure to post here, even if I'm only going to be talking to myself.
I'm just a 22 yr old who pretends to be a writer while suffering through grad school.