Critiques - How To See?

In December 2018 Ane Mulligan wrote a post for Suite T titled Literary Leftovers – A Matter of POV. https://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/



Ane said, “When I received my first critique, I discovered I knew nothing but good dialogue … and I mean nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zip. I’d never heard of POV and had no idea what it even meant.” She went on to say, “I didn’t have any problem accepting the hard critiques. The difference was, while they were hard, I never saw them as harsh. It’s all a matter of POV. I wanted to learn. I read those critiques from the POV of being taught – not attacked.”



And there is the “Point”. It is how we see the critique. For many writers critique is commonly considered as someone finding fault with our writing, and we probably feel we are being judged in a negative way. We take it personal.



No one wants to sit and hear someone find fault with anything they do. Right? However, it is how the person critiquing begins their sentence that can open you up to hear constructive words or close you off and refuse to hear.



In writing, the only way to learn is to do along with studying and honing our craft. But in that process, we need people in our corner that are sincere about helping us move forward in our writing process. People we can trust and know they are helping us not hurting us. We need a good someone who can critique our work and help us see the things that need to be worked on and the whys.



Ane Mulligan went on to say in that post, “We need to trust our critique partners won’t let us get away with anything less than our best.”



To see her Literary Leftovers, go to https://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/

Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown. But when Ane saw PETER PAN on stage, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college. One day, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged. She lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, BookBub, Goodreads, Pinterest, Twitter, and The Write Conversation.