How to Serve the Dead: A Confucian Alternate History in The Cosmic Background How to Serve the Dead: A Confucian Alternate History is free to read in the inaugural issue of The Cosmic Background, a new flash fiction site. I’m really excited about The Cosmic Background and I’m incredibly honored that Sam and Chelsea chose this story for one of their first issues.
I often characterize critique as symptoms / diagnosis / treatment. There's a sense in which the description of symptoms is always correct, because if the critiquer found a character unsympathetic or a plot point confusing, that's true for them even if twenty other readers had no problem -- but just because *one* person had that issue doesn't mean it's something you need to change. Diagnosis in turn points at a possible reason for the issue, but it isn't always correct; less experienced writers, or those who don't quite see what you're trying to do, may blame the wrong cause. And then treatment is the part that's most likely to get tossed by the writer receiving the critique, for all the reasons you name: the critiquer may not have thought it through enough and doesn't see how doing X to fix Y will cause Z problem, plus it's generally they way *they* would fix it for *their* story, which doesn't necessarily match your vision. But oh, when you get a crit partner who incisively sees right to the root of the problem and proposes exactly the fix to make it the story you always wanted it to be . . .
. . . then treasure that moment, because it's *only* a moment, and even that same person may not hand you flawless advice next time. But it's priceless when it happens.
I often characterize critique as symptoms / diagnosis / treatment. There's a sense in which the description of symptoms is always correct, because if the critiquer found a character unsympathetic or a plot point confusing, that's true for them even if twenty other readers had no problem -- but just because *one* person had that issue doesn't mean it's something you need to change. Diagnosis in turn points at a possible reason for the issue, but it isn't always correct; less experienced writers, or those who don't quite see what you're trying to do, may blame the wrong cause. And then treatment is the part that's most likely to get tossed by the writer receiving the critique, for all the reasons you name: the critiquer may not have thought it through enough and doesn't see how doing X to fix Y will cause Z problem, plus it's generally they way *they* would fix it for *their* story, which doesn't necessarily match your vision. But oh, when you get a crit partner who incisively sees right to the root of the problem and proposes exactly the fix to make it the story you always wanted it to be . . .
. . . then treasure that moment, because it's *only* a moment, and even that same person may not hand you flawless advice next time. But it's priceless when it happens.