WRITING CRITIQUES: big pictures and piddling little points

Seth Godin's work on marketing isn't directed specifically at writers, but if you're a writer who wants help with book marketing and career building in the age of new media, you can't find a better source. His thoughts are concise and provocative. His books (the latest is Linchpin) are not just useful but also entertaining. And you've just got to love a guy whose web site tells you to click on his bald head to visit his blog.

Seth's recent Sentences, Paragraphs and Chapters post addresses a business issue, but his comments apply perfectly to writers and writing critiques as well. Too many workshops and critique groups focus on piddling little corrections rather than big questions. There's less risk of hurting the writer that way, and maybe less fear that raising those big questions will make us sound arrogant or presumptuous.

You'll notice I said big questions, not once but twice. I'm not necessarily talking about big criticisms, though sometimes they may be needed.

I'm talking about helping each other look at the totality of a book, a career, and a writer's gifts and goals as effectively as we help each other tweak the specifics of a scene, a line, or even just a word.

I also don't mean to suggest that copy-editing and proofing and general manuscript polishing aren't important. They are. But they're tasks separate from manuscript critique and revision...or at least they should be.

Let's not sit around making writerly small talk while we rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's hard enough to keep little lifeboats like the S.S. First Novel afloat in these choppy seas.