Helpful Articles on Critiques
The First Two Victims Volunteers for The Quill Critiques
Click each of the Download buttons below to save the submissions to your personal digital happy space and critique on your computer. If your piece is being critiqued, just download the other piece. Probably didn’t have to add that, lol.
Please read the work-in-progress rules for critiquing and being critiqued so we can avoid fist fights hurt feelings. Critiquees— please see below the buttons for submission parameters.
Draft Rules on Being Critiqued
Both of the pieces below will be critiqued on Sunday, June 14. Preferred method of critiquing is by using ‘track changes’ or ‘tracking.’ Use ‘comments,’ if possible, to set down suggestions, ideas, explanation, emojis, and anything else you want to convey to the author. If you’re not sure about how to use ‘comments’ or the tracking options, you can add your notes and changes in-line (all caps or red or similar).
Add a paragraph or two of overarching comments to the critique that give a general sense of what you thought of the piece (in a kind way). You can mention the writer’s strengths, the things that worked well in the piece and the things that didn’t work as well (keeping it general if possible). This is a good place to talk about pacing, characters, conflict, etc.
Remember, this is just a piece of a larger work (probably) so the writer may have things planned later on that will bring clarity to things you may be confused about or things you think are unnecessary.
Please bring your edits in paper form or bring a laptop and email the edits at the end of the meeting.
Sunday June 14 | Submission 1 | Jennifer
Sunday June 14 | Submission 2 | Donna
Submission Guidelines For Critiquees:
File Types: Submit your piece as a .docx (Microsoft Word) or .rtf (Rich Text) file (.docx highly preferred).
Layout: Use standard manuscript formatting—double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, and a standard 12-point readable font (such as Times New Roman or Arial).
Title: Include a brief title section at the top with your name, email, and both the title and genre of your work. (If you’re not sure what genre your work is, just pick a genre you think is closest. This can be included in the Header if you like. If the submission is a section of a larger work, you can add identifiers to the title (i.e. Chapter 2, part 1 or Chapter 4: the part that comes after that cool swordfight).
Length Limits: Keep submissions to 10 pages or less. If it is difficult to cut off the work at 10 pages, you may add an 11th page but critiquers are not obligated to read the extra page.
Page Numbers: Please add page numbers so we’re all on the same page while we critique.