What is a fiction manuscript critique? And do you really need one?

This blog post describes what a manuscript critique, as a paid developmental editing service, involves. It covers whether authors can really benefit from them, and what kind of specific story advice they might receive.

A manuscript critique is a paid service where authors hire a developmental editor to write a critique / assessment / evaluation of their manuscript. The word critique implies that they will tear it to shreds, but this is not a grad school critique.

Instead, the focus is on looking at all the different parts of the story and giving feedback on which

bits are working and which aren’t.

A good manuscript critique won’t give highly subjective interpretations of your story like:

“I hated character X, so please write them out.”

“Why not set your story in LA instead of Dallas? It’s a much nicer city.”

Instead, they will use somewhat objective, technical concepts (e.g., tension, narrative arcs, character arcs, worldbuilding) to focus on the big-picture issues with your story in its current form.

You might also hear editors refer to this service as a manuscript assessment or manuscript evaluation.

If we imagine a car mechanic metaphor, a manuscript critique is a look under the car bonnet at how the engine of your story is working. The aim is to suggest fixes, tweaks and improvements, but at the more general level rather than giving a detailed commentary on every paragraph.

In a general sense, it involves giving feedback on issues like:

• Genre

• Audience

• Point of view and perspective

• Dialogue and internalization

• Plot

• Pacing

• Characterization

• Character arcs

• Setting and worldbuilding

• Culture and representation

• Messaging, themes, and subtexts

You’ll notice that all these things are big-picture issues: we’re not dealing here with incorrect comma placement, for example.

Do you really need a manuscript critique? What are the dangers?

Getting editorial (content) feedback on your novel from an editor trained and experienced in the publishing industry can be highly beneficial. It’s by no means compulsory. Lots of writers source feedback through critique partners, critique groups, and networks where they exchange services as gifts. This can save them a lot of money, but there are also dangers attached: some critique groups, riding on author egos, are less than helpful. Also, if your critique partner is at a similar stage in the learning process to you, there is no guarantee the feedback will help you improve the story.

A big problem with hiring a developmental editor for a manuscript critique is the lack of regulation in publishing. Anyone can hang up their shingle and call offer manuscript critique as a service, but how do you know that their feedback is both up to standard and a good fit for you?

For this reason, it’s best to pick vetted editors (through agent and publisher referrals, or through organizations like the CIEP, with strict criteria).

Who benefits the most from a manuscript critique?

In general, newer authors benefit the most from developmental editing services because they are learning the craft as they go. Authors changing genre—for example, switching from horror to romance—stand to learn a lot from a developmental editor too.

Manuscript critiques are also the most common developmental editing service that traditional publishers provide authors. The reason for this is that they are relatively affordable.

Sure, experienced authors tend to have different problems to new authors (e.g., “fix the pacing issue in chapter five” rather than “make the third-person limited POV consistent), but they still benefit from manuscript critiques and some of the traditional publishers I work for offer this service to authors.

What specific advice might an author receive?

A lot of the above points might sound quite wishy-washy and abstract. I’m (mostly) a speculative fiction editor – that’s fantasy fiction, science fiction, and horror – so let me explain by discussing some of the most frequent problems that come up. I’m going to focus on first novels here because that forms a significant chunk of the market.

I’ve covered a lot of these issues in my blog posts, and the main difference with a manuscript critique is that the feedback is focused on what is happening in the author’s current draft – it’s specific and focused, rather than an overview of a topic like “passive protagonists,” for example.

Side-note: With this in mind, beware of developmental editors who use boilerplate descriptions in their feedback letters – I firmly believe anything boilerplate can be put on a blog, and the unique description should be reserved for the editorial letter.

1. Overly complicated worldbuilding

Oftentimes, a first novel is an “everything” novel that the author returns to over many years, learning how to write a novel as they go. The author becomes immersed in their world and knows how everything works; the reader has to figure things out as they go. Think of it a bit like learning a new language (the language of that world!). It’s much easier if the worldbuilding is drip-fed to the reader using a variety of techniques (showing and telling, direct or indirect reference in dialogue).

The watchword here (and a term I picked up from a discussion with the Mythcreants team) is cognitive load. You want to make sure the reader doesn’t have to stop and think too much about every new word and concept.

For more on worldbuilding, check out my worldbuilding webinar.

2. Flat/undeveloped characters

I’ve covered common character issues in SFF in another article. Here, I’ll just say that when you’re focused on the worldbuilding, it’s easy to push characterization to one side.

The good news about character development is that it generally gets much easier over time, but when starting out, it can feel pretty complicated—like how do you reduce the whole complexity of a person to a few words on a page? The answer is that you let a few consistent details and descriptions do the heavy lifting, and leave the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps.

3. Over- or underexplained worldbuilding

Your worldbuilding should have just the right amount of explaining attached to it, and that right amount depends partly on your genre, audience, and the kind of novel you are writing. Too much explaining and you’ll bore or patronize the reader. Too little and you’ll leave them confused. If you’re writing YA, you’re best off keeping the worldbuilding relatively simple.

4. Passive protagonists

Newer authors often include passive protagonists in their stories. One reason for this is that they haven’t yet nailed character GMC (goals, motivation, conflict). With SFF writers, a deeper reason is that sometimes they write to create and explore a new world. A bit like a sandbox video game. As they write, the story happens to the character, who shows up as a conduit or portal to this other world. This is satisfying from the perspective of creative free expression, but readers usually want characters who have goals that they struggle to meet.

5. A lack of story tension

You might have heard that all stories need conflict. This is certainly true in the Anglo-American tradition. But tension is one of the main things that drives readers to keep turning the page. Newer authors often don’t learn about tension in storytelling, or ham it up because they’re so focused on getting the other parts of story right.

Recently, I looked back at the first serious attempts at a short story I wrote. I remember being super focused on writing realistic dialogue and maintaining POV in it. This meant that character goals and tension were thin on the ground. This is natural—first you focus on the beginner-level problems and then your progress to intermediate and advanced issues.

Conclusion

Manuscript critiques are extremely useful and a tool that publishers and agents use to help improve manuscripts. That said, if you don’t have the budget for one (and they can cost anything from a few hundred dollars to around two thousand dollars), then you can and should try to source feedback through your writer network.

You could try joining communities such as WriteMentor or Mythcreants, or local groups in your area.

I offer manuscript critiques, and you can find more details on my service page. But I invite you to carefully research editors and come up with a list of good-fit editors before making a final decision. After all, publishing moves real slow, so what's the rush?