Greetings!
Due to interest from the google+ community, I am doing a series of walkthroughs on various writing workshops and critique groups. Some of them are paid, some of them are free.
Critique Circle can be used for free. I have paid for the subscription for this site before, and I did make a lot of use of it. There are a lot of interesting features in the paid subscription, including submission tracking, goal tools, and manuscript tracking tools. Mileage may vary, the site provides you what you might want to use, but it is up to you to make use of the tools provided.
Right now, I haven’t been using it a lot, for a variety of reasons. Being busy is at the top of the list, and I tend to only have enough concentration to do one or two workshops at a time. I might return to using this site in the near future, as the submission tracking tools are very convenient.
Thanks to the nice folks over at Critique Circle, I have a second login just for the purpose of this walkthrough, so I don’t have to give up any private information… like my normal username. So three cheers for customer service. Critique Circle typically only allows each user to have only one login, and they do a manual acceptance into the website, so they check for name matches and whatever other tools they use to catch trolls.
Now, getting started. Below is a screenshot of the landing page. Click Sign up (or fill in your login details) to access the site. When you sign up, anticipate up to a few hours for your login details to be sent to you. Unlike many sites this is a manual process. You must wait for someone who works for the site to process your log in. (I like this.)
This is the information you will need to give the site in order to have your log in created.
Time to log in. A potential problem with Critique Circle is the sheer amount of tools and features that this site has. It is a lot to learn. So, I’m going to try to break this down in such a way where you can start using the site immediately.
The critical aspect of this site is the Story Queues. Unlike many writing workshops, like Book Country, this site functions on one week cycles. Stories are put up in a queue for a week, where users critique what is available in the queue. If you are a non-paying member, you will need to do critiques before you can receive critiques. You earn credits for each critique that you do. New members start with two credits, and it requires three to post a critique.
We will start with the Story Queue. It is located to the left hand side of the page in the links frame. Basic members have a certain number of Queues. These are: The Newbie Queue, General, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Women’s Lit (Chick Lit and Romance), Children’s (Young Adult), Mystery (Including Suspense and Horror).
Here is an idea of how the Story Queue is laid out:
Now, it is time to critique a story. You will pick a story from one of the Queues. You can check the genre by looking at the genre column. You can also see how many critiques a story has gotten prior to starting to read. This lets you decide on helping a story that needs critiques more than others. Since each story (or chapter) has only one week in the queue, this lets users make sure everyone gets sufficient feedback on their stories.
In the past, I’ve gotten no fewer than 2 critiques on any specific chapter. The highest number I’ve received has been 11 on a short story.
To be blunt and honest, this is actually not a bad number of critiques. Due to how critiques are done in Critique Circle, it is easier to get higher quality critiques. The quantity isn’t necessarily as important.
I am going to pick out a story at random from the Fantasy Genre in the Newbie Queue for purposes of critiquing. Yes, I am critiquing the story as I’m putting together this walkthrough, as I feel that this is the best way to show how the site functions.
Click the title of the story you wish to critique.
At the top, you can see the Author’s requests for critique. These are the things he is wanting, things he already knows about, as well as an notice on sexual references at the end of the story. The story automatically loads so you can start to read. Once you find a story you are interested in, just start to read.
The requested critique type of this story is Inline. After the story is read, I will show you how inline critiques work. This is one of the best features of this site, which makes it one of the easiest to critique in a useful fashion. Inline critiques are for those who are brave, don’t mind grammar corrections, and want to make sure the reader is able to leave the best critique possible.
In order to leave a critique, you will need to read the story. Below the Reader’s Comments text box, there will be a link. It will read: Click here to Critique this story.
This is what you see when you click the link.
Click on Inline Critique. You can choose two other critique types, but for the moment, we will discuss what I feel is the most useful type of critique that this site has to offer.
You will also see a star with “Author requests this critique type”. When in doubt, use the requested critique type.
If you don’t know what you should put in the opening comments, click the Important Things to Consider link. It does open to a new window. This system does rely that you read the story prior to critiquing, especially as it allows for an opening commentary which should include data on things like dialogue, plot, and general feelings about the story.
Now, let’s make use of the inline functionality of Critique Circle. Hover your mouse of the paragraphs. You will see them turn blue, like so:
If you click the paragraph, you will get an option to add a comment to the section you selected. This lets you leave a comment ‘inline’, which is excellent for line-editing commentary, as well as pointing out sections you thought worked well.
In order to complete your critique, fill in both opening and closing comments, as well as thorough comments in the inline text. Once you are done, click view critique at the bottom. It will lead to this page:
This gives you a chance to review and to submit your review anonymously. You can also opt to have staff comment on your critiques if they think there are ways they can improve your critiquing skills. If you are learning how to critique, I would recommend taking advantage of this. It doesn’t guarantee you that you will get feedback, but it gives you the chance to get feedback if they feel your critique could use improvement.
It has been a while since I’ve used the site, but I believe you will need to post two critiques of decent length and thought before you can submit a story of your own to be critiqued.
As I mentioned above, Critique Circle has let me temporarily have two accounts. My real account, and the one for the purposes of this critique. In order to get this post to you soon, I have conveniently copy-pasted my _review website_ account details over my personal ones. A girl has to have some privacy, you know. While the top bar says that I have 2 credits, you can’t post a story with only 2 credits. My real account has more than two.
This is stage one of posting a critique.
In stage two of the critique, you will fill in the data you want for the critique.
Finally, you will confirm your options and submit. Paying members, by paying a 15 credit fee, can ensure their critiques come in the next critique period. Free members must queue for a spot in the critique cycles.
A few things worth mentioning here:
If you want to make the most of critique circle, you will want to aggressively critique in the period your story is in the queue. Garner favors from other readers of your genre. In order to make the most of a site like this, you need to use tit-for-tat. In other words, if you want to receive a lot of critiques, you need to give a lot of in-depth, thorough critiques. If you give a critique that does not have useful information for the writer, do not expect to get useful information for your story.
Not everyone will respond in kind and leave a critique for you, but the more aggressive you are about critiquing, especially in the week or two before your story makes it into the queue, the higher the chance that you will get the feedback that you need.
This is a basic for any writing workshop. If you want the best results, you really, really need to put in some elbow grease. Plus, you learn more about your writing just from the act of writing.
This is the screen you get when you finish submitting your story to be critiqued. This will tell you roughly which week it will go up for critique. This is also the period of time you have to gather more credits, try to do tit-for-tat critiquing, and otherwise cool your heels.
Because I’m doing a lot of submissions lately, I am paying for at least a month of the site. The tools are worthwhile. A Christmas 2011 present to me. But, seeing it has been so long since I’ve used the tools, I’m just taking a month of services and getting the most out of them in the meantime.
Please note it takes anywhere from one to two days for a premium account to be activated. It can take shorter, but once again, it is a manual process. Payments are done through Paypal’s subscription services. If you only want one month, make certain that you cancel the subscription after the payment is made. (To do this, you will need to log into your paypal, click details in your archive history to access the prepayment section. From there, you will click the name of the subscription you wish to cancel, then click cancel profile. This will stop any future payments. By default, your subscription is indefinite.)
Note: I do not mind donating $10.00 to critique circle because I’ve used the site, enjoyed the knowledge I’ve gotten, and has felt the tools were worth it to me in the past.
Now, to the shiny screenshots showing some of these new tools.
The Notebook. Pretty self-explanatory, you can keep notes on the site relating to your writing, or whatever else you may want. You do not need to be a premium member to use the notebook.
Manuscript Progress Tracking. This tool lets you see how many pages a day you add to the story. This is from my personal account, from an old, old work in progress where I was just tinkering with the tool. You do not need to be a premium member to use this tool.
Submission Tracking Tool. This is why I’m happy to pay $10.00 for this site. This tool is awesome. Accessible only to members, but you can see where I had started to use this tool in the past, before I cancelled my subscription originally. (For the record, was done due to financial reasons, then I drifted away in general because I didn’t have all my fancy tools anymore.)
There are a lot of features you get with the basic premium subscription, but I honestly found the submission tracker to be the one most worth the money — IF you can get into the habit of using it. I was using it for a while. If you submit to a lot of places, this tool will be SO worthwhile for you. You get personal queues, full manuscript critique options, you can lessen the impact of ads, and so on.
At the end of the day, you will have to decide if the tools were worth a trip to McDonalds or a Starbucks coffee.