After submitting your work, in one form or another, you, dear artist, are likely to encounter a critique.

As I mentioned in the sister thread, critiques are a blend of criticism, praise, and analytical thought.  When you have all three, you have critique, and then and only then do I suggest you take what the person has to say seriously as a reflecting on your work.

If someone does nothing but praise your work, no criticism, no analytical thought - well, it's nice for stroking your ego, but essentially it is empty and means nothing.  Praise is your dog that loves you no matter what.  It's nice and adoring, but it makes a mess of your workspace, especially if you let it up on the desk.  Don't give in to praise and don't hold praise in high regard.

Similarly, don't listen to those who do nothing but criticize your work.  People who have nothing but negative things to say about your work are a reflection upon their own negativity and/or a bad relationship they have with you.  Don't listen to criticism, it will only hurt, and critics are just literary parasites.

And of course, someone can be very analytic of your work, but give neither praise nor criticism.  While it is very observant of someone to remark that they see symbolism or certain writing techniques, if they say nothing about whether such a thing works for them or doesn't work, it's like trying to get emotion out of your accounting spreadsheet.

Now this is not to say that someone can't have an overwhelmingly positive or negative critique of your work.  A critique can have lots of criticism in it, just as it can have lots of praise in it.  A good critique will never be 100% one way or the other - no work of art is perfect, no work of art is absolutely nothing.  But some work can be close, so let's examine how critiquing works on your work and how you should react.


The Rough Draft - I am not saying that everyone starts here, but for this essay, it does.  The Rough Draft is your first attempt at completion.  Ideally, it is done, and technically, it should be.  This is to say, as a story, you don't have short-hand notes intermingled in the story, in a more physical work of art, you aren't showing bare canvas or unsculpted clay.  Most likely, your work is also full of errors.  In the case of writing, grammar, spelling, plot-holes, inconsistencies, bad plot devices, unbelievable or offensive characters... things that just throw the reader, and worse, things that you, the artist, might not realize you have even done.

In this scenario, your critique comes back looking like it was savaged by red ink.  When that happens, here are a few things to keep in mind.

•  Don't take this personally!  A good critique does not care who you are, only for your work.  If anyone gives me a story to critique and I ravage it, it has nothing to do with you.  If I accept, I will treat your work with a discerning eye, regardless of my personal feelings towards you - and I would expect the same of you.
•  Suck it up and take it!  This is true if the critique is given to you face-to-face or if it is given to you via writing.  Once your work of art is out there in the eye of the public, you can't go to each and every person who experiences it and tell them, "Well, actually, this is REALLY what I was trying to say..."  If you kill off a main character or use a shade of blue I don't like, I will call you out on it and tell you why what you did hurt your art.  And it's absolutely true - because I will be giving you a critique.
•  Listen!  Pay attention to what the person is saying, and even, who the person is.  This is especially true if you know the person giving you a critique has a basis one way or the other.  You need to think critically and compare what you know with what is being said.  You might learn something about how to fix something to make it better... or you might learn that something needs to be ignored.  Maybe that shade of blue is better and I don't know what I'm talking about.
•  Repeat - one critique is not enough.  If you have several people whose opinions and judgement you trust, and they are all saying something about how that shade of blue is horrible... you might want to seriously consider another color.  But if the death of a main character has half of critiquers saying "good job" while the other half says, "arrgh!  No!  Bad!", you might want to do a little more...
•  Research!  Even though a good critique will tell you why something works or does not, you should feel free to ask the critiquer to elaborate.  This is especially good in identifying troubling spots - not just spots where your critiquers are in disagreement, but spots where you really wanted to do something one way, but no one seems to appreciate it.  Do Not Explain Yourself!  Asking for clarification is good.  Telling the critiquer that you would like to do "X" with this particular effect is okay, better if you ask for advice in how to accomplish that.  Telling the critiquer why you want to do things this way is bad, bad, bad!
•  It is okay to be unhappy.  Just don't let your emotions go out of control over a critique.  You probably put a lot of time and energy into your work, and if your work failed to do what you wanted it to do, you might feel a bit upset.  Don't be upset with yourself, nor the critiques, nor your work, nor the people who gave the critiques.  If you feel upset, just be upset in general.  Then, do something to cheer yourself up, and move on to the last bit of advice...

•  Press on.  You submitted your work for the first review, and you got it back.  It looks ugly, you might feel bad, but you can't quit.  Not if you are going to be serious about your work, not if you are going to make it polished until it glows, like you wanted.  Most masterpieces, most success stories are about perspiration, not inspiration.  Work, work, work until you got it right.


Later Editions - So you fixed the issues in the Rough Draft and now your art looks better.  But is it better?  Better find out, and that means more critiques.
•  New perspectives, old perspectives.  Although it is tempting to have the same group look at your work, finding someone else to review it gives a fresh set of eyes.
•  Expect less, demand more.  Now is the time when your old critiquers will be saying less, hopefully because what you have done is smoother.  A good critique usually has a few comments of praise when praise needs to be given, but an extended diatribe for when criticism is called.  If there is more to praise and less to criticize, there will be less to say.  But just because there is less said doesn't mean that your critiquer is being fair.  Make sure that they speak on old issues that they find suddenly much better that they really do mean it is better - there was a problem before, and the worst thing at this point in the game is for your critiquer to gloss over the change, or worse, see that the change didn't really address the issue but feel too emotional to actually point this out.  You need to KNOW that your later edition is better in every way from an earlier one.
•  Repeat.  Better doesn't mean good yet.


Polished Copy - Eventually, your work will get to the point where you will recognize that you can do no more.
•  Differences in opinions may put your critiquers at odds.  Sometimes a change from an earlier edition will annoy one critiquer and satisfy another.  Accept that you cannot please everyone, especially if...
•  Issues are minor.  When someone has to point out a single mispelling because that's all that you have as an issue, that means that your work is pretty well done and ready for the world.
•  Don't be afraid to step back away from your work.  Everyone, most especially including yourself, can become so wrapped up in your work that you can't see the mistakes for what they are.  Sometimes the mistakes are big and need to be corrected, but you can't see them because you have just worked so much on them that they are blind spots.  Take a break, come back when your work is more forgotten, and you'll see things anew.  On the flip side, you might be obsessing over some detail that is really not that important.  Once you are all done, you need to take a breath and...
•  Let it go.  When the critiques are filled with praises and empty of any but the most trivial of criticisms, your work is done.  Submit it and let it go where it will.

One last personal opinion here...
•  Don't rest on your laurels.  You got one work of art done.  Care to repeat the process?