On offering feedback to stories/novels/poetry
Very often, I happen to have to offer my feedback on friends' short stories or novels or poetry. However, I find it very difficult to give a throughout feedback on this kind of writing which is not "technical" so to say.
I have read many books over the course of my life and have some experience with literary criticism, however I would appreciate some suggestions (or reference books) by expert writers or editors (or anyone who has two cents to put in really) on the appropriate way to give a professional comment on works of literature (in particular, novels, short stories, an poetry, as I said before).
Note that I asked a similar question (Literary criticism handbook), which is indeed only a reference request, but this one has broader scope in my opinion.
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1 answer
"Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts.
Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism, at context, at what the writer wanted to achieve, at how it fits into X genre canon, and so on.
Editing feedback is what you give on an unfinished piece of work with the intent of giving the author tools to change and improve it. You may be able to use litcrit tools to frame your feedback ("The house symbolizes X, so what if Y and Z happened and what if Mary did A and B?"), but as an editor, your job is to help the writer shape the work into its final form. Literary criticism is something you do with a work which is already final and published.
Also, litcrit is generally not done with the author. You can critique something in a classroom, a book, an essay, or a blog post, but editing feedback is personal and one-on-one, deliberately done with (and only with) the writer.
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