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Dear Dwight: A Critique Letter

By

photo by Josh McGinn
photo by Josh McGinn

When we realized we had a gaping hole in the WU calendar for today, we asked a comic friend to write something up for us.

    “But I’m not a writer,” he said.
    “You are,” we said.
    “It won’t be right for your crowd,” he said.
    “C’mon,” we said. “Our crowd has a sense of humor, too. And it’s Saturday.”

He agreed. Though he insisted he remain anonymous.

Enjoy!

Dear Dwight,

I recently finished the draft of your historical fiction manuscript and offer my critique and some suggestions below. We have certainly had some rocky patches over the years as critique partners, but, as your brother-in-law, I’m glad we have worked through them and come to a better understanding of one another’s styles. As I mentioned previously, I will make a concerted effort to be more open-minded and less blunt with my opinions. So I don’t forget, my wife, your sister, has been gracious enough to emphatically reinforce this with me on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

Let’s start off with some positives! First of all, I really like the paper you used to print out your pages. Not too heavy, not too flimsy, and a slight ivory color that makes reading a real joy in both dim and bright light. Bravo on the paper selection!

I also think that changing the font from Haettenschweiler Condensed Frizzy Gothic Olde World to Times New Roman was an excellent choice. Far more readable and the page count went way down. I wonder if you might consider trimming your manuscript even further from its current 716 pages. I’m just thinking of marketing here. I’ve noticed that novels these days – as opposed to novels of the nineteenth century – seem to run a bit shorter; probably has something to do with Xbox and Facebook.

I have a few additional constructive comments that I feel may strengthen your work:

Your working title, All the President’s Beyotches: The Untold Story of Watergate, is intriguing and I know you’re very attached to it. Before you totally commit, I would suggest that you really hone in on who your audience is. I’m still struggling a bit with that. In your cover letter, you mentioned that you were targeting fans of historical fiction, fantasy, erotica, and fisherman. I wonder if you might be casting slightly too wide a net (no pun). Just food for thought.

While I understand that a work of historical fiction grants the author some license to alter the probable facts of history, the sex scene in the Watergate Hotel bridal suite between G. Gordon Liddy and Richard Nixon might be taking it a little too far. Rather than painting the details of their coupling as explicitly as you do, maybe you could just imply an encounter? I’m only concerned because if this book becomes a bestseller, you won’t want lawsuits to spoil your sales numbers.

I noticed a rather abrupt change in language starting about halfway through chapter eleven. I think you were writing this right around the time I sent you the link to Thesaurus.com. You may consider simplifying the language for your readers in this section. For example, on page 212, the second paragraph starts, “As they cavalcaded down the couloir, he vouchsafed him a prehistorical recountal swathed in a vellum encasement.” Maybe you just should say, “As they walked down the hall, he gave him the file.” A bit more direct. I attended a wonderful Donald Maass session one time and he said, “Sometimes less is more.” Sage advice. By the way, have you registered yet for the Writer Unboxed Unconference in Salem, MA in November? It’s going to be amazing.

In chapters 21 through 36, I see that you’ve repurposed much of the material from one of your previous unpublished works, Fly Fishing for Dummies. I’m just not sure if the non-fiction material from that work integrates well with the fiction material. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve artfully recast it (still no pun) from the point of view of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they fly cast for brookies on the north branches of the Potomac. You might be able to further fuse these sections by eliminating some, if not all, of the charts throughout these chapters – for example, the one titled Fly Line Weight Tolerances for Common Game Fish and also Tips for Anglers!

I think your main purpose here was to get Woodward and Bernstein deep in the wilderness where they find the portal of Ayylasyss that transports them to the Rock of the Sleeping Demongoat in the Forest of Agaloth, where they meet the Dwarves of the Seventh Ironage to commence the quest for the Deepthroat Oracle. I have no comments for those pages.

There were a few little things that I found confusing. For example on page 523, you used “Wilford Brimley” as a verb. I just wasn’t sure what you meant by: “The weight of the entire US intelligence community fell on his shoulders and Wilford Brimleyed him into a sweaty puddle of pathetic evaporating filth.” Maybe change to Mel Gibson?

Also, watch out for repeated words. Often times we writers unintentionally use the same word over and over again because it is active in our minds when we’re “in the zone.” I noticed a few words that frequently recurred in the manuscript. For example, you used the word “fuck,” and variations of it, 163 times in Chapter 52. I stopped counting after that.

All in all, you’ve made some great improvements from the previous draft and All the President’s Beyotches: The Untold Story of Watergate can only get better. As they say, 90% of good writing is rewriting. Don’t settle for just ‘good’, Dwight! Go for ‘great.’ Rewrite the whole damn thing!

I hope my comments have been helpful and not offensive in any way. If I have offended you, please let me know directly and do me a favor… don’t tell your sister. I’ve been sleeping on the couch since my last critique and she is considering allowing me back in the bed. Thanks, buddy. Please give Vickie my best.

Your brother-in-law

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Comments

  1. Oh, come on. It couldn’t have been THAT bad – he finished the new draft, didn’t he?

    At least you came up with a kind critique – and must have skimmed a few pages to be able to make such helpful suggestions.

    I’m sure he will be just as careful and as kind with his critique of yours.

    Thanks for the Saturday morning chuckle.

    Alicia

    • Thanks, Alicia! Dwight offers kind critique, however, he wants me to write-in a ‘Starsky and Hutch-style’ car chase with a car that converts ‘Transformers-style’ into a space ship that hyper drives ‘Star Wars-style’ to a planet populated with giant chickens. He wasn’t happy when I suggested that they lay rotten eggs ‘Dwight-style.’

  4. Tears, howling with laughter. OMG, have critted this book in another incarnation. Next time I fall into a similar rabbit hole, will seek to find the fun in it.

    Anonymous, whoever you are, claim it, baby. You are the best!

    • Thanks Morgyn – Next time you’re down a rabbit hole like that, get out as soon as you can and we’ll send Dwight in.

      • Dear Mr. A, so appreciate your offer. Had I known how to contact you, might have called last night while in the depths of despair, trying to find a way to explain to a new crit partner that err, said writer did not have a clue.

        Please, tell us that a reveal IS coming!

        We hang off every word.

  5. I would SO read this book!

    Well, on second thought, I think I’d rather read a stack of this anonymous poster’s critique notes. Preferably a very tall stack.

    Great stuff!

    • Thanks, Keith. Recently, Dwight’s dog was playing in the piles of his critique notes and toppled several of them over. It scared the Shih Tzu out of them.

  7. Ha! Great chuckle on this drizzly Saturday morn. Thanks!

    Denise Willson
    Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT

  9. I’m wondering if we could Wilford Brimley this mystery man into accepting a more regular presence on WU? For someone who’s not a writer, he certainly has a way with words.

    Three cheers!

  10. Ha! I LOVE it! If only all our critiques were this humorous, maybe we could stop taking ourselves so seriously. Yes, on what Sarah said, make Dwight’s BIL a regular.

  12. No pun intended??? Sure, tell me another one! A friend asked me to critique her WIP, so I’m wondering if you ghostwrite critique letters? Thanks for the Saturday morning chuckle — I needed that.

  14. Lots of chuckles reading this one. Bravo on the paper selection! Wilford Brimleyed? LOL. Let him back in the bed, Mrs. Anonymous. :)

  16. Another post with useful tips! Praise the typeface, I hadn’t thought of that. That could come in very handy. I might use it as I’m MelGibsoning my way through the latest ms.on my desktop.

    But hey, I disagree with one point in this critique. I want to read the sex scene between G. Gordon and Dick Nixon. The world needs this. Please, don’t cut a word.

    Thanks Anon, and good call, WU!

    • Thanks, Mary. If you’re into the Liddy and Nixon’s scene, then you’ll really like the scene that follows when Haldeman and Ehrlichman discover their “smoking gun” sex tape. There might be a pun there.

  17. Dear Anonymous,
    This is completely, totally my kind of useful advice that’s not harsh! Dwight is such a lucky guy and thanks for sharing this awesome bunch of insights! Sometimes a critic doesn’t even mention paper. So how can you take that kind of person seriously? That’s how the editors choose manuscripts. A killer opening scene? Please! A super hook to die for? Like my dad used to say, what a bunch of hooey! Anything with super-white paper that glares–guess what? Right in the dumpster!
    But you know this already, and that’s just so amazing to me! Whoever you are, you are the man and I love you and Dwight and this whole post! I just know now from reading what you wrote that I’m so pumped and empowered that I’m going to finish my novel. I mean the historical one from last week, where Nancy Reagan’s astrologer channels Nostradamus and we win The Cold War. Except everything happens during The Plague of Gnats, in The Galaxy of Doom!

      • Dear Anonymous,
        As maybe you can tell, I’m super working on my story by myself alone. I have to. It would be so totally cool to have a critique buddy, someone that could see me right when I’m doing my world-building and character arcs. So they could share the joy. But as I think you may know also, this whole art thing doesn’t always let you do what you want. With me, I have to work alone. That’s how you have to work when you have ideas like mine that “other people” would die for/kill for to steal. So, yes, it’s lonely. Especially where I work, in the bomb shelter from the 1950s that was here with the house when dad bought it. After his survivalist meeting. But with a sweater, it’s not so bad.

        • Dear Barry,

          I have some extra yarn and “pictures” and “maps” and “random” news “articles” you can tape to the walls in your “office”. I find it helps to make all the “connections”.

          Contact me via the red phone, dial 4, and stand by to…sometimes it takes few rings to hear above the voices.

          Sincerely
          redacted

          • Hey Dear Redacted,
            Thanks for offering all the cool stuff to put inside the shelter, but it’s made out of this super humongus–humungus, gous?–this super huge oil tank, with bunk beds. So the walls are just shelves for Spam and Cheetos. And they made dad give back our red phone, when they forced him to re-enlist in this special unit where the training is like, after, you sometimes don’t handle civilian life so well, and they want to keep an eye on you. Which is totally bogus if you ask me. But maybe sometime we could meet up at TKZ. Or Denny’s.

  18. Had a good laugh! Thank you for that. I subscribe, we should Wilford Brimley the guy to write on WU more often :-)

    PS – Someone dare tell the poor brother-in-law to quit writing that book, though!

  19. Dear Dimwad (aka brother-in-law, though not for long):

    I probably should say thanks for the beatdown — constructive, my ass — but what I really need to say, and I mean this CONSTRUCTIVELY, is that you clearly missed the point of every single one of my literary innovations.

    To be brief (believe me, you don’t want to get me going):

    All the President’s Beyotches, as a title, not only strikes the right chord, tone-wise, it updates the thematic relevance for a contemporary audience — an audience I accurately and specifically identified, but you preciously consider “too broad,” I’m frankly stunned you could even say such a thing.

    The sex scene stays as-is, period. It’s the core of the book. HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT???!!! Am I to sacrifice my art on the altar of the law? To quote Shakespeare (or was it Hitler?): First we kill all the lawyers! Exactly. I’m clearly not the coward you are.

    I also will not butcher my style for the sake of some misbegotten genuflection before the God of Simplicity. You clearly completely missed the Joycean homage. A writer embraces his language or he’s nothing! As for Donald Maass, he can kiss my patootie. Who does he think he is, anyway? (BTW: Who, exactly, is he?)

    You also clearly don’t understand the importance of detail in creating authorial authority. Or writerly rightness. To quote my admittedly repetitious and sometimes sputtering mentor, Augustus T. Honebecker: “Detail detail detail!” (Okay, just to show I’m not impervious to revision, and to to throw you a bone: the charts can go.)

    But you lost my faith in your capacity forever when you suggested I change Wilford Brimley to Mel Gibson. My God, have you no sense of nuance?

    All in all, I have to admit I’m thoroughly disappointed in you. I hope you won’t be offended if I decide, for the sake of honor, artistic integrity and pure common sense, to ignore everything you proposed. (Except, as mentioned, the chart thing.) I’m just sitting here shaking my head. I mean, how can you live with yourself?

    Don’t expect a drumstick at Thanksgiving, buddy boy.
    Dwight

    • Please finish the novel – you obviously write well and understand the market.

      Only serious writers need apply – it may take a few centuries for you to be properly revered – but so what? It WILL come.

      (NOTE: this is why one reads the comments.)

    • Oh, yes! These are the kinds of responses I often get to my carefully thought out critiques. That’s when they don’t grab up their manuscript, clutch it to their chest, and run out of the classroom sobbing noisily. (I’ll never get over that one.)

    • Dwight, thanks for setting me straight. I don’t know what I was thinking. You’ve Wilford Brimleyed me into a sweaty puddle of pathetic evaporating filth. Don’t tell your sister.

    • Dear Dwight,

      Thanks for submitting your manuscript. I’m afraid I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to. I must pass.

      Best of luck with this piece.

      Sincerely,
      Donald Maass

      P.S. Now do you know who I am?

  20. Right of the bat, I knew I was going to love this. Ivory paper, just the right weight, and the font! Thanks for making my afternoon brighter. And I know just the person who needs to read this … she is beta-reading a historical and dying a little bit each day.

  21. As a man who has vouchsafed himself many a prehistorical recountal, I say with confidence that you Wilfred Brimleyed this post to critique Valhalla. It really is worth the time on the couch.

    By the way, have you seen the Writer’s Digest calls for Reject a Hit, where you assume the role of a sage editor sending a rejection letter for works like War and Peace? I think you’d make simpering beyotches out of all those prior entries.

    • Thank you, Tom. I suppose I’d have to read War and Peace in order to properly reject it. But that should be a walk in the park after my punctilious excogitation of Dwight’s discursive magnum opus. #thesaurus.comedy

  22. “In your cover letter, you mentioned that you were targeting fans of historical fiction, fantasy, erotica, and fisherman. I wonder if you might be casting slightly too wide a net (no pun). Just food for thought.” Heeee! Classic ;-)

    “In chapters 21 through 36, I see that you’ve repurposed much of the material from one of your previous unpublished works, Fly Fishing for Dummies.” Downright snickersome.

    The most creative what-not-to-do advice I’ve read lately!

  26. So funny that even my non-writing friends Wilford Brimleyed with laughter reading this. Terrific post. Please return!

    • Thank you, Jan. Now that both Deep Throat and Jack the Ripper have been revealed, the pressure is really on.

  28. “For example, you used the word “fuck,” and variations of it, 163 times in Chapter 52.”

    I’m guessing Chapter 52 was the one that featured the liaison between tricky dick and jg? If so, you might need to withdraw your criticism of the multiple uses and variations of the eff word, b-i-l! And add my vote to the yes above for keeping the scene in.

    Lots of laughter today. Thanks! Looking forward to your next post and hearing whether you’re off the couch.

    Sophia / She Likes It Irish