How to Critique a Novel

*sigh* OK - you already told us what we must read, now how to review. What's next?

You seem to be interested in promoting your blog here... and not to discuss matters with people. If that's your intention, that's called spam and you might want to reread the rules of the site. You don't even ask what people think - you just post your blurb and your link.

If you honestly want discussion, drop the preachy "I know better than you so you must listen to me" attitude - it is wearing thin and to put it bluntly you don't have the credentials, the success or the fame to back it up. Not that it would have been ok then but it would have been understandable... to some extent.

Thank you, WordsworthGreen, I will take a look, my friend.

ditto what she (2) said.

Dear Annie Mod:

Enlighten me about your credentials, success and fame to back up this incredible comment.

5>

AnnieMod's been a respected contributing member of LT for years now. She has written reviews that I and other LT members find interesting and useful.

You, on the other hand, just joined, and have only your own books in your library (you haven't even bothered to add your beloved Ulysses); you come in from on high with pronouncements about the one proper set of books to read and the one proper set of criteria to use to review them. Reading and reviewing are both intrinsically subjective experiences, and if you're going to convince anyone that they're not, you're going to need to make a lot more of an argument than to just say "I have written some books, and I say so."

> 5

Oh, her comment was quite credible, unlike the comments of a self-published author whose library consists solely of his own works.

Gosh, I've got the new Thursday Next to read, but I'm not sure I want to "surge" against it...

oh look, another red x.

Bookmarque, you really like that line, don't you? Ah, yes, I see one, too.

@WordsworthGreen
Please try to achieve some credibility to match AnnieMod's on this site before attempting to denigrate her.

>5 WordsworthGreen:

You noticed that my comment has nothing to do with what you are writing on your blog and has a lot to do with how you post in LT, correct?

I am not registering on a site for book lovers and start preaching my ideas of what to be read and how. Simply because there are people here that had read a lot more than I had, there are authors that had been deemed acceptable from major publishing houses, there are people that had done reviews for more books than most people had read and because I don't believe that anyone has the right to tell someone else how or what to read. Giving advices - yes. Sharing my ideas - yes. But not telling them.

With this being said - anyone is also free to share their opinion and the tone you are using on your blog is your own decision - you know you target readership and quite honestly - it is your blog, you can do whatever you want.

Even if you do not sell anything, this is advertisement - LT is quite highly rated in google and has a lot more readers than your blog so I can understand that plugging your link here is a good idea for you. And I don't blame you. But that is a second post in a row where you treat this group and this site as if they are just a continuation of your blog. That's disrespectful.

If you had come and said something in the line of "I wrote an article about novels criticism which can be read here. I am interested in your thoughts about it and its topic", people would have probably read it and commented. Instead you said essentially "This is how it is done.". Not even an invite for a decision - just a statement that you wrote something somewhere. Well - sorry to tell you that but that's not what LT is all about. If you want to self-promote yourself, there is a very nice group over here: http://www.librarything.com/groups/hobnobwithauthors - where that is allowed.

Dear Jim: The first attack was hers to an honest posting of a new approach to literary criticism of the novel. Can we be mature about this?

#14
New members who catalog only their own books and make posts only to link to their own sites look like spammers. You haven't even taken the trouble to see that there are groups devoted to discussing reviewing, which would have been more appropriate than Book Talk for your OP.

Dear Jim: I joined a few days ago so I am new to this site and somewhat unfamiliar with it. But I am truly a booklover: I have posted 125 reviews on mostly novels on Amazon and am a VINE Reviewer there. I have a BA in English from a top 20, small, liberal arts college and I have written 10 books, including six novels. I just gotta tell you, I am loving the warm, welcoming environment so conducive to the free flow of new ideas. I'm also loving all the condescension radiating down from you. In fact, I'm groovin' to it. Because if you can't share new thinking about a topic as important as books or literary criticism on a library web site without being attacked for it, then where else can you go? But I think I'll find out. It's been fun, ladies and gents. Peace. XXOO.

>10 Bookmarque:
Bookmarque - me too!
Illuminating that you don't 'get' it WordsworthGreen. (ETA: the red cross comment)

May I offer you some advice? Listen to all these long-term (and even if not), well-respected members, who hold no personal agenda except the convivial, helpful, and enjoyable sharing of everything to do with books. Self-promotion and self-aggrandisement, with no validation, is not the LibraryThing way.

ETA: oh, you posted before I finished -

I am loving the warm, welcoming environment so conducive to the free flow of new ideas.
That is the problem as we see it - it ain't on your part!

I'm also loving all the condescension radiating down from you.

I wonder if you were mistakenly looking in the mirror...

>1 WordsworthGreen:

Whether or not one finds your KPIs useful could be a matter of debate, but it's all about what kind of conversation you want to have, and how to share it.

Maybe it would be a good idea to take a deep breath and simply surf LT for a while and familiarize yourself a bit more with its threads and its tone.

LT is a generally friendly place, once you get to know it. But first you have to get to know it.

I don't believe that anyone has the right to tell someone else how or what to read

So much for I. A. Richards or E. D. Hirsch.

So much for I. A. Richards or E. D. Hirsch.

Well, okay. Make that: "I don't believe that anyone has the right to tell someone else how or what to read unless specifically asked."

Thank you, WordsworthGreen, I will take a look, my friend. Peace be to you, and to all who sail in you. Kumbayah. Hakuna Matata.

Golly gee darn.

Do you think we scared him off? I mean he was making such a wonderful impression on people with his style of postings...

I know he is a fan of fiction but I was going to suggest a non-fiction book to him. How to Win Friends and Influence People It couldn't hurt.

I am specifically asking WordsworthGreen to tell me how to criticize a novel.

Goodness gracious! Could #25 be a form of sock puppetry?

Regardless, I'll make it my business to NOT give the OP any of ~my~ business.
He may even know what he's talking about, but I doubt he's any better than half of the others who have written on the subject of critique.

He's obviously so full of himself that he blindly took a stab at AnnieMod. What a foolish thing to do!

Anybody here knows how to "criticize" or critique a novel and is willing to say a few words on the subject?

Bad novel, bad! Go to your room.

That's an ugly jacket.

Does your author know you used that font?

Just in case sdlk is honestly curious: There are tons and tons of websites out there, if you google "how to critique a novel" (I didn't even see the OP's site in the first 2 pages of results, lol). The basic advice is usually to focus on different aspects of the book, one at a time: the characters, how believable/likeable/detailed they are, the plot in general, specific parts of the plot you thought were realistic or not realistic, interesting or boring... etc etc. A good, detailed book-review is usually similar to a good critique.

I know there are websites and books about it. But I like the idea of discussing here whatever we know from different sources.

> 32: And that's totally cool. What isn't is some self appointed "guru" telling us all what to read, how to read it, and how to review it.

32>

So do I. Which is exactly why the OP is so obnoxious; he's coming in to tell us all that there is one right way, he knows it, and we don't.

ETA: "OP" should be expanded to read "original post", not "original poster." I'm referring to the statement, not the person.

Surely OP is usually understood as "original post"?

Indeed! If we mean ~the person~, we'd refer to her/him as the OPer.

I assume everyone flagged him because he provided a link, not because you found what he said disagreeable.

37: Why on earth would we flag him because we disagreed with what he said? That's against the TOS. We flagged him because he's a spammer and has made multiple threads linking back to his own blog.

I'd start from Aristotle's Poetics, adapted to the modern medium.

Plot: should involve tension, especially change of fortune, excite the reader's emotions, introduce turns of events which are surprising though logical in retrospect;

Character: should be consistent, with appropriate behaviour;

Development: the characters (including dialogue and narrative voice) must explain the background and movement of the plot;

Diction: the language should be apt to the setting and subject, and the diction of the characters should be appropriate;

Spectacle: in Aristotle's critique of drama, this referred to the theatrical production; in a novel, it could be applied to the setting, the style, manner, and verisimilitude of its presentation; in speculative fiction this is more important than in conventional or mainstream fiction, though verisimilitude is supplemented by the criterion of internal consistency (see Tolkien's theory of subcreation).

I don't know. I just saw a lot of commentary about his presumptuousness, if that's what it was, so I wondered. No harm in asking, right? And it was a link in two threads, right? Or by multiple you mean two?

I saw two threads: were there more?

"everyone flagged him" I didn´t. I counter-flagged.
MyopicBookworm, what´s plot?

Sequence of (fictional) events, linked by cause and effect, highlighted by a narrative.

16: Wow. A whole B.A.? Really?

Come back and pontificate when you have some credentials that virtually everyone on this site doesn't have.

35,36>

Usually, yes, but I was worried that I'd be flagged if people thought I was calling the poster obnoxious, so I wanted to make it crystal-clear.