Finishing a writing project is a great accomplishment, but it’s also only half the story.

Naturally, next comes the critique, but from whom?

Friends and family can be more a curse than a helpful tool when you start to reexamine pieces of your book. What’s meant as a great compliment often helps little with refining the content and flow of your project. People close to you often confuse your need for criticism with your achievement, praising you endlessly for such devotion to your book.

Even writing peers might not be the best candidate for constructive criticism. Each writer has their own style, and each has their own story imagined as they alone see it. The best your peers can do is read your work, make an educated guess at what was in your imagination when you chose your words, and use that guess to gauge how close you came to success.

If you need a fresh perspective and don’t have the time, nor the energy to smooth out the rough edges, you can hire an editor. For a small fee, our editors will comb through your manuscript. Visit our Services Store and check out the prices for both copyediting and content editing.

Of course, swapping your material with peers and editors can provide insight as well, but only you know without a doubt what went through your mind when you were writing, and only you will know for certain whether or not you ultimately missed the mark.

But self-criticism is never as simple as reworking your material and then moving ahead, especially when you alone are your own worst critic. It's easy to read right over flaws in your work, or fall into despair, unsure whether or not your entire manuscript say anything real, anything important.

Writers can’t help but worry that their book could always be better. It’s perfectly natural, and it’s a feeling that can be properly satisfied with only a thorough self-critique. Here are some practical tips self-critiquing your work to develop the book of your dreams.

1) Let the writing cool down

Don’t critique your writing immediately after you’ve finished. In fact, that may be the worst time. The more you remember from your recent writing, the more your critiquing efforts will be hindered. You’ll miss gaps you thought you filled. You’ll skip over details you thought you deleted. You’ve just finished a gem, and the last thing you want is to start chipping away at it.

What you need now are fresh eyes, ones that can read your work with objectivity. What you need is to get outside, live a little, forget all about it and give your material some time to cool off.

“Psychic distance” is what many authors call the renewed perspective that’s only granted from time spent separated from your material, and this is exactly what you need to develop.

Try closing what you’ve written in a drawer and promising to revisit it in two or three weeks. Mark your calendar and then clear your mind. Your book isn’t going anywhere without you, after all. What’s the hurry?

2) Juggling

Life is what happens when you’re making other plans, or at least that’s what everyone says. For an author, however, life is what happens in between different writing projects.

Take a breather and see a movie with some friends. Work on another book while the one you just finished enters its cooling-down phase. Visit your favorite coffee shop and read a book similar to yours in subject, but different in tone.

Discover new ways of managing your personal life and writing habits all in an effort to increase that “psychic distance” between you and your material.

3) Change of pace

Sometimes a little change in scenery can make all the difference.

Perhaps you’ve done all your preliminary writing at home, so venture to your local library and read over your materials there. Your new surroundings will inspire new ideas in you, and you’ll be able to revise the problem sections of your book with more clarity and ease.

Or say you only write while wearing a certain sweater – writers are creatures of habit after all – then it might be time to put the sweater away and change your routine. Switch from coffee to tea. Read at night instead of in the morning when you’re accustomed.

Even the slightest change will make you feel like a different person, a person who can now read your work with a fresh perspective.

4) Be skeptical

While rereading, it’s important to be suspicious of what you wrote and interrogate the writer, namely, you.

Ask yourself questions you hadn’t considered before, including:

• Is this scene believable?
• Would your character act that way?
• Or is he/she smarter than that?
• Is this section necessary to your overall message?
• Is it night or day during this particular conversation?
• Are all the facts straight?
• Are there any gaps in what you’re communicating?
• Did your opening pull you into the story?

How you answer the questions that cross your mind will give you clear indications of where your writing needs work and where your strength rests.

5) Listening to that little voice in your head

The voice in your head can be either a devil or an angel, which is actually quite handy for writers. As you revise, just as when you wrote, encouraging shoots and disapproving boos will ring in your mind. Listen to all of these and flag each on your manuscript. More often than not, your gut reactions will clue you in to how you actually feel toward a particular section of your writing.

Develop that critical voice. Don’t be afraid to bash yourself – you’re the one doing the bashing after all – and don’t be timid. The harder you are on yourself the less you’ll have to sweat the other critics once you publish your book.

Compare yourself to other writers. Ask yourself: would Ernest Hemmingway write that? Would Alice Munro approve of this character? Would your college biology professor agree with your theory? Listen to the faint whisper of their voices in your head. Allow them to find, and then fill, the holes in your work. Request some advice on a particularly rough chapter. These voices can be a godsend if you let them.

These five tips on self-critiquing are just the beginning, but share a single message: don’t be afraid to listen to yourself. You’re the writer, and you’re the one whose success and happiness depends on how you decide to deliver your message.

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