How Honest Is Too Honest?

I love apple pie.

Mmm...correction. I love my mother's homemade apple pie.

Yesterday was Gremlin #3's second birthday. We had a family party complete with too much food, lots of presents, cake and ice cream and balloons (he loved the balloons!). What did my mother bring? You guessed it, apple pie.

It's no secret my husband doesn't think my mother can cook. He grew up with the type of mother who slaved in the kitchen from morning to night and made everything from scratch - rolls, cookies, cakes, refried beans, tortillas, French sauces...everything. I will never live up to my MIL's cooking. Which is okay, I don't want to spend hours in the kitchen, I have other things to do. My mother, however, cooks less than I do, and my husband has never been thrilled with her entree choices. So when she walked in the door and said, "I brought pie!", his first reaction was a roll of his eyes toward me that meant, "Oh great, she went to Costco. Why did she get a pie when she knows we're having cake?" But - of course - he was wrong. She made the pie from scratch, and cooked it with love and care for her kids and grandkids.

After the party was over, after everyone went home and DH went scrounging for food, he decided to go for a piece of her homemade pie. He scooped it up, sat down on the couch with the bowl, and after two bites, turned to me with surprise in his eyes and said, "This is really good." Now, he's complimented my mother's cooking before - but only when she's in the room and it's the right thing to do - but I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard him compliment her cooking when it wasn't out of sheer politeness.

The moment made me think about critique partners and crits and what we hear from our writing peers on a daily basis. How honest are they really being? Critique relationships are hard. A lot of times you develop strong friendships with your critique partners, and those friendships can sometimes cause you to be less-than-honest than you might otherwise be with a stranger.

Case in point...about a year and a half ago, one of my critique partners was working on a book. She'd sent me the first six chapter or so to crit. I love her writing. She's very talented. And this particular premise was unique and interesting. The hook was so catching, I couldn't stop reading. I wanted more. I told her as much, but there was something about the story that kept throwing me off, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. So I didn't bring it up. I decided to focus on the good even though I knew there was something wrong.

Then I went to Nationals in Reno, and I sat in on a workshop about plot braiding the romantic suspense given by Roxanne St.Claire and Gail Wilson. BAM! Lightbulb moment. What was bothering me was her two threads - the romance and the suspense - seemed to be separate strands - not connected. Without the romance, the suspense could have kept going. Without the supsense, the romance could have kept going...and in a romantic suspense, that just can't happen. They have to be woven together, one dependent on the other. So I came home from Nationals, completely excited to share this information with my CP. I finally knew what was bothering me about her book, and I was sure it would help. I sat down and wrote out a long email describing what I had learned and how it hit home. And then I sent it.

I didn't hear from her for two days. I got worried. When she finally IM'd, she admitted that she'd been absent because she'd spent the last two days crying about her book. I ... Felt ... Like ... Crap. Here, I thought I'd done the supportive CP thing - I'd given honest feedback about something I thought would help her book. Because I LOVED that book. I loved the characters and where the suspense plot was going. And I'd told her that as well. I learned a long time ago that even when you're giving constructive criticism, an "I love this!" and a "Great Line" go a long way in softening the blow. Plus, everyone loves to hear what they're doing well - even me. I never give compliments unless I really mean them, so everyone who knows me knows when I'm telling the truth. But in this case - in the end - being honest only created a huge mess.

There were other things going on for my CP then - things I didn't know about - but I happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back. She ended up taking some time off from writing and is only now recently back, stronger than ever. I'm happy for her - she finally finished that book over Christmas and is working on the next one - but we aren't critique partners anymore. We're friends, we chat about life and writing now and then, but we don't crit each others work. Since this happened, she hasn't asked me to crit anything else, and she hasn't offered to crit anything for me. And for a very long time, that situation caused me to questioned my critique abilities. How honest was too honest? Did I cross a line? Should I have kept my mouth shut about my honest opinion and not said anything?

This situation has stayed with me long after the fact. Everytime I send a critique, I cringe. Not because I don't believe in the comments I've put forth, but in how they will be received. I don't know everything, but then, what critique partner does? The definition of "critique" is a serious examination and judgment of something. How can you give a critique if you aren't being completely honest about your opinion?

It's true, I also cringe every time I open a crit from one of my CP's, and sometimes I get upset and close the document and think they're out of their minds, but I always come back to it, and nine times out of ten the comments they've given make my book stronger. I WANT my critique partners to be honest with me. If I'm not doing something right, if my plot points are confusing, if my characters are unsympathetic, if my RS isn't woven...I want to know. Critique partners aren't doing me any favors if they're pulling punches and telling me what I want to hear. I'll never improve unless they're completely honest.

There are instances when being polite is the way to go - like when my hubby tells my mother her cooking is great even when it isn't. Sometimes you're pleasantly surprised, as my hubby was tonight. But when it comes to critiques, I don't want polite. I want honest and open, and I want my CP's to rip the thing to shreds and show me where my weak spots are.

How about you? How honest are you when you give critiques? Do you go all out? Or do you pull punches because you're afraid of hurting feelings?