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Critique tip 1

Initially, send your manuscript (or a sample of it) as a Word document, or just paste 2000-3000 or so words into an email. Include a reasonably comprehensive synopsis, and explain exactly what you want from the critique.

Chances are, you already know - or have some idea - of where your strengths and weaknesses are. In which case, you may simply be looking for someone to check that you've achieved what you set out to achieve. Does my dialogue make sense? for instance. Or: Is my lead character consistent? Or: Is the pacing too slow? Or too fast? Keep in mind too that publishers employ people to do exactly this. The best way to think of a literary critique is as a pre-MOT check for your car; as something to make sure that your wheels will at least get you to the testing station.

Critique tip 2

Literary agents and submissions editors may not necessarily be all that impressed when you advise them that the manuscript you've just submitted has been reworked by a professional editor. Professional editing standards range from wonderful to abysmal, and literary agents and submissions editors are perfectly aware of this. Then again, the standards of literary agents and submissions editors also range from wonderful to abysmal. However, they're the one's in control.

On the plus side, mentioning the fact that you've had your manuscript professionally edited may impress and show commitment. On the minus side, it might also suggest that your work has been "adulterated" and make the literary agent or submissions editor wonder where your work starts and ends.

What can you do about it? Just "play it by ear". But I'd suggest that you don't mention the involvement of a professional editor, not until you feel it's really called for.

Your primary goal, remember, is to get the attention of a literary agent or submissions editor. And to that end, let them accept the work (or not) on its own terms.

And remember too; this is just my opinion.

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Manuscript critique

There're an old joke. A guy goes to the doctor and says, "So what's wrong with me?" The doctor says, "You've broken your arm." The guy says, "I'd like a second opinion." The doc says, "Okay, you've broken your leg."

Boom, boom.

What's the point of this recycled humour?

That's simple. A second opinion is not necessarily more valid than a first opinion. Which, in this context, means that the opinion of a professional editor isn't necessarily any better than your own opinion - or, for that matter, the opinion of your best friend/mother/lover/dog.

Opinion is just opinion. It's a viewpoint; a perspective; the world as witnessed from a given vantage point (with all the emotional and intellectual luggage the critic happens to be carrying).

You may have written something so far off the beam that a professional editor simply can't engage with it, let alone edit it. You may be the next big thing trailblazing a whole new style. You may have mined a fresh seam of fiction that needs to be examined within its own terms, rather than fed through the treadmill of convention.

All that a professional editor is likely to do is show you how far you've drifted from the straight and narrow of literary orthodoxy. That's all. And that may not be where you want to be.

Give me an example, why don't you?

Okay. Recently I had someone contact me with a project that was so far off my radar (don't you just hate that expression?) that it took me about ten seconds to turn it down flat. The truth was, I couldn't possibly offer a serious critique because I didn't understand what I was reading. It might have been "lousy" writing (whatever that is). It might have been great writing (whatever that is). The only thing I was sure about was that it was writing.

I emailed back to say as much. But I don't suppose it was well received. Rejection is always a jagged blade. It hurts. "Dear Hopeful Writer, Your work is too obscure/mysterious/left field for my tastes. Try elsewhere. Yours, Mr Edit."

The point is, if you're offering your work out for a professional critique, you're never going to get a definitive answer about the quality of your work. What one editor might call a strength, another might call a weakness. What one editor reads as sharp and witty, another might read as blunt and banal.

All editors ever do is rework material to suit either their own tastes, or the tastes of the target audience (which is always fickle).

Trouble is, you've already sent your manuscript out 20 times and it keeps coming back. You're getting a little desperate and you figure maybe it's time to call in a professional.

Well call in that professional if you must. But never take it for granted that their taste, for all their experience, is necessarily going to do anything to make your book any "better", because there is no better (not in absolute terms). There's only different.

Of course, the intervention of a professional editor might well make a positive difference - inasmuch as he or she might correct some of the more fundamental writing errors and help restructure a manuscript, etc.

But literary agents and submissions editors aren't always looking for word perfect, grammatically precise prose. Sometimes they're looking for that certain indefinable something that, occasionally, is quietly murdered by the editing process.

Read, for instance, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and study the grammar and structure. It's all wrong, and yet it's all so right. Or read Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Had that been edited a little differently, it may not have become the classic it has. Or, conversely, it might have been doubly classic.

In short, literary critiques should be approached with caution. They might be a beneficial thing. They might not be. But they will almost certainly change the direction your manuscript is headed. All you can do is hope that it's taking it to a place you really want it to be.

If you still think you need a critique, then maybe I can help. But keep in mind that what you pay for isn't just experience, but opinion.