Summoning the Inner Goblin: How to Critique Your Own Writing

There are two creatures residing within every writer—the inner mage and the inner goblin. One is creative, dreaming, and, at times, delulu. The other is critical, judgmental, and not very pleasant to be around (I also wrote about these characters and how to deal with them here).

Both of these creatures can be deranged in their own way, but both are also useful and needed to make you a good writer.

Normally, it’s a good idea to keep the inner goblin—also known as the inner editor, when you get it to behave—quiet while you’re letting the inner creative mage run free. But at some point, the editing goblin needs to be summoned and welcomed to the table.

And like with any good séance, you need to ensure that the goblin doesn’t escape the circle and run amok. In other words, you need to utilize your critical voice in a constructive way, so that it doesn’t make you want to bury your story deep in the virtual drawer and never share it with the world. You need to harness that goblin to help you improve and polish your draft until it’s ready to be read by sentient beings.

One great way to criticize constructively is by asking questions. These questions can, in turn, be directed toward each scene, character, and the plot in general.

Whether you intend to send your manuscript to an editor in the future or not, it can be a great first step in making your messy first draft a little bit less messy.

It's easy to lose focus when rereading your first draft, as you might become overwhelmed with the number of things that suddenly seem not to work. It can also be difficult to determine what needs changing and what doesn’t. This is where a list of questions can come in handy, helping you keep your editing process focused and effective.

It’s Really a (P)Lot

The first thing you’ll want to do once the draft of your story is completed is to give it a rest. Put it down and don’t think about it for a week or two. After you’ve set it aside like a batch of dough ready to become a loaf of bread, it’s time to unleash your editorial goblin to start looking at it with a fresh set of eyes.

This is when you want to look at the plot as a whole and see if the story arc works.

A good way to do this is to list or map the major events taking place in the story in their logical order. This allows you to get a high-level view of the story as a whole without getting lost in the details.

Once you have a high-level view of your novel, you can try asking the following questions:

1. Is the arc well defined (beginning, middle, and end)?

Some stories like to jump around intentionally, starting at the end just to go back to the beginning or skipping one or two elements of the classic story arc completely (more on story arc here). But regardless of how you structure your story—each element needs to be well defined. Not only should the beginning, middle, and ending be well defined, but the time you spend in each part should be balanced. If the beginning (the exposition where the reader meets the protagonist and events are set into motion) is too long, or the ending is too brief after a long buildup, you might need to give it a bit more work.

2. Is the central conflict well defined?

Each story needs conflict—something to stand in the protagonist’s way and challenge them as they try to achieve their goals. Without conflict, your story won’t have a strong impact on the reader. Find your main conflict and ask yourself if it’s well defined in the book, whether the stakes are high enough, and whether it makes the reader wonder if the protagonist will overcome it.

3. Is there a consistent theme?

A theme is like a thread that runs through a story—not necessarily its main point, but something that shapes the atmosphere, message, and overall tone. It’s the central idea or a message that you, as the author, explore throughout the story. The theme is generally implied rather than explicit, and it comes to show in your characters’ actions and the situations they find themselves in. You might not have planned to have a theme (I know I didn’t for my first book), but your personal worldview, beliefs, and social commentary might show themselves in your writing.

For instance, you might think it’s just an adventure story, but the structure of the goblin society and the love of their queen for a gnome might show a theme of conflict between free will and tradition. Identifying your theme and ensuring it’s consistent throughout the story can give it another layer of depth.

A Question of Character

The next big thing you want to examine, besides the plot, is your characters. Some might argue that this analysis should be done before or as you’re writing, but I think it’s even better to do it at the end. The reason is that here you’ll need to get a hawk’s-eye perspective on your work and look at each character and their journey and development throughout the story.

It’s the time to look at every protagonist and villain you’ve lovingly invented in the imaginary eye and make sure they belong in the story and are well-developed.

Good questions to ask at this point are:

1. What are their motivations?

A character needs reasons to do what they’re doing. The goblin queen wants to be remembered as the best ruler there ever was, which is why she tries to unify the goblin tribes and set them to war against the frog people. If a character doesn’t have motivation, their actions might not be understood, and perhaps they might not be necessary to the plot altogether. Motivation also helps evaluate whether the character’s actions make sense and align with their goals.

2. Are the character’s actions consistent?

Does your villain seek vengeance on the main hero only to offer them a cupcake in the following scene (and not a poisoned one)? Inconsistent motivations and actions make your characters seem less believable. A character might act out of character (pun intended), but there has to be a reason for it, and it would usually happen after a period of growth or an event that had a significant impact on them.

3. Does the character develop throughout the story?

While a character needs to be consistent, it doesn’t mean they need to stay in one place. A good character changes throughout the story through the experiences and events they undergo. This change can manifest as new motivations and goals, but these need to align with their developmental path. If an impatient character learns empathy, that’s development, but if a character changes  eight times throughout the story for no apparent reason, that’s just pure chaos.

Don’t Make a Scene

When you’ve worked on your story arc and the characters, you can finally zoom in and start examining each scene in your story. This is when you want to think about the message, as well as the tone, atmosphere, and details like language and flow.

The best way to do so is by reading one scene at a time, and twice—the first time, as a reader, the second through an editor’s lens.

Here are some good questions to keep in mind as you’re examining a scene:

1. Is it needed?

The first and toughest question to answer is whether the scene is even needed. Every scene you include in your story needs to be non-negotiable, and to be non-negotiable, it needs to drive your plot forward. This can be done either by describing events that are important to the story’s development or by shedding light on aspects we need to understand about the characters or setting.

2. Is it clear and consistent?

A reader doesn’t have to be a detective to figure out what’s going on in your scene. You’re not supposed to dumb it down either, but a scene should be structured in a way that makes sense and is easy to follow.

Beyond consistency, you need to ask yourself if the scene aligns with the rest of the story—if it matches the tone and overall message.

3. Is there sufficient tension?

Not every scene needs obvious conflict, and you don’t have to have all your characters clash heads all the time. But if you’re describing, at length, how a character gets up in the morning, makes coffee, looks out the window, goes for a walk in the park, and comes back as chill and happy as they left, it might test the reader’s patience. Scenes need some tension, suspense, or inner friction to keep the reader wondering what comes next—and in general, engaged. Describing a character’s routine can work if it shows how the world functions or provides the background for something unusual, but if it’s just clear sailing, it needs to go.

5. Is it immersive?

The final bit is tricky. You need descriptions to help your readers feel as if they are there in your imaginary scene. But make sure your descriptions aren’t overly lengthy, tedious, or boring (like “he had brown hair and green eyes”, I mean, sure, he might be a good-looking guy, but it’s just not an interesting description).

Good descriptions encompass more than one sense to help the reader dive into the scene and bring it to life. Include smell, sound, and touch, in addition to sight, where appropriate, and consider not focusing only on the obvious things.

Conclusion

While potentially disruptive during the writing process, a critical voice isn’t something you should always ignore. The editorial goblin can be a great asset when it’s time to scrutinize your writing and improve it.

The questions above are a great starting point when beginning the editing process, but they’re not the only ones. Don’t be surprised if you’re not happy with the result after a single editing round, either—a good book takes a lot of editing and, at times, rewriting before it reads well. But if you think carefully and listen to the goblin when it has a point (and not just being a little jerk), the investment will be worth it.

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