How to Critique a Short Story

Critiquing a short story can seem to many people like an entirely subjective exercise, that whether or not a story is good is entirely up to the individual reader. While it is true that different readers are likely to react to stories differently, the fact of the matter is that there are technical, objective criteria you can use to analyze and critique a short story. Read on to learn how to critique a short story.

Things You'll Need

• Computer

Instructions

1. Figure out the context of the story. What genre is it? Adventure? Science fiction? Fantasy? Literary? Each of these schools of writing have their own rules for how to read them. For instance, you wouldn't judge the plot of a mystery story the same way you would a comedic piece.

2. Guess at the author's intentions. What he or she was trying to accomplish with the story matters a great deal. If the story is meant to be funny and isn't, or is meant to be a morality tale but doesn't quite pull it off, then it has failed in at least one respect.

3. Note your reactions, emotional and intellectual, as you read. Either keep a spare piece of paper with you or mark your reactions in the margins of the text.

4. Underline or highlight passages that you find confusing or that don't seem important and relevant to the rest of the story.

5. Circle all figurative devices: allusions, alliteration, similes, symbols, metaphors and other similar techniques.

6. Ask yourself if these literary techniques make the reading experience more enjoyable or strengthen the story.

7. Decide how the ending relates both to the story as a whole and to the beginning. Does the ending resolve the plot and bring closure to the crisis of the characters?

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish