This week in Everyone’s a Critic we were challenged in our first class to give one another feedback on either our PB2 drafts, or on other critical reviews that we have been working on. For a lot of us, giving and receiving feedback can be awkward and uncomfortable, but we are steadily growing better at it. As a very insecure person, I can tend to be very critical of myself and my own work in a very negative or debilitating way, so receiving feedback from other people enables me to see the aspects of my work that are positive and strong.

Alexia read only the first sentence of our reviews, and gave us some excellent advice to take on for our writing across all fields: to always rewrite your introductory sentence and see how that manipulates the quality and both yours and other readers perception of the piece.

Wednesday’s class was a Q&A session with renowned critics Philippa Hawker and Simran Hans. Both writers had a very distinct and individual style, which was conveyed even in their mannerisms and their answers to our questions.

The aspect of the session that I found the most useful and informative was the discussion on finding and developing an authoritative voice through our writing. Simran and Philippa’s best advice was that the more you write, the more your voice as a writer will establish itself. They both made it clear that translating how you feel about something and articulating those emotions is an excellent way to tease out ideas about the kind of writer you want to be.

Other really interesting insights included:

• How to pitch a piece to a publication in a way that is efficient, deliberate and authentic. Pitch a story, not an idea. 
• When freelancing, always establish upfront whether it is a paid job or not.
• Tailor pitches to the respective publication.
• Social media platforms such as Twitter can be useful networking tools, however you must tailor your posts to the target audience.