Back in the days of iron men and wooden computers, I was a denizen of Compuserve.
I remember in the Compuserve Writers Forum a gadfly named Alex Keegan who ran a private writers group called Boot Camp. They had developed something called The Grid that they used to critique every story the members submitted; the pet name for those critiquing were “critters”.
A post retrieved from the Internet Archive gives some idea of how critiques used the grid to basically weight how each component of the story. A 2013 post on Keegan’s siteshows how he intends the Grid to be applied. (See also, his post on why he believes his grid is a better way to critique.)
Far as I can tell, here’s Keegan’s grid:
- Opening
- Character
- Dialogue & Voice
- Plot & Structure
- Theme
- Seduction (Show-Tell, Author Intrusion, 'Carry', Dramatic Flow, Fictive Dream)
- Language
- Pace & Pacing
- Ending
- Bonus
It inspired me to write down the following list of things I’d like to remind myself of or check myself against when critiquing my stories:
- character
- setting
- dialogue
- tone
- interest
- conflict
- advancement of plot
- sensual hooks
- energy
- transitions
- narrative
- pace
- backstory
(originally posted 2006-06-30, updated for micro.blog)
