Have you ever been assigned to critique something that was written by a monkey dancing on a keyboard? Do you occasionally find yourself wondering if you have spent more time critiquing a piece than the author did writing it?

When I am assigned to critique something that makes my brain hurt I pick one area like character development, setting, structure, or voice to focus on. I know there is no way I am going to fix everything that is wrong with the dancing monkey in one critique, but I can help him swing to a higher branch by helping him understand how to improve one area.

How do you deal with a dancing monkey?

Jacob