My critique group has done a few whole novel critiques. We’ve found that a lot of the questionnaires for whole novel critiques are mostly (or entirely) yes/no questions, which doesn’t lead to interesting discussions. As we approached a whole novel critique for one of my critique-mates and we were looking at new questionnaires (which still had the yes/no focus), I offered to tweak them. Mostly I shifted from “does the novel do x” to “how well does the novel to do x.” Not a big change, but hopefully one that will invite more conversation and feedback. Here’s my questionnaire (based on several our group leader had found). Feel free to use – or give me feedback on it! I’d love to continue to tweak and improve it.
Ramblings 