How To Tell If Your Writing Is Any Good - Part 2

(Read Part 1 Here)

I have had the most interesting experiences with my writing as of late. The most exciting experience has been what I like to call THE RIFT in feedback. Among many, many other reasons why I self-published my novella, Cinders, one reason I did so was to get feedback on my writing - writing I felt was the best I had done up to that point. I knew without at doubt that by keeping the book unpublished and handing it only to people I had some sort of connection with, that I would never find absolutely honest feedback. My way of thinking was that I would never know if my writing was truly any good. I thought it was good, but what did I know? Readers are who mattered.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20.

I see now that my way of thinking was terribly wrong. Although I would have never put my own work out there without feeling it was really good, I still ultimately put all my hope in the opinions of others more than in my own. Every time I read a crushing review or received less than 4 stars, my heart sank and my opinion of my own work withered. Then, on the other hand, every time I read a 5 star review by someone who really seemed to understand the work the way I intended, my heart soared and my opinion of the book blossomed. Talk about a roller coaster.

This is THE RIFT, and it will happen with every single word, sentence, short story, and novel I ever share with others.

If I'm not careful, I'll fall into that rift and never emerge. This is one of the reasons I don't feel reviews are for writers. It's good for me to know how readers react to my work, but one of the things I learned very quickly - all those reviews were the exact same reactions I received from beta readers and friends who read the book, just on a much larger, more dramatic scale.

So, with no further babble from me, let's look at the paragraphs from yesterday's experiment. We're the Literary Lab, after all. We like to experiment.

#1
The owl lives behind my home in a tall pine that is bald on one side and heavy on the other with frost-laden boughs that groan with every snow fall. At night, when flakes gather in drifts and heaps against my back porch, the owl plunges from his hunting perch, his sooty brown feathers driving tunnels through snow until all that is seen are whirlwinds of white—feathers and snow creating silence in chaos. I strain to hear any sound at all, but only succeed in finding the crashing thumps of my own heartbeat. Solemnly, after I know the kill has taken place, I enter my cabin, assured in the warmth of my small, but necessary fire.

This paragraph comes from a long short story I wrote in college titled "Sounding Light." I wrote it at the brink of my awareness with language, and decided to experiment with merging prose and poetry. I was really happy with the end product - a literary, quiet story, which oddly enough, was part of the inspiration for my spy thriller novel, Monarch. "Sounding Light" was published in the literary journal, Touchstones, in 2002.

Hmmm, there were 15 solid votes for this paragraph as the best written and liked. It came out as the winner. General consensus:

• easiest to read
• too generic
• good imagery
• both poetry and prose
• strongest writing
• grammatically wrong
• good technical quality
• sentence structure is strange
• style over narrative
• compared to several classic authors (not in a good way)

#2
They questioned him the day after Naomi’s disappearance, although he didn’t know anything. Naomi hadn’t shown up to his house the night he asked her to, and that was that. “You were the last to speak to her,” the police kept insisting. “And you’re her best friend. Can’t you give us some clue to what could have happened? Would she run away?” Brad only shook his head, fear clawing at his heart. He was most likely more frightened than Naomi’s own parents, who believed she had just not come home for awhile. She was frequently away from home, but when that happened, she was with Brad. She was not with him now.

This paragraph was written somewhere between 1996 and 1997 while I was in high school. It's the beginning paragraph of my novel, The Breakaway, which I've rewritten more times than I can count. I am currently working on this novel to submit for representation. The paragraph above no longer exists, even remotely, and the beginning is now much altered.

This paragraph came in 2nd place at 12 votes as the best written and liked. General consensus:

• felt like newbie writing
• good sense of plot
• felt flat
• too telling
• was in the character's head strongly (in a good way)
• easy to read
• immature
• strongest story
• immediate hook
• author isn't trusting voice
• confusing narrative

#3

I buy a snakeskin bag today, lizard green and shiny patent leather and the silver accents catch the sun on a sunny day before the clouds decide to come. When they do, they split open and rain all hell down for five minutes, plaster my hair to my skin, soak through my white shirt so the boys on the corner smoking pot whistle and lick their lips and yell, “Nice tits!” and I roll my eyes and think immature and wish I’d remembered to bring my long jacket that goes down to my calves. At least my green bag looks good with my green skirt, my six-inch green heels and green toenails that are starting to chip and I need to schedule another pedicure tomorrow and pull out my phone to punch in a reminder. I feel like a walking lime tequila.

This paragraph was written in 2010 as part of Loren Eaton's Six-Birds prompt. It is from a flash fiction piece titled "True Colors." You can read the entire pieces on my author site, if you're interested.

This paragraph came in as the third best written and liked with 11 votes. General consensus:

• strong voice
• great sense of voice and confidence
• too much description, sentences too long and run-on
• felt flat
• great sense of character
• style over narrative (not good)
• last line was cheap
• last line was too cutesy
• last line was a treat

I think the most interesting thing was how several readers mentioned that they hated #1 or #3 because of the present tense or first person POV, yet didn't say that this bothered them in both of the paragraphs. This confused me. Did you not notice that both 1 and 3 were both in present tense and first person POV or was I misunderstanding what you said?

Moving on, I think it's quite clear from the general consensus lists that feedback overall (on anything) is extremely subjective. I don't wish to focus on that today, though. I want to point out that each of these excerpts was taken from a different period of my life. #2 was from when I very first started writing novels, #1 was from college when I started experimenting with language, and #3 was from only a year ago when I was really starting to feel confidence in my writing. I think from the general feedback given in the comments that many of you picked up on these things in my writing. Many of you seem to favor plot and a good hook over technique or prose - at least in a small excerpt like this. All of this tells me that feedback is helpful to hone my writing, but I should never rely on it to direct my writing, or even worse, tell me if my writing is good or not.

One of the most important things I have learned over the years is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to judge a writer's worth or abilities from a short excerpt, maybe even from a whole chapter or short story, or even an entire novel. I have read absolutely amazing pieces by authors I truly admire, and then read something else of theirs that fell completely flat for me. Overall, though, I still admire their work because I have read enough of it. What does this tell me? Simply that I must turn this around and see if from the other direction. If I get feedback that rips me to shreds, does that mean I'm a bad writer? I think the answer is obvious, and it leads directly into the question: How can you tell if your writing is any good?

If you can't answer that, go back and read this post again.

Guest Post: Receiving Critiques by B. Nagel

Last week, after my critique experiments here, here, and here, B. Nagel mentioned that it might be helpful to have a post on receiving critiques. I asked if he would do a guest post on the subject, and he kindly accepted. Check it out below. B. Nagel is a great writer, and I'm quite the fan of his. He uses words like "milquetoast", which is almost as cool as "maths".

"Receiving Critiques"

by B. Nagel

You've been lurking around the writing blogs, the community theater, the creative folks. Maybe you're even taking a creative writing class at the college. You've been playing with a few story ideas, but one in particular reared back and smacked you with its potential. You burn the midnight oil and the coffee filters, trading sleep for creative time. Finally, you've polished it to a high gloss and are ready to share.

You present a pink and newborn piece to the class/group/listserv for viewing.
Then these, these monsters begin to point out typos, to confuse the plot, to recommend cutting off a finger here, a toe there. Sure, they try and sweeten the poison with saccharine, but all you hear is hate.

Your creation is under attack. You want to roar in defense and defiance.

This is natural. But for the sake of your work, don't.

The most important aspect of receiving a critique is actively listening.

The truth of the writing gig is that the story you put on paper is not the same as the story that lives in your brainpan. We do our best and, with practice, we get better. But because you already know the primary story, you cannot experience the secondary story. Your swashbuckling, darkly romantic MC could very well read like a milquetoast. The second twist of your thriller, the payoff itself, may be painfully obvious from the third paragraph. Or your voice could be so dense and subtle that it's impenetrable.

If one person mentions something, take a note. If several people nod along, circle it. If no one 'gets it' or winds up even close to what you were trying to say, take a big note. Where they wound up is not as important as the fact that they got lost.

You need a fresh set of eyes. Treasure all that they see.

And those saccharine tidbits? They are drops of purest honey. No one has to say anything, positive or negative.

Only by listening to the critique can you see how your story stands: knock-kneed and grimacing but unbowed by the ponderous weight of meaning you've piled on it. Your critiquers have to read the story as it lies. If you publish, the same is true for your readers.

So, keep your mouth shut, your ears open and your pencil moving. The quickest way to shut down a critique session is for the author to open his gob and give some bit of backstory or justification. Even worse if this happens before the critique begins.

This isn't about you, it's about how well you told your story and helping you get better at telling it.

--

Remember: You are the ultimate author. You make the final choices. This data should inform your decisions, not dictate them.

Let's Play Nice

On Monday, I offered up my version of some Tiger Mother reviews. Overall, the consensus from the comments was that the reviews could have been nicer, but they weren't too mean. Thanks to everyone for commenting and also for providing your own reviews of my excerpt.

I want to emphasize that the point of my reviews was not necessarily to be mean, but to hold writers up to the highest standards, something I admit I don't always do. While I think those reviews might have been helpful, I hope today to convince you that being critical isn't the only way to show someone how they might improve.

For the following three excerpts, I'm focusing on the positive, with the idea that if a writer sees what works well, they can choose to do more of it. This isn't my version of sugar coating, because I'm being very sincere. Rather, it's just another side of the coin, leading to the same purpose.

Excerpt A

I was nine again. The word "again" here is unexpected and very interesting. Mother told me that my real father was a goat. There are some nice hints that this is going to be an interesting story. I like the phrase "my real father", and of course the idea that he's a goat is intriguing. William the Goat. Not the man who slept in Mother's bed, the man who Mother called Bill, the man whose dried lather and specks of hair fouled our bathroom sink every morning. This borders on being nonsensical, but in a way that really works for me. "Fouled" fits in perfectly in this spot because it creates a slight shock and keeps the tone of the piece from being too syrupy. We had homeschool every day. Even the idea of homeschool, and all of the connotations it carries with it fits nicely here. I associate it with families that are perhaps smarter than average and unusual in other ways. That meant I helped scrubs the floor and kept watch at the front window for Bill. After homeschool, Mother told me stories of my father and how they met when she was young. How he was strong and had a beard, a man’s beard, wild, dark and full. How he ran and leapt. And the way he laughed: distinctive, loud, an honest sort of bray. "Bray" here works the way "fouled" works above. It keeps the piece from getting to clean, and of course there's the whole goat thing.

It was May. Nice rhyme. Using candles during a rainstorm, I found a box of wood and brass, smallish good word, at the top of the closet that Bill used for his clothes. Inside, folded papers wrapped in red ribbon. I cut the ribbon with the little scissors Mother gave me and found letters; letters from Anne to William. I unfolded the top one.

You always smoke those silly cigars, cigarillos cabritos, little goat cigars? I loved you from the moment you laughed. Will you marry me, William the Goat? I will make you laugh always and we can do whatever you want, visit the lake country, live in a Paris garret, just make me yours and laugh with me always. I like the development of the mother character and the strength and open-mindedness she has. "Cigarillos cabritos" is also great.

Overall, I really appreciate the language in this piece. It really gives the writing a specific tone that suits the material perfectly. Throughout, there are a bunch of details that help keep the world of the story consistent. And, though this is short, I trust in the depth of the characters.

Excerpt B

Broad Street is empty as I approach the subway entrance, the early morning quiet broken only by a distant siren, a small dog barking a block away, the slow flutter of the flags That's a great detail that is quite unusual. I immediately hear the flapping sound. hung from the lightpoles. The humid August air clings to my skin, a fitful breeze bringing no relief, only the scent of damp pavement, exhaust fumes, and rotting fried chicken in the dumpsters beside the all-night diner This is another great detail. I like that you save these gems for the end of your sentences where they carry more power and work to add a little climax at the end as if each sentence was a mini-story on its own. The few patrons visible through the restaurant windows look tired and drawn, black and white alike partaking "partaking" is a cool word here that creates an interesting relationship among the characters and place. It creates a nice interaction between the two and pulls the elements of the story together. of the same fluorescent-washed pallor. The waitress, silent behind plate glass, argues listlessly on her cell phone. That ending is a lovely image as well.

This writing feels very vivid to me, and there's a poetry to the language I can appreciate. It's a short paragraph, but it gives me a good sense of the bigger world of the story.

Excerpt C

"Whitefish Lake"

Terri noticed a boot print in her sister’s blood. Having the intrusion be a boot print rather than, say, a tennis shoe, makes this already-brutal sentence even moreso. It instantly shocked her into a battle ready state that's a cool phrase that got me thinking. I feel like I can relate to that idea of being shocked into a ready state, even though it seems counterintuitive at first. and she drew her firearm. She should’ve realized that there could’ve been another perp I always appreciate the use of the word "perp", just as I appreciate the use of the word "maths".

She backed up into the shadows of the corner and waited for something to move. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the babbling from his dying counterpart this is a nice surprise that gives the character more strength and credibility hundred and eighty yards away. She silently waited.

After ten minutes, she heard a slow creak she recognized as the door to the basement. It was slow and deliberate - the other intruder knows I’m here I like this. The word "deliberate" is nice, and it's an interesting transition into an inner voice that works for me. She fixed her gaze on the laundry room looking for a shift in the shadows.

She saw movement and took aim. She knew his back was against the little wall where the pantry was. It would be the best place to peek out into the room. He made the faintest of whistles. This puzzled Terri. Interesting! Did he expect her to signal back? Marco, Polo? She knew her best chance was to shoot through the wall before he made his move. She judged the placement of the studs and fired two rounds into the drywall Again, I like how these details make me feel more secure that the character knows what she's doing, right down to the studs. He cried out and fell forward. She ran toward the doorway firing twice more. The first shot missed but the second shot hit his right hand sending his gun to the floor. She pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger but the rounds were spent. The intruder charged her sending both of them into the kitchen. He pounded her with his fists several times before switching for the cast iron frying pan. He didn’t see her reach for the knife and she plunged it into his
neck.

I feel like the details have been very carefully considered in this piece. The vocabulary works. The details help to build the character and the situation without slowing the pace down at all.

______________________________________

So, what do you think? Is it useful to get the positives? Do you think a writer can learn from this type of one-sided review? My answer is yes.

I'm guessing that most people usually provide reviews that are a mix of Monday's and today's styles. We've heard the term "compliment sandwich" tossed around already. (My sandwiches are open faced, for the record.) But, I'd like to suggest that it might be worthwhile to mix it up a little. If you're in a writer's group, or if you get together with someone else on a regular basis, consider trying different crit styles for each session. You could try Tiger Mother, or nice nice. I've heard of styles that only involve asking questions, or even styles that only allow digressions. If nothing else, it keeps the sessions fresh and probably helps every one stay on their toes.

Note: I know I've got a couple of other reviews left to do. You'll have those emailed to you today!

Note added later (I thought I put things well in one of my comments, so I'm adding it here):

Charlie, your comment is helping me to articulate something that I wasn't able to express well before. I think to properly use both types of reviews, one needs to hold the idea of an "average" standard, where the writing is neither good nor bad. If we hold onto that for a moment, then I'd say the Tiger Mother review points out the things that fall below that line while the nice review points out the things that go above that line. If you only care that your writing meets the average, then you'll get nothing out of the nice review. But, if you want your work to ALL go above that line, then you could focus on the parts that didn't get compliments because, perhaps, they were just average.

The Roar of the Tiger Mother!

Happy Monday, everyone! (And, Happy V-day for those of you who care.)

Last week I proposed to review some excerpts using the Tiger Mother philosophy. As I approached each work below, I told myself to trust that each writer was strong and capable of being of the best writer in the world. I left the names of the writers out, but they can feel free to reveal themselves in the comments if they like. My comments are in blood red.

At the bottom, I'm also offering up an "anonymous" piece of writing for each of you to critique Tiger Mother style.

What do you think? Is this kind of critique helpful or only hurtful? If you do offer up your own critique, how does it feel to be a Tiger Mother?

Excerpt A

They came to the hill with shovels, all three of them. All three of what, shovels? This sentence needs to be better constructed. Shovels and oxhide cloaks and high bell-shaped hats purchased at a costume resale shop. The hats had caught Jasper’s fancy, who--of the three--had a hair of the dramatic in him. The word "hair" here sounds funny since the discussion is about hats. I don't like that strange interplay. Unlike his brother Mel This, I think, is meant to mean that the hats did not catch Mel's fancy, but the way the sentence is constructed is awkward. It could be interpreted to mean that Mel did not catch Jasper's fancy, who seldom had more than three words to spare, if he spoke at all, each one dropping out from under his dust-broom-sized mustache like a stone. "Like a stone" is a boring metaphor. This is the result of lazy writing. Bel, the youngest by a shade, led the trio up the slope, hunched against an angry side-chopping wind that seemed determined to knock their ridiculous Whose opinion is this? Who thinks the hats are ridiculous? hats of their heads. But no matter how fierce it blew, no natural wind would succeed.

Except for a few scrubby bushes, the summit of the hill was bald.

“This is the spot,” Bel said. He flexed his gloved hands against the bitter cold What does this mean? The action of flexing his hand against the cold is unclear to me. and sniffed. The other two hats dipped forward in agreement and they readied their shovels.

The shovels were stubby wicked things, with shafts carved from lightning-struck trees and kissed by witches to keep the wrong sort of ghosts from clinging while they did their peculiar work. The blades had been banged out from junk air-plane propellers, which was a good thing in this case, as the they typo could tell the ground under their boots was no spongy garden loam, yielding to any old turf-mover I really don't know what "they" refers to. I thought it was the shovels because they were magical, but the shovels aren't wearing boots. No, this was dense soil, chocked with rocks and frozen stiff.

Overall, the clarity of this section was a problem for me. I think you should pay more attention to each word you put on the page, rather than just the ideas they represent. I usually don't mind hyphens and hyphenated words, but here I feel like they result from being too rushed in the writing and not thinking about the vocabulary.

Excerpt B

I looked up Tarrant County in an atlas once. It was during Mrs. Snyder’s social studies class and we were in the library --This sentence is boring. I was supposed to be writing down the names of the counties in New Hampshire, where we live, but, you could say I took a detour. Maybe you could call it a short-stop This second discussion feels excessive for a minor detail in the story, because I stopped at “K” for Kentucky, before I got to “N” for New Hampshire, and there it was, right in the middle of that key-shaped state. Tarrant County. So, at least that part was true. There is a Tarrant County.

That’s as far as I got though, because that sneaky Mrs. Snyder came up behind me. “Melanie Foss, I do not believe that we live in Kentucky. This tone of this feels a bit derivative to me, even given the fact that Mrs. Snyder specifically relies on cliche. I believe your assignment is to research the State of New Hampshire. So kindly, get to the task at hand.” That’s the way Mrs. Snyder spoke. All clichés and such. She was always saying, “Put your nose to the grindstone” and “Give it your best shot.” If you listen to Miss Russell, clichés are phrases that are used so often they become ordinary. I guess being ordinary didn’t matter much to Mrs. Snyder.

Later on that week though, I went back to the library during free period and took my sweet time Does this cliche mean that the character also doesn't care about being ordinary? Is she unconsciously revealing her own flaw? looking at Tarrant County on the map. When I was little, eight maybe, I used to drive Mama crazy another cliche to point to the fact that being ordinary doesn't matter to the narrator? asking her questions about the beauty pageant. Mama and I are a team of two. She’s only been saying that for about a million years. But even if we are, it seems to me that the team had to get started somewhere. I don't understand this sentence. If they are a team of two, then does the team start when the narrator is born or before that? What exactly is the thing that had to get started somewhere? I mean, I know she grew up in Kentucky. The thing is, other than telling me about the Honeydew Festival, she never talks about it.

This is an interesting excerpt for me, and it has its strengths. But I think you need to accentuate the important details and not waste the reader's time on the less important ones. Paying attention to every single sentence is also important.

Excerpt C

Daydreams

She sure doesn’t look the way she did last summer, when everyone was at the water hole and all she did was sit there with her knees to her chest. Yeah, I used to tease her, but everyone did. She made it so easy, being that odd sort of quiet. Always to herself at the edge of the group, or her face in a book or drawing something. Though the idea of an insecure character is captured here, I don't see enough originality in the details. The description seems to be based on the same descriptions used by too many other writers. I didn’t mean to make her cry, with that bucket of frogs and I sure didn’t think it would take a whole ‘nother year before she’d even talk to me again. Again, this reaction by the character lacks originality. What makes this specific and unique compared to other stories about similar relationships? The punctuation feels sloppy to me as well.

When Mickey Pritchard called her the boobless wonder, I should have punched his lights out. Does this cliche really fit the character's voice? Do people still say "punched his lights out?" in a serious way? And I should have whispered her the right answer when Miss Whimbley called on her in front of everyone in math. Maybe I should’ve left a note with the valentine candy I put in her desk, or signed the picture I drew of her, with her pretty, long hair—the one she folded and stuck in her book. I'm still looking for more originality. Even if a situation isn't so unique, I think specificity can really make a passage stand out. If there were more specifics here, it wouldn't seem to much like other works I've encountered.

I think she smiled at me during lunch, probably no comma here today, even though she wouldn’t show me what she was reading when I asked. Maybe if I happen to be hanging around the old hickory tree she always walks past on her way home, she won’t mind if I ride my bike beside her…

“Boy! Stop day dreaming, and get out and open the gate.”

This writing is too safe here. The situation is a lot like other stories I've read, so I need more from it, otherwise I feel like it's redundant. Dare to take a risk! Why is this story special? Why are the people special?

--------------------------------

ROAR!

There you have it, my critique of a few words from some writers who were kind enough to offer up their work. Now, feel free to give me your own Tiger Mother review on the passage below. It's an excerpt taken from the middle of a short story.

Excerpt D

The rainy season announced its arrival with a thunder storm. Tuk and Raymond looked up at the sky with worried faces. They were planning to return to the states and would come back to Tayang once Kimchaa's visa was approved. Kimchaa herself began making a list of things she wanted to take with her, scribbling items clumsily on the back of an envelope with her arthritic hands. The items were silly things that Nam was sure she would be able to find in America: soap, tissues, a bottle of drinking water—but the family decided that this was a good distraction for the old woman.

At night, Nam cried to herself. She had no doubt that the visa would be approved. Families transformed so easily these days, and nothing was ever permanent anymore. Her sister had moved to America. Nam had come to live on this farm. Now their mother would spend the last years of her life in a new world, one far different from what she was accustomed to, her natural place.

The Value of Being A Tiger Mother Reviewer

If you haven't already heard about the semi-controversy over Amy Chua's book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, it basically involves a woman who presents the values of a stereotypical Asian mother as the best way to raise a child. A lot of people are criticizing the book because they claim that pushing a child too hard and never being happy with them borders on abuse rather than proper parenting.

I'd like to note first that Amy Chua was NOT 100% serious in her book. Much of the controversy was probably the result of book marketing--which has apparently worked since BHotTM is #10 on Amazon.

More importantly, I'd like to talk about how this discussion got me thinking about my own reviewing techniques. It affects you.

I read excerpts of "Tiger Mother" with an initial bias against it. I felt a lot of pressure to be the best in my teenage years, and I think it caused a lot of needless stress. But, as I was reading, something Chua wrote really struck me. It deals with the concept of expectations.

To paraphrase, Chua argues that a parent who pushes their child to be perfect holds the fundamental view that their child can be perfect. Conversely, a parent who refuses to push their child to be perfect might be assuming that their child cannot be perfect.

For me, that was a very profound insight. I realized that in reviewing the work of my fellow writers, I often soften up because I worry about pushing them too hard. The assumption I'm making is that I don't truly believe that my fellow writers can be as good as Tolstoy or Shakespeare or Woolf or whoever.

This is sort of a sad admission isn't it?

I'm trying to be helpful, but my expectations are possibly too low to ever make anyone better. At the same time, I love it when someone gives me a truly hard critique because it almost always makes me a better writer. (Don't read too much between the lines here, because it really does make me look quite bad the more you think about it.)

So, I wonder. When you all are reviewing each other's work, do you give them feedback with the view that the person you're reviewing could be the best? Is there value to holding that Tiger Mother mindset?

I want to propose an experiment, but I'm really scared it will backfire, so approach at your own risk. I'd like to ask three of you to send me paragraphs that will be reviewed publicly. But, the catch is that I'm going to review them Tiger Mother style. I'm going to assume that you can be as good as the best writers out there, and I'm going to expect that from you. I'll be very critical, and we'll see if it makes you a better writer, or if it just makes you mad at me. I'd also like to ask three of you to send me paragraphs for the opposite type of review. I'll be nice and supportive, only bringing up the good points. I know from experience that this technique also makes a writer better. So, if you're interested, send me excerpts (up to 250 words) to dmalasarn@gmail.com. Tell me if you want a Tiger Mother review or a nice review, and I'll take the first three people in each category. I'll post them up on Monday and Wednesday, and I'll also post up some of my own writing for YOUR Tiger Mother reviews.

Room for Subjectivity?

I spent the weekend in San Diego attending the Art of Photography Show, curated by Natasha Egan (Associate Director and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago). It was great fun, and even more special because my dear friend and occasional Lit Lab commentor, Troy Nethercott, had a piece in the show.

On Sunday morning, Egan gave a talk about how she selected her pieces (111 selections out of over 13,500 entries). What immediately stood out for me was that many of her choices seemed very subjective. She said things like, "As you can see I like photos with fences" or "I like airplanes" or, really, "I think I chose this one because I have a personal connection to A1 steak sauce."

My initial response to this was "Huh?"

I was shocked to hear this curator admit to having picked things simply because she liked them. But, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The Art of Photography Show, like some literary publications I know of, have a new judge each year. If those judges chose their selections based solely on technical merit or some other objective measure* each year's show would risk having a similar feel. Having each judge be subjective made for a new artistic experience each year and, over the long term, probably gives more people a chance to get into the show.

Recently, SmokeLong Quarterly, the journal I work for, transitioned to a rotating editor model as well. Each week, a new person goes through the submissions and picks a story. Whatever they pick gets published. When it was my week, it was a great experience to get to fall in love with a story and decide on it all on my own. It wasn't so much a sense of power I was enjoying, but a sense of freedom. When selections were more democratic, I think often times the safest stories got chosen, those pieces that had a little bit of something for everyone. With only one judge, and a subjective judge at that, an artist who tried something unique has a decent chance of getting rewarded for it.

I used to be weary of people who judged art purely subjectively, but nowadays I think it definitely has its place.

*Okay, perhaps there is never any truly objective measure.

Silence is not criticism

Scott GF Bailey is off vacationing in Oregon this week. As a result, I get to fill in for him, and I do declare open random, even nonsensical comments for today's (and any day's) post.

I went to see the great movie The Kids Are All Right this weekend. (Director Lisa Cholodenko is a resident of the great San Fernando Valley in which I live.) Among the many great insights throughout the movie was the realization that silence is not criticism.

How often have I completely rewritten a story or even scrapped something simply because a reader didn't say anything about it? Too many times. And, I do apologize to those readers for forcing such negative feedback into their intentions.

Let's say it again: Silence is not criticism.

Ahhhh, doesn't that make us all feel just a little bit better?

You Really Aren't the Sherlock Holmes of that Manuscript

I must confess that as a writer, I'm a compulsive editor, and sadly, not only for my own work. If someone hands me their writing and asks me their opinion, I'm usually bleeding red pen all over it as I mutter to myself, "well, that could be better, why did he use that word? why is this character's dialogue so stiff? that's a silly plot point..." and so on. Only later, after I've torn apart the writing, will I go back and find things I like.

I'll bet you do these things, too, or you have at one point. Admit it.

I'm a critic. Everybody's a critic. Most writers are terrible critics. We look at writing, published and unpublished, and wonder why it wasn't written better. We're detectives, see? We're constantly sifting through words to see what's wrong.

Loren Eaton wrote a fabulous post awhile ago titled "In Our Own Image." I liked this post for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I related to it and said to myself, I need to stop! His graphic that went with the post:



That's great, hah.

Anne R. Allen also wrote a post about this subject, titled "Beware the Authority of Ignorance," but in the vein of amateur editors. She wrote her post in answer to a quote shared by Victoria Mixon (Victoria is a professional editor).

"I am never shy about it when a professional is doing the reading. But God save me from amateurs. They don't know what they are reading but it is much more serious than that. They immediately start rewriting. I never knew this to fail. It is invariable. They have the authority of ignorance, something you simply cannot combat." - Steinbeck

I loved what Anne shared in her response post because it struck a chord for how I used to think in college:

An amazing number of people, even decades out of adolescence, still think negativity sounds smart. But it’s good to remember that any Archie Bunker can look at a Picasso and say, “My two-year-old paints better than that!”

I remember making a lot of stupid remarks in my college classes - always negative insights into a work - because, you know, negativity sounds smart.

The truth is, when we find negative things to say about writing, we're usually going for the easy kill. What you should really be looking for are the good things, and like I've heard said before, build your criticism like this:





NOT like this:




The outside bread pieces are the nice things you say. Everything in the middle: negative (even if it's constructive).

We've written a lot of posts on this blog about criticism, and this one is nothing new, but I'd like to point out today that oftentimes when we critique or beta-read or whatever you want to call it, we sometimes fall into the trap of looking for things we would change if it was our own writing, or we focus on line-editing almost every paragraph in a 70,000 word novel (when line-editing is probably the last thing it needs at the moment, especially by me, a non-professional).

Also, one of the best bits of advice I've ever received was that if all you can find are negative things to say about a work, you should probably hand it back over to the author and tell them to find someone more objective to look at it. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with a piece of writing. Most of the time I'm simply measuring it up to some golden standard in my head - a standard that is often unfair and ridiculous.

Ummm, you want to read what?

photo by laura604

Last spring I sent out the 2nd draft of one of my novels to over 30 people. THIRTY PEOPLE. Amazingly enough, 18 of those 30 actually read the entire book and gave me a full critique. Some of those readers, bless their hearts, pretty much line edited all 101,000 words. (It's now down to 71,000).

I remember sitting at my desk with all 18 critiques open on my computer. I tried to find a paper bag as my breaths kept coming shorter and shorter, but nothing was in sight. Instead I closed the critiques as fast as I could and ran outside for some fresh air. What was I thinking!? The more feedback I got, the better? Oh, groan groan groan.

No offense to any of the wonderful, smart, and incredibly helpful readers who read my book last spring, but all that great advice kind of sent me into overload. It took me a few months to decide what I should do. Much of the advice bordered on the major revision side. I finally decided to rewrite the whole book - like, open a new document rewrite the whole book. So I did. Now I'm finished again.

I think one of the most flattering things a person can do is tell you they want to read your book - that they're dying to read your book. Really? My book! Wow, of course you can! Let me polish it up and send it right over.

Then I remember the paper bag.

This is difficult for me to admit because I'm always afraid it will keep people from telling me they're interested in my work - but I'm becoming increasingly more careful about who and when I let others read my work. Is this a bad thing? How do you decide who and when will help you with your work? Do you let people read just for fun, or is it always for a beta-reader type critique?


~MDA (aka Glam)

Pain, Gain, and Avoiding Both

Something I see all the time while surfing writing websites and blogs when I should be working (like right now), is a writer vehemently defending the weaknesses of his work. We are all guilty of that; goodness knows I am. But, as the old saying goes, argue for your weaknesses and, sure enough, they're yours.

What do I mean by "defending weaknesses?" It goes like this:

Writer: Hey, did you guys read my WIP?

Reader1: Yeah. What's up with this Jonas guy? I don't get why he killed that bear.

Writer: He had to. It shows the change in his character.

Reader1: Really? 'Cause it just seemed random and senseless. And you misspelled "grizzly."

Writer: You just didn't get it. Can you read it again?

Reader2: I agree; the bear business made no sense at all. And Jonas didn't change so much as he just did weird stuff all of a sudden.

Reader3: Yeah, why's he suddenly all pissed off and stuff?

Writer: Did you read the book I sent, or someone else's? It's all about his dad, right?

Readers1-3: Huh? His dad's like...the bear? Is this symbolism?

Writer goes on to explain for half an hour what's going on in the book, and when the readers finally understand what he intended, he congratulates himself on having written a fine novel. Time to work on that query letter!

Here's the thing: When a trusted, intelligent, well-read person (or a group of such people) reads something you wrote and can't figure it out, the problem is very likely not with their reading.* The problem is with your writing. This is true for query letters, too. If you have to explain what you mean, then what you have written doesn't mean what you think it does. You will have to rewrite it. Period.

We all resist rewriting. We all resist the idea that what we have already written isn't perfect, isn't the best we can do. But sometimes it's not perfect, or it isn't even close to saying what we think it says. Yes, sometimes readers are lazy or do miss the point, but if you are consistently being told that something makes no sense or isn't well written, you ought to probably prick up your ears at that warning and take a good look at your novel.

Hearing that you've made mistakes or not been clear in your writing is hard. Fixing mistakes, plot holes, poor characterizations, muddled themes, unclear conflicts or weakly defined protagonists is hard work. It's painful. It's time consuming and can be disheartening. But. We have to do it. There are two very important benefits to going back to something and fixing its flaws. First, the book will be better for it. That's the most important thing, right? But the longer-term benefit is that we become better writers when we struggle and suffer and fix our mistakes. Usually, we learn enough to not make that particular mistake ever again, which saves time and effort the next time we sit down to write.

The only thing you gain by defending your weaknesses is the guarantee that you'll have those same weaknesses in the next thing you write. So if you find yourself giving a lengthy defense or explanation of your novel to someone who's read it, stop for a moment and ask yourself if maybe the problem is the novel itself. Be brave and honest about this. If the book needs work, go to work and make it better.

*Unless you're part of the French Symbolist school, in which case your readers aren't supposed to understand it. You lot can stop reading this post right now.

For Your Consideration

One of the most beautiful things I have come to expect from my fellow writers is that almost everyone is considerate. When we disagree, for the most part, we are able to discuss our different views in a reasonable way. We know when to let something go and when to agree to disagree.

There's one considerate message, though, that I think we writers spend too much time on, and I'm wondering if we can get some sort of consensus on it once and for all.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Dear writer,

I read your book and I thought your character, Priscilla Persimmon, was just a wee bit too rude.

Please keep in mind that this is just my opinion, and I could be the stupidest person in the world. Also keep in mind that other people could have a different view of things. Oh, and I hope you don't forget that these opinions of mine are only what I'm feeling on this particular day and time, and they might actually possibly change at some point in my life as I learn more about this craft of writing.

Yours ever so humbly,

Davin

Haven't most of us included this sort of disclaimer at the end of our critiques? We want to make sure that the writer we are reviewing doesn't take our word as law. We want to protect our own reputations in case we accidentally say something stupid. I, for one, spend far too much time making this point when I review someone's work.

Part of this has to do with our trust in the writer...or maybe the lack of it. We personally understand that someone's review is just their opinion, but we don't know if another writer knows that our review is just our opinion. When, in fact, they probably do.

So, here are my questions for you on this lovely Monday morning. Do we really need to include that "this is just my opinion" clause in all of our reviews? Can we, as a group, accept that as a given? Or, maybe, we can come up with some nice acronym that we put at the end of all our reviews that will always and forever represent the idea that our reviews are nothing more than our personal judgments, something we can just include at the bottom of the page.

Dear writer,

Priscilla P. is rude.

IYFAH,

Davin

Don't Let The Little Ones Slip Away

When I first started critiquing, I used to look for things that were wrong: inconsistent character actions, awkward language, bad similes--you name it. I'd also tend to make notes (and happy faces) around what I thought was great: beautiful imagery, lively dialog, perfect endings. The trouble was, there was a lot of writing that didn't fall into either category. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, but I also didn't love it. It was simply "good enough".

But, is good enough good enough?

I've since changed my critiquing style. Nowadays when I review, I try not to let any sentence slip by me, no matter how inconspicuous it tries to be. Lines that are not wrong and not great could probably still be revised. Why? Because no one wants to read a book that's just good enough. We want to be consistently impressed. We want every sentence to be a gem that plays an interesting role in your story.

So, check it out the next time you're reviewing your work or someone else's. See how many sentences fall into the "not bad, not great" category. At some point, everyone here is going to be able to write a competent story. It's not the major elements that will separate the greats from the less-thans. It's the little differences, the seemingly trivial decisions.

~DM

Note: I really wasn't planning to do any self-promotion today, but I just found out that Opium Magazine is doing something incredibly cool. They've printed a nine word short story on the cover of their next issue that will be revealed one word at a time every hundred years over the next millenium! Check it out.

Some Thoughts on Criticism

Criticism: The art of estimating the qualities and character of literary or artistic work.

Critical: Involving or exercising careful judgement or observation; exact, accurate, precise.

Lately I've been critiquing the work of a few friends and also having some short pieces of my own critiqued. Which leads me, quite naturally, to thinking about how best to give (and receive) useful criticism. I'll share my thoughts on criticism and see what everyone thinks.

First, general guidelines for giving criticism:

1. Be honest. Say what you think if you've been asked what you think.
2. Be polite and respectful. Don't phrase your criticism in terms you personally would find offensive. I have been known to be blunt, but I hope I'm not rude; I just try to get to the point.
3. Give praise where praise is due. Too often critique is all negative, even if we really like what we've just read.
4. Remember that the point of this is to improve the story. Be helpful.
5. Thank the writer for sharing his work. Did I mention that you should thank the writer? And don't forget to thank the writer.

Next, my list of questions to ask when critiquing a work:

1. Did you like the story?
2. What do you like?
3. Did you not like the story?
4. What do you not like?
5. Were you bored at any point? When?
6. Were you confused by any of it? When?
7. How did you feel about the characters?
8. Did you want to read until the end, or did you do it just because we're bestest friends?
9. Did the story leave you with any questions?
10. Did the dialog ring true?
11. Was the plot believable?
12. Was the ending a good payoff for the buildup?
13. Did you like the prose? Did the writing appeal to you?
14. Was there any point where the writing knocked you "off the page," out of the story and asking yourself, "What is that supposed to mean?"

You can go into greater detail than this, but in general I don't have time for that (because, you know, real life and stuff takes up time) and I'm more a big-picture guy.

Note that I do not talk about misspellings and things like that. I try to focus on top-down issues, all designed to answer the larger question: Does this story work, as written? If the story is broken, the spelling and grammar are not the main issue. If the story and characters and prose are all otherwise fabulous, then go ahead and say, "Dude, you misspelled 'xenotrophicism.' Twice."

How I read for criticism:

1. Read all the way through once, to get a feel for the story and to see if I can read all the way through it.
2. Ask my questions.
3. Give my feedback to the author, using my guidelines and trying to address only what I think are the biggest issues. There is no point in overwhelming someone.
4. Remember to say what's good/workable in the story.
5. Remember to thank the author for sharing his work.

Also make sure you tell the writer if what they've written isn't the type of stuff you usually read or enjoy. If I know I'm not a good audience for something, I don't offer critique if I can help it, because what I'll have to say will likely be beside the point.

Guidelines for receiving criticism:

1. Thank the critic for their time and thoughts. Even if the feedback is useless, because your reviewer put effort into reading your work. Be polite and respectful. That doesn't mean you must agree with them.
2. Be prepared for the feedback to hurt. No matter how well-meaning the speaker, nobody likes to hear that their child is ugly or has behavioral problems.
3. Take everything with a grain of salt. Any time I give criticism, it's done through the lens of whatever problems I'm having with my own stories, so I can be short-sighted when looking at others' work.
4. Be prepared for epiphanies. I dread those, "Oh, you are so right. I never saw that problem before you pointed it out" moments, because it means I have to do more work. But it also means that the story will be better thanks to someone's observation.
5. Take what you can use, and what makes sense. Don't accept as gospel or as necessary any suggestions that feel wrong to you. There is no platonic version of your story, or of anyone's story, and there is no story that will please or resonate with all readers.
6. Don't argue with your critics. It's pointless and won't help your story.

~SGFB

Honesty in Critiques

Who are the readers you rely on to give you honest critiques?

Are you ever afraid that the world is sugar coating the truth?

I'm a member of an online writers community, and two in-person writer's groups. I also have about a dozen other friends who write and read. Whenever I have the chance, usually only with stories that I consider to be more or less done, I call upon these people to give me feedback. I don't consider myself a literary master--shocking, I know--but I think that in my ten years of writing I have occasionally produced a story that people like. So, when I should happen to stumble upon these more successful pieces, my reviewers will give me compliments and tell me they are ready for me to submit. (Sometimes, of course, there are differences in opinion. My most recent example was when several of my reviewers said a story was ready to go while one said they thought I had Attention Deficit Disorder.) Still, I am much more likely to accept negative criticism than compliments. If someone says they think a story is successful and complete, my first internal thoughts are that A. They think the story is so bad they want me to give up on it, B. They liked it, but they didn't REALLY like it, or C. I'm so horrible that even though they hate this, they think it is the best thing I've ever produced. If someone is critical, only then will I accept that they are being totally honest with me. I realize this is wrong and sort of insane. On the other hand, I tell myself that there is something good about being skeptical and hard on myself, and I hope I'm right.

When I finished my novel in mid-January the first thing I did was call upon my people to read it and tell me what they think. Those kind souls were willing to read the entire book and give me thorough critiques on them. So far, I've gotten three reviews on the whole book and about a dozen reviews on the first fifty pages. People are suggesting small changes in wording, and they are catching a handful of typos. But, overall, they are agreeing with me that this thing is done. So, what do I do? I feel flattered for about a minute, and then I call them liars. I ask them more questions. I make them rank my book against Anna Karenina and Water For Elephants and The Road and Me and Orson Welles. I make them rank me as a person against Jhumpa Lahiri and Michael Chabon and Jonathan Safran Foer. I basically pester them until they get so fed up with me that they ignore my emails or tell me to go to bed. Thankfully, they are friends, so this anger is only temporary.

For the record, should any of them read these blog posts, I do sincerely thank them all for their time and effort and I'm sorry for being so paranoid.

In the end, I think it is up to the writer do decide when a story is done and whether or not it is good. One of my best stories, in my opinion, wasn't liked by any of my reviewers when I wrote it a few years ago. I ended up getting that one pubished in, Rosebud, my most prestigious journal at the time. The reviews I get end up being valuable whether they are complimentary or not because they help me see my book in a clearer way, which gives me the insight to revise it or not.