1. EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT: Those who have an emotional investment in their writing tend not to have a favorable response to any criticism of their writing. More often than not they view their particular piece of writing as something that is just as sacrosanct as a member of their immediate family and as something that is simply beyond any kind of constructive criticism whatsoever. One should no more think of criticizing a person’s family members than one should think of criticizing a sensitive, emotionally-invested person’s writing.
To a certain extent having an emotional investment in one’s writing is important thing. Without such an investment the writer would have a problem marshaling the kind of necessary ego to make his writing worthwhile. However, to place oneself wholly beyond criticism emotionally makes it very difficult for that kind of person to ever improve his writing skills. A key requirement for a person to improve his writing skills must include some openness to modest suggestions to improve that writing. When that is not the case, i.e., when the person stubbornly clings to the writing as it stands, then there is no possibility of making improvements to that writing. That is not to say that there cannot be times when one’s writing is satisfactory to oneself and beyond effective criticism. To be sure, not all criticism is useful or needed in every case. At times criticism can actually get in the way, and can be quite harmful.
Writers sometimes invite criticism of their work, and they do so to elicit some response to their work, but without necessarily inviting criticism per se. What they really want, more often than not, is a favorable and complementary response to their writing and not some constructive criticism that seeks to improve that writing. It is often difficult for a critic to tell the difference between a writer seeking to have his ego salved and a writer seeking genuine criticism of his work. It is often not useful for a person to take a writer’s word at face value when that person invites criticism of his work. More often than not, the writer is simply seeking complements from a trusted or revered person. The difficulty, as I see it then, is to tell the difference between the sycophant and the true writing student.
It would appear to me then, that the critic’s first task is to determine whether he is dealing with an egoist or a learner. And often that is no mean task. Sometimes he can simply ask the writer precisely what he wants from a critique. But the response is often unreliable: the person may say he wants a critique that is helpful in pointing out inadequacies in his writing, when he actually wants and expects a compliment from the critic. How to tell the difference?
The critic could tell him that he intends to criticize his work and that he will do so quite brutally and honestly. Moreover, the critic could tell him that he takes the writer’s word at face value when he asked for frank criticism. Thus, the critic must make it known that he intends to criticized the writers works and will not praise them heedlessly. It may be necessary for the critic to ask the writer quite directly whether he wants a compliment or if he wants constructive criticism. And, finally, the writer must agree to accept the criticism at face value and not see it as malicious or harmful or hurtful. If the writer agrees to accept the critic’s criticism, then the critic must proceed tentatively in case the writer misrepresents his position.
From my own personal experience I would say the critic’s best mode of operation is to simply refuse to criticize another person’s writing. It is actually much safer that way. The cordiality that existed between the critic and his writer is often maintained in that silence. The surest, the easiest way to lose a writer friend is to tell him many ways that he is not a good writer. Pointing out problematic writing is an ego-destroying operation for the person who wrote the work. And it is often difficult and thankless work for the critic as well.
2. LEARNING: I do believe that writers are born with a certain innate leaning, or perhaps one should say, a proclivity towards writing. There are others who lack this gift, and no amount of training whatsoever would seem to overcome that deficiency: such persons are doomed to an inarticulate and nonverbal life. The others - those gifted with being writers - possess only that proclivity and do not possess the accomplished skills of a fine writer. Instead, those skills, must be developed as a craft. One is not born a writer. One is born with the tendency to become a writer. But the transition from raw proclivity to settled artistic skill is one that is fraught with difficulty and struggle. One does not wake up one morning to discover that he has become a writer while he slept at night. Instead, the person must invest a great deal of effort and time to become such a writer.
Emotional investment in one’s writing, then, would seem to serve as an insurmountable barrier to ever improving one’s writing. The writer’s first steps are taken with an awareness that he is not a god who produces consistently perfect work every day. There must be an openness to learning on an ongoing basis. The writer never ever achieves a style that is perfect and inclusive and beyond reproach. Always and ever, the writer’s skills can be improved to some extent. Yet there are many writers who dig in their heels and refuse to accept any suggestions for change because of that emotional investment in their writing. In some rare and happy cases, there are writers sufficiently skilled that their reluctance to have anyone criticize and change their writing is actually a well-placed attitude. Such writers are exceedingly rare, however. One can safely say that the balance of the writers that one encounters are either completely invested in their work and will not allow criticism; or more happily, they are open to suggestion and actively seek it in order to improve their writing. The problem for the critic is knowing the difference.
3. THE SIREN SONG: It is into such a context that a would-be critic often finds himself. Frequently he is asked to act as an editor or to criticize another person’s piece of writing, and in his innocence, he sails directly at the Lorelei when he takes the bait. Such persons do not want criticism when they ask for it. They really want a pat on the back. They want their work praised to the heavens even when the work is mediocre and unsatisfactory. They do not want their work subjected to a rigorous examination, nor do they wish to have their work ravaged by the critic who complains at their work isn’t like something he would do. For, in effect, all critics complain that a piece of writing is either 1), not like their own or 2), not like the writing of some other accomplished writer. The perceptive reader will see that both of these criticisms are really non sequiturs: to say that a piece of writing isn’t like mine or like that person’s is over there is really quite beyond the point. Of course it isn’t like mine or his - it’s like the person’s writing who wrote it. Nonetheless, the critic will crash into this rock, amid stream, like a sailor in a fog. A critic’s most responsive answer when asked to criticize should always be an inquiry about whether the writer seeking that criticism is able to bear it. The first question a critic should always ask is this: “Do you want a pat on the back, or you do you really want to know what I think about your writing.”
4. CRITICISM WITH UNDERSTANDING: I know that it might not make sense to you to hear me say that you shouldn’t listen to your critics when they say that they think your [name of story here] is something for old ladies. The hardest thing that you can do as a writer is to close your ears to criticism. Yet, it is something you have to do. And I say that because, at the end of the day, all criticism complains that your writing isn’t like “this writing over here” or like “my writing,” or like the writing of “Miss Big Britches Best-Seller Over There.” You thought it was more complicated than that, didn’t you? But it isn’t. The critics can help you only in so far as they point out the mechanical errors in your writing: spelling, grammar, etc. But when they get into your motivation for telling a story, they’re really bursting into the bathroom while you’re sitting on the toilet: They’re being rude and uncivilized.
You need to tell them that, 1) you’ve created something (your story) that didn’t exist before, 2) that you’ve created this story to understand yourself and your existence, 3) that you’ve made a creative thing for which you were paid, and 4) you need to tell them all to shut the hell up.
Now, they aren’t going to understand any of that. People who do not write cannot understand the demon that chases writers through the woods. They could lie on a beach for a week, watching the waves lapping the shore, and never give it a second thought. But you and I would be searching for a pencil and notebook after 20 minutes to tell ourselves how those waves lapped the shore. We make sense of the world through the medium of words. And that’s a wholly private thing. Making sense of the world for you is your business and not the business of others who do not have your vested interest in the outcome of that sense-making enterprise. That is why almost all criticism is so off the mark: it complains that your attempt to understand the world is not like someone else’s attempt to understand the world. How dumb is that? It’s yours; it isn’t supposed to be like someone else’s stuff.
5. KEEPING OUR OWN STUFF: Let me stick my neck out here, if you don’t mind, and make several points about writing - our writing and their writing.
First: At some point, when the critics have ravaged our writing because it doesn’t meet their expectations for clarity, or readability, or cadence, or whatever, we will be forced to say that what we have created is ours, and that we will not surrender any more to their strident demands. At some point we will no longer be willing to turn our honest efforts into mere journalism in order to satisfy some juvenile standard of readability. Appropriately then, there comes a point when it becomes impossible for us to continue pruning our work so that it can join in with their mindless, fifth-grade topiaries. At the end of the day, our work is our work, and not theirs.
Second: We understand, further, that our obstinacy and unwillingness to modify what we have written could have very real commercial implications. Still, there are things that we may have written that have what I call idiosyncratic value. These works may not be well-written; they may lack readability, or clarity, or cadence; they may contain words that some will find bizarre or incomprehensible or offensive. But they are ours, and they may be so personal, so personally intimate, that they cannot be shared with the world. Think of your personal journal. Would you change it so that it read like the New York Times? Would you post your entire journal on the Internet? I didn’t think so.
Third: We are aware that there are many, very practical, things that we can do to improve our writing. Often we can improve readability, for example, simply by replacing commas with periods, i.e., breaking long sentences into short, readable sentences. Some word processing programs can count word-length, average sentence-length, and maximum sentence-length, and those programs can be helpful in assessing the “fogginess” of our writing. As an aside, I remember how I was once attracted to the Lorelei of a comma-obsessed short story writer, and how I emulated his long and rambling sentences, and how I wrecked on the jagged rocks of incomprehensibility. And I still do it, to my everlasting shame (see the preceding sentence if you don’t believe me). Yet, improving our writing is something that we discover that we must do to be better writers, and not something that others do for us. As we study and seek to improve our craft, we make the necessary changes. If we allow others to dictate those changes, we will seldom internalize the rationale for making the changes in the first place. The moral of the story: We do the changing; not them.
Fourth: You might have explored around the Internet looking for a writers’ forum. You may even be a member of such a group. But eventually almost all writing forum members become disenchanted with the forum for one reason or another, and go on to other, more productive, ventures. I was a member of www.mywriterscircle.com for some time. I enjoyed the chit-chat, and actually posted a few things there. Then a funny thing happened. Some members went on vacation (only they might have called it a “holiday”) and others became busy with personal concerns in their lives and went silent for a time. And then the crazies swooped in and hijacked the site. It was then that I dropped out. I couldn’t tell you what is happening with that site today. I check back in from time to time, and I’ve noticed that some familiar names are still there. But many new members - all it seems with chimera-bearing names, such as dragon, witch, wizard, wolf, unicorn, etc. - have arrived to spread their form of silliness on the site. Perhaps all writing forums undergo such a transformation over a period of time. At any given moment a particular group may interact well with its members, to the enjoyment of those participating in that group. But it seems that small things (vacations, etc.) upset the equilibrium and destroy the cohesiveness of the group. And then the members drop out. I found that many secularists (one is tempted to say, satanists) suddenly appeared on the site and started their wearisome antichrist stuff. So I exited in disgust. MyWritersCircle shows a great many members on its roster. Yet, the number of very active and participating members may be as few as 50 members. You may benefit as a writer from an interaction with some of those people. But the balance of them will waste your time. And that is the real danger of any writing forum: it may degenerate into mere gossip and destroy your opportunities to become a more effective writer because it will rob you of the time necessary to write more serious stuff. If you like fluff, there’s much to occupy your time there, however. One posting about limericks, for example, has attracted almost 30,000 views! I’d give it a look if I were you. I’d even participate for a time. But honestly, then I’d go on to better things.
To a certain extent having an emotional investment in one’s writing is important thing. Without such an investment the writer would have a problem marshaling the kind of necessary ego to make his writing worthwhile. However, to place oneself wholly beyond criticism emotionally makes it very difficult for that kind of person to ever improve his writing skills. A key requirement for a person to improve his writing skills must include some openness to modest suggestions to improve that writing. When that is not the case, i.e., when the person stubbornly clings to the writing as it stands, then there is no possibility of making improvements to that writing. That is not to say that there cannot be times when one’s writing is satisfactory to oneself and beyond effective criticism. To be sure, not all criticism is useful or needed in every case. At times criticism can actually get in the way, and can be quite harmful.
Writers sometimes invite criticism of their work, and they do so to elicit some response to their work, but without necessarily inviting criticism per se. What they really want, more often than not, is a favorable and complementary response to their writing and not some constructive criticism that seeks to improve that writing. It is often difficult for a critic to tell the difference between a writer seeking to have his ego salved and a writer seeking genuine criticism of his work. It is often not useful for a person to take a writer’s word at face value when that person invites criticism of his work. More often than not, the writer is simply seeking complements from a trusted or revered person. The difficulty, as I see it then, is to tell the difference between the sycophant and the true writing student.
It would appear to me then, that the critic’s first task is to determine whether he is dealing with an egoist or a learner. And often that is no mean task. Sometimes he can simply ask the writer precisely what he wants from a critique. But the response is often unreliable: the person may say he wants a critique that is helpful in pointing out inadequacies in his writing, when he actually wants and expects a compliment from the critic. How to tell the difference?
The critic could tell him that he intends to criticize his work and that he will do so quite brutally and honestly. Moreover, the critic could tell him that he takes the writer’s word at face value when he asked for frank criticism. Thus, the critic must make it known that he intends to criticized the writers works and will not praise them heedlessly. It may be necessary for the critic to ask the writer quite directly whether he wants a compliment or if he wants constructive criticism. And, finally, the writer must agree to accept the criticism at face value and not see it as malicious or harmful or hurtful. If the writer agrees to accept the critic’s criticism, then the critic must proceed tentatively in case the writer misrepresents his position.
From my own personal experience I would say the critic’s best mode of operation is to simply refuse to criticize another person’s writing. It is actually much safer that way. The cordiality that existed between the critic and his writer is often maintained in that silence. The surest, the easiest way to lose a writer friend is to tell him many ways that he is not a good writer. Pointing out problematic writing is an ego-destroying operation for the person who wrote the work. And it is often difficult and thankless work for the critic as well.
2. LEARNING: I do believe that writers are born with a certain innate leaning, or perhaps one should say, a proclivity towards writing. There are others who lack this gift, and no amount of training whatsoever would seem to overcome that deficiency: such persons are doomed to an inarticulate and nonverbal life. The others - those gifted with being writers - possess only that proclivity and do not possess the accomplished skills of a fine writer. Instead, those skills, must be developed as a craft. One is not born a writer. One is born with the tendency to become a writer. But the transition from raw proclivity to settled artistic skill is one that is fraught with difficulty and struggle. One does not wake up one morning to discover that he has become a writer while he slept at night. Instead, the person must invest a great deal of effort and time to become such a writer.
Emotional investment in one’s writing, then, would seem to serve as an insurmountable barrier to ever improving one’s writing. The writer’s first steps are taken with an awareness that he is not a god who produces consistently perfect work every day. There must be an openness to learning on an ongoing basis. The writer never ever achieves a style that is perfect and inclusive and beyond reproach. Always and ever, the writer’s skills can be improved to some extent. Yet there are many writers who dig in their heels and refuse to accept any suggestions for change because of that emotional investment in their writing. In some rare and happy cases, there are writers sufficiently skilled that their reluctance to have anyone criticize and change their writing is actually a well-placed attitude. Such writers are exceedingly rare, however. One can safely say that the balance of the writers that one encounters are either completely invested in their work and will not allow criticism; or more happily, they are open to suggestion and actively seek it in order to improve their writing. The problem for the critic is knowing the difference.
3. THE SIREN SONG: It is into such a context that a would-be critic often finds himself. Frequently he is asked to act as an editor or to criticize another person’s piece of writing, and in his innocence, he sails directly at the Lorelei when he takes the bait. Such persons do not want criticism when they ask for it. They really want a pat on the back. They want their work praised to the heavens even when the work is mediocre and unsatisfactory. They do not want their work subjected to a rigorous examination, nor do they wish to have their work ravaged by the critic who complains at their work isn’t like something he would do. For, in effect, all critics complain that a piece of writing is either 1), not like their own or 2), not like the writing of some other accomplished writer. The perceptive reader will see that both of these criticisms are really non sequiturs: to say that a piece of writing isn’t like mine or like that person’s is over there is really quite beyond the point. Of course it isn’t like mine or his - it’s like the person’s writing who wrote it. Nonetheless, the critic will crash into this rock, amid stream, like a sailor in a fog. A critic’s most responsive answer when asked to criticize should always be an inquiry about whether the writer seeking that criticism is able to bear it. The first question a critic should always ask is this: “Do you want a pat on the back, or you do you really want to know what I think about your writing.”
4. CRITICISM WITH UNDERSTANDING: I know that it might not make sense to you to hear me say that you shouldn’t listen to your critics when they say that they think your [name of story here] is something for old ladies. The hardest thing that you can do as a writer is to close your ears to criticism. Yet, it is something you have to do. And I say that because, at the end of the day, all criticism complains that your writing isn’t like “this writing over here” or like “my writing,” or like the writing of “Miss Big Britches Best-Seller Over There.” You thought it was more complicated than that, didn’t you? But it isn’t. The critics can help you only in so far as they point out the mechanical errors in your writing: spelling, grammar, etc. But when they get into your motivation for telling a story, they’re really bursting into the bathroom while you’re sitting on the toilet: They’re being rude and uncivilized.
You need to tell them that, 1) you’ve created something (your story) that didn’t exist before, 2) that you’ve created this story to understand yourself and your existence, 3) that you’ve made a creative thing for which you were paid, and 4) you need to tell them all to shut the hell up.
Now, they aren’t going to understand any of that. People who do not write cannot understand the demon that chases writers through the woods. They could lie on a beach for a week, watching the waves lapping the shore, and never give it a second thought. But you and I would be searching for a pencil and notebook after 20 minutes to tell ourselves how those waves lapped the shore. We make sense of the world through the medium of words. And that’s a wholly private thing. Making sense of the world for you is your business and not the business of others who do not have your vested interest in the outcome of that sense-making enterprise. That is why almost all criticism is so off the mark: it complains that your attempt to understand the world is not like someone else’s attempt to understand the world. How dumb is that? It’s yours; it isn’t supposed to be like someone else’s stuff.
5. KEEPING OUR OWN STUFF: Let me stick my neck out here, if you don’t mind, and make several points about writing - our writing and their writing.
First: At some point, when the critics have ravaged our writing because it doesn’t meet their expectations for clarity, or readability, or cadence, or whatever, we will be forced to say that what we have created is ours, and that we will not surrender any more to their strident demands. At some point we will no longer be willing to turn our honest efforts into mere journalism in order to satisfy some juvenile standard of readability. Appropriately then, there comes a point when it becomes impossible for us to continue pruning our work so that it can join in with their mindless, fifth-grade topiaries. At the end of the day, our work is our work, and not theirs.
Second: We understand, further, that our obstinacy and unwillingness to modify what we have written could have very real commercial implications. Still, there are things that we may have written that have what I call idiosyncratic value. These works may not be well-written; they may lack readability, or clarity, or cadence; they may contain words that some will find bizarre or incomprehensible or offensive. But they are ours, and they may be so personal, so personally intimate, that they cannot be shared with the world. Think of your personal journal. Would you change it so that it read like the New York Times? Would you post your entire journal on the Internet? I didn’t think so.
Third: We are aware that there are many, very practical, things that we can do to improve our writing. Often we can improve readability, for example, simply by replacing commas with periods, i.e., breaking long sentences into short, readable sentences. Some word processing programs can count word-length, average sentence-length, and maximum sentence-length, and those programs can be helpful in assessing the “fogginess” of our writing. As an aside, I remember how I was once attracted to the Lorelei of a comma-obsessed short story writer, and how I emulated his long and rambling sentences, and how I wrecked on the jagged rocks of incomprehensibility. And I still do it, to my everlasting shame (see the preceding sentence if you don’t believe me). Yet, improving our writing is something that we discover that we must do to be better writers, and not something that others do for us. As we study and seek to improve our craft, we make the necessary changes. If we allow others to dictate those changes, we will seldom internalize the rationale for making the changes in the first place. The moral of the story: We do the changing; not them.
Fourth: You might have explored around the Internet looking for a writers’ forum. You may even be a member of such a group. But eventually almost all writing forum members become disenchanted with the forum for one reason or another, and go on to other, more productive, ventures. I was a member of www.mywriterscircle.com for some time. I enjoyed the chit-chat, and actually posted a few things there. Then a funny thing happened. Some members went on vacation (only they might have called it a “holiday”) and others became busy with personal concerns in their lives and went silent for a time. And then the crazies swooped in and hijacked the site. It was then that I dropped out. I couldn’t tell you what is happening with that site today. I check back in from time to time, and I’ve noticed that some familiar names are still there. But many new members - all it seems with chimera-bearing names, such as dragon, witch, wizard, wolf, unicorn, etc. - have arrived to spread their form of silliness on the site. Perhaps all writing forums undergo such a transformation over a period of time. At any given moment a particular group may interact well with its members, to the enjoyment of those participating in that group. But it seems that small things (vacations, etc.) upset the equilibrium and destroy the cohesiveness of the group. And then the members drop out. I found that many secularists (one is tempted to say, satanists) suddenly appeared on the site and started their wearisome antichrist stuff. So I exited in disgust. MyWritersCircle shows a great many members on its roster. Yet, the number of very active and participating members may be as few as 50 members. You may benefit as a writer from an interaction with some of those people. But the balance of them will waste your time. And that is the real danger of any writing forum: it may degenerate into mere gossip and destroy your opportunities to become a more effective writer because it will rob you of the time necessary to write more serious stuff. If you like fluff, there’s much to occupy your time there, however. One posting about limericks, for example, has attracted almost 30,000 views! I’d give it a look if I were you. I’d even participate for a time. But honestly, then I’d go on to better things.
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