Critiques II

I decided to answer your comments in a new post, since some of my responses are lengthy. You’ve given me a lot to think about and helped me reconsider my feelings about critiques. Even though I disagree with some points, as they relate to my writing at this time, you all shared wisdom that deserves attention.

Eric wrote —

“I have taken criticism, however, from editors, after an article or story or book has been sold. That sort of criticism I can handle because the editor has already said that he or she likes the writing by buying it and is only aiming to make it better.”

Yes, the best critic is the one willing to pay for someone’s writing, and who knows their audience the best.

One reason critiques of my technical writing didn’t bother me was payment. I got paid for every minute of the time I spent, before and after the critiques. It’s not that I must make a living at fiction to survive, but there’s no threat in a critique if you know your work isn’t all for nothing and you’ll still get paid. The unpaid critique poses a challenge with no promise of success, whether you follow the suggestions or not. I’ve invested a lot of my life in this work already. If I must use my judgment to pick and choose which suggestions to follow, and still have no guarantee of a sale, then why not use my own best judgment to begin with, without the bother of a critique?

“As for the other critiques — aside from my other misgivings, I would, as you say, be confused. Everyone has their own way of doing things.”

That is the source of some of my confusion. Other writers sometimes project how they would write the story. I do the same when I critique, at least inside my head. But other writers shouldn’t write their stories to fit my vision, and when I seek a critique, I’m not looking for ideas. I already have more ideas than I can use. I want to know what’s working and what isn’t. It’s difficult, in a critique, to separate what doesn’t work from what merely doesn’t work for that critique-giver, or in that incomplete excerpt of a novel. So, again, I wind up using my own judgment.

Judy B — You made very good points, and still I’m afraid I find myself disagreeing with a lot of what you said, as it applies to where I am with my writing. They’re worthy thoughts nonetheless for any aspiring writer to heed.

“Maybe if you think of your writing as a vessel for your self/heart/soul/emotions, rather than actually yourself, you will approach critiques differently.”

But aren’t my self/heart/soul/emotions all me? I think I see where you’re going with that, but it does nothing to control my emotions regarding the time and energy I’ve put in as a writer, and the fact that it is in essence wasted if it finds no audience besides fellow writers critiquing my work. They’re not who I write for. I think a certain amount of my emotional response to critiques these days is frustration, rather than any sense of being wounded by criticism. What good does this do, after a point?

“Actors and dancers can actually say they are their art—their bodies are the medium of the work—but the rest of us employ some physical object as a conveyance of our expressions. And I think we can all take a lesson from actors, dancers, and visual artists and musicians in both giving and accepting criticism.”

Funny, I started out wanting to imagine an example applying the critique process to a painter in the midst of creating a painting, which, I think, would be tantamount to creative suicide. But they really aren’t the same things.

I also think I am my art. It’s an extension of me. I have no problem with the criticism that takes place in formal training, workshops, formal editing, or reviews of published work, because I want my work to be its best. Once actors and dancers finish their formal training they either get work or, eventually, find something else to do. I suspect that when a writer has been working at improving for a long time, but the work isn’t selling, it’s just not marketable. No amount of critiquing will save it. Writers sometimes beat our dead horses to a pulp and don’t know when to move on.

“The goal of criticism should be to make the work stronger, not to weaken the artist. Strong writing communicates. Weak writing draws attention to itself.”

I agree, and good critiques point out the strengths in the work as well as suggest fixes for weaknesses. I’ve had some terrific critiques in the past that did exactly that. I’m not knocking critiques, as a whole, but questioning their usefulness in the continued writing process. They have their place, but I don’t think that’s necessarily as a permanent fixture in a writer’s process — at least not in mine.

“To return to the theater remark, a director is constantly critiquing her actors—telling them when a tone of voice, a gesture, a look, is untrue to the character or misrepresents the intention of the story.”

Once a director is involved, the actor is employed. How does having my manuscript critiqued by another unpublished novelist equate to that? I’m better off submitting to contests. By the way, the most helpful and insightful critique I ever received was from a judge in a contest, and I don’t mind an editor who buys my work critiquing it. I’ll welcome that.

“I think because the act of writing is solitary, we are removed from the kind of critique that is an inherent component of creating performance art.”

Are we, if we educate ourselves and keep learning, if those early critiques teach us how to critique our own work, and if we listen to editors who buy our work? I think for some of us the beauty in writing is that it’s solitary. I know that’s a strong draw for me.

“But we do ourselves—and our readers—a favor by learning to accept and give thoughtful criticism. We make the work stronger and the experience of the work more enjoyable.”

I agree that the critique process, early on, helps us learn to be better judges of our work. But we get that in any good creative writing workshop or continuing education program in writing. A thorough critique of a novel is time-consuming, though. There’s a point beyond which we need to work on our own, or with the editors who pick up our work. For minor occasional errors, typos, and unclear passages, a careful proofreading or copy edit of the finished manuscript prior to submission, preferably by another pair of eyes than the writer’s, is more valuable than a critique from a peer.

Susan —

“Yes, you need feedback and so must develop a crusty shell–if nothing else, it will prepare you for the publishing world.”

The secret I’m discovering is that you don’t have to develop a crusty shell, that it isn’t even desirable. The best stories exhibit sensitivity to what people feel and experience, and that takes a thin skin in a writer, in fact a lot of empathy and honesty about one’s own feelings. A healthy amount of perfectionism is also necessary in order to become a better writer, and that’s part of what’s involved in our bad reactions to critiques. We want to be better writers and not make errors. If we didn’t want that, we wouldn’t care about critiques. If we let ourselves get too crusty, we’re in danger of becoming hacks. Remaining just unsure enough of myself that I take another critical look — and another — instead of sending too early a draft off is a good thing, if I don’t carry it so far that I never finish anything.

“Many workshopping groups like to rewrite your story as they want to see it. These you consider and if it doesn’t suit your plot, scrap. Others are nitpicky about what they’ve learned in writing classes and taken as written in stone, i.e., action in the opening page, conflict, immediate plot, etc. They’re used to writing what they’ve been reading and mimicking that style as the sacred rule. These too, you forget about.”

I’ve had similar experiences. When I factor in the number of really good suggestions or caught mistakes in recent years, they don’t justify the time involved.

Here’s the clincher for me: There were many times in my group when someone read something that was so good I thought they should be submitting it rather than reading it to us. A good half of the members were good enough writers that, looking back, I don’t think they needed a group. They needed to write and submit, and let an editor help them polish and tweak. Why were they there? Had they submitted and been rejected? If so, that was likely due to reasons other than the quality of their writing. I’m not such a prolific writer that I have that kind of time to spare, and I’m not exactly a kid anymore.

“So my suggestion is to get involved with either a good group or just a few friends that enjoy reading, some preferably wise about the ways of writing, and this will serve the purpose of general audience appeal as well as professional input.”

Good points. I would add, if after serious education or self-education one feels the need for a group at all.

Time is a big factor for me with critique groups. I belonged to a good group during the early stages of this book, met some great local writers, and got helpful critiques. I don’t regret any of that. But I had the story critiqued too early, and those critiques have been rendered almost useless by subsequent revisions. We provided a lot of help to members with short stories, but when I did the math I realized none of us would get an entire novel critiqued quickly enough to suit me. I’ve heard of groups that work better for novelists, by taking a different approach, reading entire manuscripts on members’ own time and only discussing them in meetings. But it’s still a big investment of time, and it’s tricky to get just the right mix of people together.

There were other problems. Sometimes the comments I received would’ve stripped my story of its conflict, which led me to think some members didn’t understand conflict. The varying degrees of knowledge in a group can be problematic, and that would’ve been a great opportunity to just talk for a while about conflict, but it wasn’t part of our set process, and we were always strapped for time. Because we only covered one chapter at a time, the others couldn’t always see the value in foreshadowing or other elements that would become more important later in the story. A novel needs a novel-length critique. Chapter-by-chapter critiques don’t help evaluate a novel as a whole, and sometimes don’t help at all in the early drafts.

Groups seem to be the latest big thing these days, for writers, and I suspect the big push toward getting critiques and joining groups comes as a result of the beginners who decide to write novels on whims, and don’t bother to learn craft or even read other novels. Read enough of their work as an editor or agent, and you’ll want to urge any writer who might submit to you to improve their skills. The POD self-publishing phenomenon has increased this a thousand-fold. I’m sure that beginning writers do benefit from workshops and critique groups, because I did. Every creative writing class or workshop I ever took involved some form of critique, for a good reason. But I also benefited from studying story structure and other elements of fiction on my own, from reading a lot of fiction, and especially from writing a lot. Once we’ve learned the basics and our writing has matured, most writers work best alone, without a lot of outside voices pressing for our attention.

Mind you, I don’t go completely without a review of my work. I know from my years in technical writing that another pair of eyes is necessary to get a manuscript ready to submit. I have someone who does basic checking for errors and typos, as well as conflict, suspense, pace, and passages that aren’t clear. He does this from the perspective of an interested party who isn’t a fiction writer. He’s nit-picky, and not afraid to point out problems. But that’s it, for now, until someone buys the story or an agent chooses to represent it.

Again, I want to thank you all for your comments, because you’ve helped me think this through and sort out my feelings about critiques.

On a lighter note, I often wish form rejections at least offered hope where hope was warranted, and perhaps discouraged the utterly hopeless — put them out of their misery once and for all so they could take up speed walking or jelly making, or something else productive. So I’ve written my own form. (It’s a joke, so please, no comments about me being cruel.)

Dear editor, if you decide against publishing my work and don’t have time to explain why, please check one of the following and return it in my SASE:

1. Wow. You almost got in, but I only have so much time, so consider this a detailed rejection without the details, and I hope you try us again.

2. I almost wrote a detailed rejection, but your work wasn’t quite that good. Join a good workshop and keep learning, because you’re a young voice worth nurturing — that is, if you’re young, or a beginner. If you’ve been at this for twenty years and still write this way, then you need to get a new hobby, or new form of personal torture, or whatever you prefer to call it.

3. Maybe you should keep writing. Just don’t send your work here. We publish science fiction, not romance, no matter how much weird science is involved, and I’m not sure that contaminated birth control pills resulting in multiple births of space-alien love children qualifies as science. Check our guidelines. If you make this stupid mistake again, we will charge you for the time it takes us to tear open your submission and toss it in the can along with your SASE. By the way, my name is spelled Smythie, not Smythe. You should at least bother to spell my peculiar name correctly, even though you’ve never met me and submit to hundreds of editors a year. How dare you. I mean really. And I’m the short story editor, not the novel excerpt editor. You should know that, even though we switch jobs regularly and forget to update the website. Idiot!

4. Don’t quit your day job, ever. Seriously, maybe someone should confiscate your computer. Please do the publishing world a favor and find a new hobby, or sadistic method of torturing hapless editors, or whatever you prefer to call it.

Maybe I got carried away.

In closing, I know there are rank beginners who muddy the slush piles with amateur work. Too many, obviously, if we now need to have agents submit for us in order to get past the slush piles at publishing houses. Meanwhile some good unpublished writers are perfectionists who haven’t gotten enough of the positive attention they deserve for their work, so they don’t think their work is good enough yet, so they’re stuck in critique groups needlessly going over their work again and again. Maybe, and this is a scary thought, maybe there are too many writers in ratio to readers. Maybe that’s because the big publishing houses are putting too much of their money into a few guaranteed bestsellers instead of taking more risks and backing more fresh voices.

Novelists are taking a lot of risks. We can’t deduct our biggest expense — unpaid time — years of it. Eric mentioned in his blog the other day that most fiction writers would jump at minimum wage pay. It’s true. Maybe reading is falling off because readers walk into a chain store and see a wall packed with hundreds of copies of the same hit title and think there’s nothing else to read, so they go to the movies, watch TV, or play a video game instead. All those book-a-year and two-book-a-year contracts have authors pumping out work, but perhaps not the work they feel most passionate about.

Hype numbs the consumer, and hyper-productivity numbs the writer. Maybe that’s what’s happening in the world of books.