Because science into life doesn't go

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The Paradoxical Critiquer

Being an aspiring writer, hanging-out, cyberspacially-speaking, with other green-fingered wordsmiths, I come across a lot of crap writing.

And not just from my own fingers!

Sometimes it has been known for other aspiring writers to commit heinous crimes against the craft of story. Laboured beginnings, nonsensical middles, unexpected, but not satisfyingly unexpected, endings. Terrible punctuation, cliched characters, incorrect formatting. Protagonists who are whores to the plot. Protagonists who aren't part of the plot. Bad science. Awkward pacing. Dialogue from Victorian England when the setting is downtown Tokyo. Adverbs! And the list goes on.

What you swiftly realise is that this writing lark, this incredibly simple process of placing one word after another (and all the words are in the dictionary! as Mark Twain famously said), is anything but simple. Danger lurks on every page, in every paragraph, in every bleedin' line and word! Being aware of the utter hardness of good writing is enough to make most potential writers mutter, somewhat self-deceptively, 'Oh, I'll write that book/scene/paragraph tomorrow/next week/when I retire'.

However, all this difficulty is all well and good, and as it should be. The journey is as important as the destination, and boy, learning to write is some journey! And I speak from the foothills of the craft. So, seeing bad writing, from myself and others, doesn't make me angry or depressed (well, only sometimes), as it makes some. No, it makes me inspired knowing people are making a crack at something very difficult.

What does make me wonder though is how much bad writing doesn't get flagged as bad writing by other aspiring writers. From some of the critiquing circles I've been involved in, I've often been astounded to find that writing, that by many standards can objectively be considered poor, is heralded as a great shining example of good fiction.

I know some people don't take criticism well, and the standard line is that all feedback should be presented in an amiable way....but....sometimes a spade should be called a spade. If a person is serious about writing, they should encourage feedback on the areas of their writing that are rough. And critiquers should make the main focus of their critique what doesn't work for them. Of course, highlighting good practice is important to let writers know where their strengths are, but highlighting bad practice is so much more valuable.

I have a couple of theories about overpraising critiques.

1. Critiquers aren't reading the stories as readers.

Reading and writing are completely different skills. As many critiquers also write, they often bring their writing-head to the table when they read. Unconsciously, or perhaps even consciously, they read the story thinking how they would write it---and since they aren't great writers they might find a lot of agreement in the choices. What I've learnt is that critiques come in two parts. Response and advice. Reader response is something everyone can give, and is by definition, always true. Reader advice is a whole other kettle of fish....be wary!

2. Critiquers aren't well read.

I get the feeling many aspiring writers have a style, an author, or a sub-genre they want to imitate. In their reading they've not pushed themselves to discover stuff outside their comfort zone. That's their prerogative. However, without an awareness of how good literature can be, and what makes it good, they will never be able to put it into their own work, or see it in others work. This is something I have direct experience of---I'm not a voracious reader. I average about thirty books a year, plus short fiction---and can honestly say I do not 'get' some award winning stuff---but I believe that if I become a better reader I will become a better writer. I really believe being a great writer comes from being a great reader---reading widely, and reading with thought. Literature doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is an ongoing dialogue between a culture and itself.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting, Steve. Why do writers read? I don't think it's just style, I think it's also a lot to do with experience, so with content as well as form. You can take a lot from how Dickens describes a prison and how he structures his plot, but you are also taking in ideas of human connections, how people treat each other, react to one another; you could not necessarily get that scope in your own life. "Only connect."

On the point of inappropriate language, Nick gave me some feedback after the reading of my play and I then sifted through the whole thing and put it all straight. Harder in a play? Easier in a play? Don't know. Prose is difficult. We write because we want to get to the root of human experience. To truths. And again you can get that experience of language patterns from reading.

On the main point of reading critically, some readers just don't get it. For them the idol of "writing" is sacred and anything is just "cool". They have no filters, as you say. Don't let it get you down, they're just doing their own thang. Send me however much you want, whenever you want and we'll sit down for however long and have fun with it.

You're right: sometimes people read as writers not readers. But that's an ego thing. To be a good reader you have to open yourself and let the writing come to you; you can't go to it.

7:36 AM

 
Blogger Crin said...

The vast majority of the critiques I get back from Critters are from writers who can't seem to forget the fact that they are writers for even a second. It constitutes some of the most longwinded, unhelpful feedback to litter my inbox.

A spade is a spade, true, but there is a big difference between saying "You write drivel" and "This passage doesn't work because it overstates the obvious". Both statements may be correct, but the latter is good advice, while the former is just mean.

9:32 PM

 

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