Workshopping

Recently, I decided that I am interested in being an editor. Possibly professionally, since it’s something I can do from home. I read a ton anyway, and I really do love giving critique and feedback, so I figured, why not give it a try? I posted on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook that I was interested in being a workshopper, thinking it’d probably be a cold day in hell when someone decided to take me up on it.

Much to my shock and delight, though, someone did contact me yesterday. I’m so super excited about this, guys. I can’t even.

I critiqued Becky’s novel, New Year’s Revolution, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while. I let my friend Rachel, who is a professional editor, read the editor’s letter I sent to Becky. She told me that I had good instincts for what improvements could be made, but that my delivery needed work. I’m excited to work on those things.

For example, I always approach a perceived problem with how to fix it. As an editor, I need to quash that impulse. It’s up to the writer to fix it, if they even choose to. So, that requires me to think more deeply about the problem itself. In order to present the issue to the writer, I’m going to need to really put my finger on what the specific problem is, and why it’s a problem. Sometimes even what leaving it unchanged could mean. But not how to change it.

I also feel like I need to work on the snark. I always have an impulse to snark on things that bug me, like the overuse of a word, or too many rhetorical questions. That might be okay when it’s your friend’s writing and they can intuit your tone of voice, but when it’s someone who is (basically) a professional colleague, I need to put a lid on it. This is just another way of saying I need to be able to put my finger right on the problem that I’m perceiving, not to diminish or trivialize it (or for that matter, the author) by making fun of it.

Of course, my first critique is going to be unfiltered Elly. I just need to get comfortable with the idea of a rough draft of feedback itself. To go back through and make world-safe my very internal monologue before releasing it upon an unsuspecting vic… ahem, public.

Until Monday!

•••Hey, did you know? I’m fostering kittens! Come follow my tribulations on my kitten blog! Paw-Purr-azzi•••

Progress is being made and GenreCon tomorrow!

On Wednesday, I had a writing date with Becky, and words came with me. That was pretty cool. A lot of the time on writing dates, or when I sit down to write during the day, I’ll spend a long time rereading. Or researching. Or … heh, blogging. Usually it’s writing-adjacent, but still quantifiably avoidance behavior, and almost always entirely fear-based. Not sure where I’m going from here. Not sure if I’m going to be able to pull it off. Not sure I’m doing it right, at all. Not sure if I’m going to offend, or be ignorant. But on Wednesday, after I got my computer plugged in, my chai and danish into my facehole, and my shoes off, the words just came.

It’s a good feeling, when it happens.

The unfortunate (maybe? Hopefully not) part is that I got to a transition point of the story just as we were wrapping up. That means two things: I got to a stopping place (which means that starting again isn’t as easy as I’d like it to be), and the story is about to go in a new direction. Which reboots the whole “am I doing it wrong” train of thought. Especially since it’s going to go places this story hasn’t yet gone, in any of the other 2.25 drafts. I used to write ghost / horror stories back in high school, but Cassidy has never treaded those corridors, and I’ve worn down such a groove with Cassidy that trying to bump her into that territory is proving… quite difficult. So, one tiny baby step at a time.

Tomorrow is GenreCon, a writer’s conference in Golden, Colorado. I’m really nervous. Not only have I never been to a writing conference, I’ve never been to any cons, ever. Unless the Renaissance Festival counts, cause from what I’ve heard about cons they seem kinda similar. But in my mind, at least, writing cons are different from, say, comic cons or anime cons or PAX. Maybe because it’s less fan-based? I don’t know. Anyway, if I bring the first three pages of my story, there’s a chance they’ll get read and critiqued. I think I’m going to do it, because what could it hurt? But I know it’s the equivalent of a first draft again, quality-wise, so I’m a bit embarrassed of it. I know that it’s almost certainly going to change, that this isn’t as polished and squeaky as it could be. But, as Cassidy would think, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

On Monday, I shall regale you with the epic stories of GenreCon and how I took the writing world by storm. Until then!

Word count: 6,494 (ᥞ)

Giving good feedback

Neil Gaiman has a quote: “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” When I first read that, I didn’t understand it at all. Since embarking on crafting usable feedback for my good friend and partner-in-pen Becky, it’s make more and more sense to me.

It’s a rare thing to read a book that is exactly what you would have written, if you had written that book. You might have had the protagonist make different choices; you might have used more (or less) figurative language, you might have incorporated more teddy bears. Whatever the case, a lot of the joy and value of reading a book that is not your own comes from those things that you would have done differently. It gives you a different perspective on something you feel you know.

When you have the opportunity to critique a work in progress, and your goal is to give actionable feedback, I think the hardest thing is to not try to force your critique-ee to do what you would do. Although sometimes it feels true, it is not accurate to say that yours is the only right way to do a thing. When you say “I wouldn’t have used this word here,” think to yourself, “Is that because this word is being used incorrectly, or because of my personal aesthetic choices?” If the word is used correctly, then that’s a good sign that you’re projecting your personal narrative voice onto the project you are critiquing.

When you’re picking out perceived problems, and you suggest a solution for it, you run a high risk of becoming attached to your solution. If your critique-ee decides to keep it the way it is, or change it in a different way, you may be inclined to take it personally, or even be disappointed that the “story you want” isn’t getting written. (Tangent: this is why I don’t understand commissioned stories. How could it ever be exactly what the commissioner wants? /tangent.)

As a critiquer, I am absolutely addicted to giving suggestions. I have found that I can’t not give suggestions, most of the time. If I see a word or phrase that bugs me, I leave a comment like, “reword this. Maybe something more like this?: [ . . . ]” I do that because I’m worried that if I don’t leave a suggestion, the full meaning of my criticism won’t be clear. Will she think I mean it’s awkward, or that the words don’t mean what she thinks they mean, or that they convey a different message than she was going for? I could say “reword for clarity / definition / mood” but... my tendencies are to suggest solutions. And I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. The key, very important thing, is to not become attached to my suggestions. For that purpose, I try to give not-great suggestions that get my meaning across. Something to point an arrow in the right direction but not push the author through a portal that leads to the destination.

One way to keep yourself in check when giving feedback, if you’re finding yourself trying to rewrite the story in your own words, is to always leave your feedback in the form of a question. “Did you mean to make so-and-so sound like an asshole here?” “Is this the definition of this word as you understood it?” “Are you sure giraffes are adding something to this scene?” “Could you be using more teddy bears?” And so forth.

I think it’s very important to be criticized, as a writer. You don’t spot your own biases and erroneous beliefs if no one calls you on them. You never have a reason to think about things differently. It’s incredibly hard not to have your feelings hurt by critique, but even so, it’s possibly the best tool in your belt. You’re so, so lucky if you have people in your creative circle who can give good, meaningful feedback. As a person receiving criticism, it’s important to take what they say into account. But, to paraphrase the Gaiman, they don’t know exactly how to fix it. Only you can write your book. As givers of criticism, it’s important we remember that.

So, if something doesn’t work for you in the WIP you’re critiquing, sometimes a vague “this doesn’t work for me because…” is plenty. Sometimes a person wants to find their own way up the mountain; they just have to know the mountain is there.

An interesting realization

I’ve been rereading Becky’s first novel for the purpose of critique (and enjoyment, of course). I’m a bit nervous about it, because I don’t pretend to be an authority on writing quality, literary virtues, or writing clichés one might want to avoid. Every time I find something I want to “pick on,” I second-guess my own intellectual authority on the subject. It’s not going to stop me from giving my complete critique, but it makes me want to poison the well in advance, before she’s even gotten to read it.

But I’ve been thinking about my “qualifications” as a reviewer, and I’m realizing that I may not be the most unqualified person on the face of the planet to give meaningful critique. That’s a nice feeling.

Until our writers’ group was formed, I’d never really had the opportunity to give critique to an unpublished work, and especially not one that was intended for eventual publication. Because my group are my friends, my first instinct is to be kind and pull any punches that I might feel like throwing. For you writers’ group members who may be reading this, I’m never ever dishonest; I just have a tendency to emphasize my positive feedback. Recently, I polled the group to find out what we are all hoping to get out of it, and discovered to my delight that some of us are actually looking for the most rigorous critiques we can get. So, for those who want them, the gloves are coming off.

But something to keep in mind while critiquing is what audience the author is aiming their work at. You don’t want to rip apart the lack of wooly sheep in a book that is hoping to appeal to fans of rhinoceroses, for example. I am, at this point, hoping to write a book that has “literary merit,” by which I mean, “has subtlety, symbolism, allegory, themes, and a moderate amount of currently-relevant politics.” That is not what everyone wants, and that is okay. I don’t want anyone to think that I think that kind of writing is better than any other kind. It’s just that, right now, I’m highly attuned to that kind of writing: looking for the themes, looking for the hidden messages, looking for the slight twisting that gives a story ambiguity. If I don’t see it, I throw up red flags, and I have to remind myself that not everyone writes that way. It’s a balancing act.

But something else I realized is: I actually feel qualified (well, as much as I ever do) to give critique on pretty much any genre of story. My sci-fi teeth aren’t as sharp as some other people’s, but I’m able to keep up, I think. I won’t spot tropes and traditions in that genre as quickly as many of my peers, but that’s not always a bad thing. I’ve definitely been made to rethink choices I’ve made in my own book because of observations made by people who aren’t well-versed in the hardboiled genre. </tangent> I read almost every genre of book, from popular literary classics to literary classics few of my generation would have been exposed to to Poe to Shakespeare to Silverstein to King and Koontz to Scalzi to Grafton to Patterson to Niffenegger to Vinge to… well, the list goes on and on and on… and on. I’ve read Interview With a Vampire, I’ve read Dracula, I’ve read 30 Days of Night. (Not the Twilight series, though.) I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think that about covers the spectrum of the vampire genre? And that’s just the example that is closest to the surface right now. I read almost anything with words on the page, and I’m… fairly discerning, at this point. I can enjoy bad books, but I know they’re bad.

So… maybe what makes someone an “authority” is extensive study of a topic, rather than someone pinning an “authority” badge on them. Maybe I do have the intellectual authority to give meaningful critique.

I’m still working on reading through it, Becky, but so far I’m enjoying it, and I hope that my (eventual) critique will be helpful to you. ❤

Word count: 3,278 (೎)