Category: criticism

            I wanted to take a brief moment to re-address an issue I’ve seen pop up a few times recently.  It’s happened to me, it’s happened to friends, it’s happened to acquaintances.  Josh Olson and David Gerrold have both written impassioned pieces about it in the past.

            So let’s talk about bad networking…

            Yeah, this is going to be one of those divisive posts.  I’m betting a third of you walk away thinking I’m a jerk, and another third (possibly some overlap) walks away thinking this was aimed specifically at you. Very sorry in advance.  It’s really not aimed at anyone, just general observations from the past… oh, thirty years or so.
           These days it’s almost too easy to get in touch with people.  Especially famous (and semi-famous) people.  Email.  Social media.  Appearances.  It’s not uncommon to get a like, a response, maybe even a follow from somebody you admire.

            Of course, it’s important to be honest about what kind of relationships these are.  Mark Hamill’s liked two tweets I wrote, but I don’t think he’s going to be showing up to offer friendly support at my next book signing (even though we’re in the same city). Hell, Leslie Jones follows me on Twitter, but I’m pretty sure it’s just because I replied to a comment she made about Timeless and made her laugh.  That’s all it is.  I’ve gone to three Bruce Campbell signings, and the last two he pretended not to know me.

            Sounds a little creepy, that last bit, doesn’t it? 

            That being said…

            At least once a month I’ll get contacted by complete strangers or vague acquaintances, asking if I can read their manuscript or just a few chapters or maybe the final product for a blurb. Most of them are polite.  Some are… not as polite.  A few are flat-out arrogant.  I had one person demandmy time—insisting that I owed it to people to help them out.

            Actually, let’s talk time for a moment.

            I write full-time.  It’s my job.  It’s how I pay for food, rent, bills, everything.  I work forty to fifty hours a week.  Sometimes closer to sixty as deadlines loom.  I don’t think I’m terribly unusual in this.  I know a few professional writers who still have unrelated full time jobs, and then they’re still putting in twenty or thirty hours writing on top of that.

            Plus, there’s probably another ten or fifteen hours of various social media things mixed in there.  Posts, answering questions, chatting with folks online.  Tossing up random tips and ideas here.  It’s fun, and I enjoy talking with people, but that visibility is also part of my job.  Yeah, even when I’m drinking and ranting about bad movies on Twitter. Yes, I’m drinking on the job.

            And I get sent stuff professionally.  We’re just barely into the fourth month of the year and I’ve already been sent half a dozen books by editors, publicists, and my agent.  That’s part of the job, too.  Blurbing books helps out all of those people, so it’s just good office politics to read them.

            So—even on the very low end—we’re looking at a 55-60 hour work week.  I don’t think that’s out of the ordinary for a professional writer. Heck, it might be even a bit sub-par, by the standards of some folks.

            When someone asks me for a favor, they’re asking me to cut into that time.  To cut into the “this is how I make a living” time.  Oh, sure, I could cut into my free time instead, but… well, I don’t get a lot of it, so I tend to be protective.

            This isn’t to say I—or any professional—won’t help people.  I’ve got several writer-friends who help me with projects and I’d gladly help any of them with theirs.  There are people I’ve known for years and I often offer them tips or suggestions, when they’re wanted.  A few folks have standing offers from me to read their hopefully-soon-to-be-finished manuscripts.

            Again… I don’t think I’m out of the ordinary here.

            Alas, there is still this school of thought that successful writers must help less-successful ones.  Under any circumstances.  Bring their careers to a dead halt and do absolutely anything they’re asked to do.  Countless gurus push this idea, and spin it so the professional’s the one being rude or unhelpful is they don’t immediately leap to assist.  Especially when I call them on it in public.  Heck, if they don’t go above and beyond to help me… well, it’s just proof of what a selfish jackass they are. 

            But, hey, if I never ask, I’ll never know, right?

            Well… maybe, I should know.

            Here’s a handy checklist of things to keep in mind before I start asking favors of people.  If none of these apply to me… maybe I’m being a little forward asking a professional to give up part of their work week.

            And, yes, I’m mostly basing these off my own criteria and experiences.  But going off other interactions I’ve seen… I think most professional writers would agree with these.

[  ] I’m literate.
            If I’m trying to convince a chef to take me on as apprentice, what’s he going to think when I tell him my secret pizza topping is iron filings?  Or if I tell a doctor my last patient’s midichlorian count was super-low because Mercury’s in retrograde?  If I want help from a professional, I’ve got to show them I’ve got a firm grasp on the basics of my chosen field.  For us, that’s spelling and grammar.

            If I send a letter to pro-writer Wakko full of txtspk or weird references or just tins of spelling mistakes, I’m showing him I don’t know what I’m doing.  I don’t know the basics.  If I’m telling him this right up front, why would I expect him to spend several hours wading through my manuscript?  Or even part of it?

[  ] I’ve known them for several years 
            Just to be clear, if I said hello and shook hands with Wakko at a party three years ago, this really doesn’t mean I’ve known him for three years.  Do you remember that guy you met at a party three years ago and then never spoke with again? No? Odd that…

            This also holds true for being part of the same Facebook group.  And for following the same person on Twitter.  Or shopping at the same stores.

            Wait.  How do you know what stores they shop at…?

[  ] I’ve shared several meals with them 
            This doesn’t include me eating in the same food court while I stalked Wakko in the mall.  Again, what is it with following people around stores. Cut it out. That’s just creepy.

            No, this means me repeatedly sitting down with Wakko and chatting over drinks or maybe pizza and a bad Netflix movie.  What does it mean when I say I grabbed a bite with one of my friends?  Those are the same conditions I should be applying here.  That’s what real networking is.

[  ] We communicate with each other (via phone, email, social media) on a regular basis
            The key thing here is I need to remember communication is a two-way street.  Me spamming Wakko with messages and responses through multiple channels does not count as communicating.  Just being someone’s friend on Facebook, Twitter, or Mastodon doesn’t qualify, either.  No, really.  Check the terms of agreement—none of these websites have a “guaranteed friends with benefits” clause.  

            (If they did, we’d all probably be a lot more careful about accepting friend requests…)

[  ] I’ve lived with them
            This should be self-explanatory.  Not in the sense of “on the planet at the same time” or “crashed on the couch for a week,” but more in the “sharing rent and chores around the kitchen for several months” way.  After living in the same apartment/house/hostel for six months, I shouldn’t feel too much reluctance about asking Wakko to take a quick look at something I wrote. 

            Unless I really screwed him over on the last month’s rent or was a serious nightmare roommate

[  ] I’ve slept with them
            In any sense. Again, this should be self-explanatory.  I’d very much advise against making this an active networking technique, though.  For a whole bunch of reasons.

            But if I’m already sleeping with someone and they won’t look at my writing? Wow.  There’s some issues there I might want to address…

[  ] I actually want to hear what they have to say.
            Okay, here’s one of those ugly truths, and if you’ve been listening to me rant for any amount of time you’re probably already aware of it.

            Lots of folks say they want feedback, but what they’re really looking for is to get back wild praise and promises their manuscript will be passed on and up to agents, editors, publishers, and whoever makes the big Hollywood movie deals.  In my experience, very few people actually want to hear criticism of their work (even if it’s constructive).  They just want the fan mail and to skip to the next step. 

            Reading takes time. Writing up notes and thoughts takes time.  Honestly, if all I want is the praise and the handoff, I’m wasting Wakko’s time asking for feedback.  And he’s a pro, so his time is worth money.

            When I was in the film industry, there was kind of this unwritten rule—if you had some passion project or low budget thing you wanted to do, you could ask your professional friends to help out.

            Once.

            The idea is that I’m acknowledging their skills and experience, but also that I’m calling in a big favor asking them to work for little or no money.  So, again, the quiet, unwritten rule.  You got one. It would be tacky and unprofessional to ask for more unless a lot of time had passed.  Like, several years.

            And since everyone knew and understood this, people were much more cautious about asking.  They’d make sure their project was solid and ready to bring other people in on, because nobody wanted to waste their one shot.  It would suck to get Wakko on board and then realize my script needed another draft.  Or two more drafts.

            I don’t want to waste that opportunity.

[  ] I’m not asking for something I could find out on my own.
            Look, when I was starting out as a writer you had to dig through magazines, make phone calls, send request letters, then go dig through more magazines, make different phone calls, and send different letters–and keep track of all of it. 

            These days all of this information is available with a bit of thought and a few keystrokes.  Really, there’s a huge amount of information I can get all on my own without bothering anyone else.  Honestly, the fact that we’re all right here looking at this post means we all have access to Google, yes?

            I think a lot of time when this happens, people are looking for the “real” answers.  They don’t want to know someplace to sell short stories—they want to know the ‘zine that pays a dollar a word and always gets the Edgar/Hugo/Stoker Award for short stories and inevitably lands their contributor with a big five publisher within a three-week window.  They want to know the agent who has a direct line to Simon & Schuster and takes unsolicited submissions.  Because there has to be one out there, right?  Surely all those big authors didn’t spend time in the junior leagues.  They just leapt from obscurity to six-figure incomes… like I want to do.

            If I want to make writing my career, part of the work is… well, doing the work.

            If I can tic off a couple of these boxes, I’m probably in a good place.  I’d feel pretty good about dropping someone like me a note, so to speak.  Again, I can really only speak for myself, but I think most professionals would feel the same way.

            If I can’t put any check marks up there… maybe I should reconsider that email or tweet I’m about to send out.  I might be burning a bridge—perhaps even a couple bridges—before I get anywhere near it.  And if I try anyway…

            Well, I shouldn’t act indignant or surprised when things go up in flames.

            Okay, first of two posts this week, as promised…

            So a while back at the LA Writers Coffeehouse we were going to talk about criticism.  All the directions it can come from.  What it’s like from either end. How to put it out there.  How to receive it.  We never got around to it there, so I thought I’d talk about it here.

            Just to be different, though, let’s approach this from the tougher angle, in my opinion.  Giving criticism.

            I know that’s hard to believe—that giving criticism can be the hard part.  I mean, just check out any social media site.  Over the past week or so there’ve been tons of people offering critiques of… y’know, different stories.  Often for free. Usually unasked for.

            And, most of the time, not very good.

            Criticism—actual, constructive criticism—is a bit more than ranting online.  It’s being able to state quantifiable, true, relevant facts about a work.  There are a lot of folks who consider themselves critics who really just… spout their opinions a lot.

            I saw one of these recently.  Directed at me.  Someone had read one of my books, loved the first two thirds, but then it had an “action-packed, nonsense finale” that the reader didn’t like.  Which was a shame, because the rest of the book had been pretty good.

            I’ve talked a bit about this before, one of the first things to learn about giving criticism..  Me liking or not liking something isn’t really criticism.  It’s irrelevant.  That’s just a subjective opinion.

            This can be a tough thing to figure out sometimes.  It took me years to be able to separate my opinions from actual facts and observations about the story I was reading.  There are a lot of books and movies I didn’t like, but I can also acknowledge that doesn’t make them bad.  It just means they’re not for me. 

            So that’s lesson one in offering good criticism. Separating my opinion from actual facts.  Anyone can say “this sucks.”  If I’m trying to offer valid criticism, I need to be the person  who can explain whyit sucks.

            And remember—“I didn’t like it” isn’t a reason.

            This should bring us to the second point about giving criticism.  It should be constructive, not destructive.  The goal isn’t to rip something apart, it’s to explain why and how it can be better.  Yes, sometimes this might mean a couple blunt, harsh truths will need to come out.  But even these don’t need to be designed to make the writer cry for weeks.  If that’s why I offered to critique someone’s work, well… I’m doing this for all the wrong reasons.

            Here’s a good rule of thumb.  I shouldn’t point out problems if I can’t offer some kind of actual solution.  This is also a good way to figure out if this is an opinion-vs.-criticism issue.  It’s tough to change opinions, but if something’s actually wrong, it shouldn’t be hard for me to figure out some way to fix it.

            Keep in mind, this doesn’t have to be a good solution.  My editor—a very high ranking editor at Random House—freely admits he’s great at spotting problems, awful at coming up with solutions.  But he’ll always have an answer whenever I ask about something.

            And I shouldn’t offer these solutions unless the writer specifically asks for them—it’d be rude of me to start explaining how someone else should be writing their story.  I mentioned helping a friend with her travel book a while back, and twice or thrice in the notes I’d point out an issue and say “I have an idea that might help with this—let me know if you’re interested.”

            Which is a great lead in to my third point.  If I’m going to offer criticism, I should know what I’m talking about.  This is a tricky one, because it means a lot more than “I read a book every week” or “I’ve seen every Best Picture winner.”  It especially means more than “I just want to read it early.”

            Being able to offer a good critical analysis means being able to juggle a lot of hats.  I need some actual knowledge and understanding of different structure forms and grammar.  I need to have read more than two or three “how to write a bestseller” books.  It wouldn’t hurt if I’ve sat and thought about this knowledge and absorbed it a bit.

            There’s also an empathy issue here, too.  I’ve mentioned a few times that writers have to have a good sense of empathy—if I can’t put myself in other people’s shoes, I’m going to have a tough time as a storyteller. Same goes for critiquing a story.  I need to be able to see what effect the writer’s going for andbe able to predict how people are going to react to it.  If I can’t do this, my whole critique is going to collapse.
            And that brings us to the fourthand final point.  This one’s going to sound obvious.  If someone’s going to trust me with their work, if I’m going to tell them I’ll critique it… I should.  They’re asking for feedback and I should make an honest effort to give it to them.  There’s few things more frustrating for a writer than waiting weeks for feedback and getting a one line email that says “Yeah, I liked it.  It was fun.”

            You may laugh but…  I’ve had beta-readers do that.  Which is why they’re not beta-reading for me anymore.

            Likewise, comments that are too vague to help… don’t really help.  I shouldn’t be writing things like “I saw a couple typos—you’ll probably catch them next time through.”  Again, if I’m doing a critique, I should be noting all this stuff.  Getting caught up in it isn’t an excuse—I’m not supposed to be reading this for fun.  I should take my time and do it right.  As the man says (paraphrased), treat them the way you’d want to be treated.

            Now, with all that said… here’s two positive things about giving criticism.

            Oneis that it doesn’t need to be stiff. Unless I’ve been hired as a professional, I’m reading/critiquing for somebody I know.  Possibly someone I even consider a friend.  I can have fun with this.  It can be conversational.  It can be funny/snarky/flirty whatever.  I don’t need to change my relationship with someone to offer them criticism.  They want it from me, not from Professor Huffy von Formalnotes.

            Twois that… well, I don’t have to read it all.  No, I don’t.  Really. I’m not getting paid, I’m not doing this as part of a formal submission… I don’t need to read all 815 pages. 

            At least three or four times I’ve read books for friends who wanted feedback and forty or fifty pages in it was clear there were… inherent issues.  Things that weren’t going to change.  Things that were going to kill the book’s chances if an editor or agent read those first fifty pages. So I stopped there.  I gave them all the notes I’d made up to that point, and then explained the bigger problems I was seeing.  And that was it. My time is valuable—and so’s theirs.  They don’t need to read twenty pages of notes from me repeating the same things over and over and over again.

            And again.

            There you have it.  Some tips to giving better criticism.  Maybe even a few tips about dealing with it if you read around the edges a bit (and follow some of the links).

            Next time… well, we’re closing in on the holidays, and after all this criticism we could probably talk about some good stuff, yes?

            Until then, go write.

            I wanted to prattle on a bit about character development.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and the way it can sometimes be a stumbling block.  And I think I’ve got my thoughts in an order where they’d make a semi-coherent post.

            So, first, a little story.

            A friend of mine has a semi-popular travel show on PBS.  She’s also been working on a book about how she ended up travelling and one of her first big solo trips (that’s her thing).  She’d been working on it for a while and asked if I’d be willing to take a look at it and maybe offer some thoughts.  Maybe help her think of a title for it.

            I’ll be honest.  There’s always a bit of nervousness when a friend asks for your opinion on something.  I bet most of you can relate.  But I said yes.

            Turned out, no big worry. It was a fun book about her trek through Italy.  No nightmarish spelling or grammar mistakes.  Great voice.  Good description.

            There was one issue I noticed though—it just took a little while to pin down.

            (no, don’t worry,  She and I have talked about this.  And she knows I’m mentioning her book this week)

            Y’see, the book had tons of good elements.  Travel.  History.  Comedy.  Some soul searching.  A little romance.  A touch of sex.  Even a kind of creepy night in a haunted building.

            Thing is, none of these was a dominant element.  They were all more or less equal.  A little more of this here, a little less of that there.  Okay, the creepy factor only lasted four or five pages, but past that… it’d be really tough to pin down the main theme of the book.  An informative travelogue?  An introspective journey to sort out a life?  A passionate summer in Europe?

            Yeah, lots of stories have multiple elements like this.  My own book, The Fold, has sci-fi and horror elements, but also mystery, some action-adventure, a bit of comedy, some sexy romance, and even a touch of political stuff.  At the end of the day, though… it’s pretty much sci-fi and horror.  The other things were side dishes, so to speak.  They were fun and flavorful, but they weren’t the main course.

            See, without that main course, the meal is nothing but side dishes.  And while there’s nothing wrong with that, it becomes very difficult to answer the simple question of “what did I have for dinner?”  Sure, I can say, “side dishes,” but that doesn’t really answer the question, does it?  It’s like asking what I’m wearing and I say “not a green shirt.”  It’s an answer and it’s true, but I haven’t really told you anything useful.

            I need to have some kind of answer to the genre question, because people are going to ask it. People like readers. And agents.  And editors.  And if I can’t give them a real answer, it’s going to be really hard for me to get anyone interested.  If you’ve been reading the ranty blog for a while, you may remember a little tidbit I once heard from an agent named Esmond Harmsworth—“It’s not like anything else is very hard to sell.”

            This brings me to the second half of this little rant…

            I’ve mentioned before that you can follow me on Twitter.  If you do, you get to watch every weekend as I rant about sci-fi and horror B-movies in real time.  Over the years—watching them and working on some of them—I’ve developed a theory about why they turn out so bad.  Not all of them, granted, but a good number of them.

            Genre comes with expectations.  Science fiction and fantasy each have their own standards, benchmarks, and tropes.  These are radically different from the ones we hold for horror, or for mystery stories, or for romances.  Seems straightforward, yes?

            When these expectations aren’t met, or when my story departs radically from them, things begin to stumble. Maybe my story recovers, but sometimes that stumble ends with a full-on faceplant.  I’m willing to bet most of us have read a book or seen a movie where we discover the big twist is aliens did it or angels did it or Bob was a deranged serial killer all this time.  And this made us roll our eyes and find something else to do.

            So, here’s my theory.

            I think sometimes, at one stage or another, a story gets tagged with the wrong genre.  And this creates problems.  Sometimes I look at one of those B-movies I mentioned and I see what may have started out as—for example—a really fine sci-fi movie.  But someone decided it was a horror movie, and they filmed it as a horror movie. And now the sci-fi story has horror timing and emphasis and angles—all those standards we expect from those films.  But they don’t really fit this story. And that awkwardness is why the movie never really hits its stride.

            A great example of this was the latest Fantastic Four movie.  Director Josh Trank has done Chronicle, an indie movie widely hailed as a superhero story. But if we take a good look at it, it was really a superpowers movie.  Then Fox gave him the FF franchise and, well, Trank made another superpowers movie.  He forced the FF out of their natural genre and into a different one. 

            And we all know how that went.

            I’ve seen the flipside of this, too. When something gets made as, say, a sci-fi movie, but we’re told it’s a horror movie, by the advertising or the interviews or whatever.  So we walk in with those standard expectations, and suddenly the movie is “wrong” because it’s failing as a horror movie—which it was never intended to be.  I’ve seen books that were marketed as dark fantasy that were supernatural romance. Movies marketed as horror that were pretty straightforward sci-fi or fantasy.  Or even blog posts that were marked as character development when they’re all about genre…

            From our point of view as writers, this can be deadly.  If I’ve got an agent who wants to see sci-fi, I say my book is sci-fi, and then I send her or him literary horror…  Well, that’s going to get rejected really quick.  Yeah, even if it’s a fantastic horror story. 

            Heck, even if said agent reps horror as well, they can get soured just by those failed expectations.  They can go into it expecting sci-fi, like they were told, and maybe they’ll eventually self-correct.  But even then…  I may have lost those two or three vital ticks off their mental scorecard.

            And those two or three ticks can mean the difference between ending up in the big pile of the left or the very small pile on the right.

            Y’see, Timmy, I need to be sure what my genre is.  And I need to be honest about it, no matter how popular some other genre might be right now.  Because I want to score all the points I can with editors.  And agents.

            And especially with readers.

            Next time I want to talk about one of my favorite topics.  And a little bit about numbers.

            Until then, go write.

            Oh, and if you wanted to toss a buck or two at my friend’s travel show, public television needs all the help it can get.  Thanks.