Category: criticism

Again, if you don’t get the title reference—expand your horizons.

So, a phrase you may have heard echoing about now and then is “killing your babies.” It’s just as gruesome as it sounds. Honest. I just heard it from a friend of mine a few weeks ago as he gutted the opening of a script he’s been working on for almost a year. One fellow brought it up when I interviewed him last week about his new film.

Many folk have heard the phrase, but how many understand it?

In every piece of writing, there’s at least one thing the author is extremely proud of. A clever line of dialogue, a character nuance, a dramatic moment or reveal that just could not be any better. We’ve all had them. A place where the language and the creativity and the skill all hit that perfect point where it’s hard to believe we created something this good. I usually fret over them for hours, convinced I must’ve read it somewhere else before and unintentionally copied it. After all, there’s no way I could’ve written something that good…

Perhaps it’s not even necessarily high art, just something the writer’s very fond of. Maybe it’s a clever reference you know a handful of friends will get. A loving tribute to someone special. A sly wink at some other book or movie. Heck, it could even just be something silly and pointless the writer got obsessive about. As a not-so-wise man once said, “the alien love-child stays in no matter what!”

The problem is, while these bits often are very well-done within their own limits, they don’t always work in the larger scope of things. As a writer, your loyalty has to be to the big picture. Not to individual scenes, but to the story as a whole. We’ve all heard awful cases where firefighters have to cut off someone’s leg to save them from a burning wreck. History tells of us brave generals who lost battles so they could win the war.

Y’see, Timmy, what it comes down to is… writers need to make sacrifices sometimes. And the gods of storytelling are ancient, dark gods. So when they call for a sacrifice, they don’t want to see a small tithe or minor inconvenience. They want something big.

They want something you love.

A story…

Submitted for your approval is San Diego Police Officer Andrew Barroll. He was one of the supporting characters in my oft-exampled first attempt at a novel The Suffering Map (now on sale absolutely nowhere). He first appears in a flashback one character has as a uniform officer she met almost a year ago. Halfway through the book he reappears, now a detective assigned to investigate the series of horrifically mutilated corpses that are being discovered around San Diego because of… well, let’s just say it’s part of the story and leave it at that. For the second half of the book, five different plot threads are getting wound tighter and tighter, and Barroll and his partner get closer to discovering who’s committing the brutal murders. He was the good cop. The solid, dedicated, everyman character. The kind of character where you knew he’d just have to get a bigger part to play in a later book.

Alas, the first draft of The Suffering Map was just over 150,000 words. Somewhat huge for a first novel from an unknown, completely uncredited writer. The second draft was even longer. It wasn’t until the third draft that I began to snip those words I thought might be excessive, and it wasn’t until the 4th draft that those cuts were noticeable.

In the fifth draft, a little over 90% of Barroll’s thread of the story vanished.

I remember feeling a dreadful churning in my stomach as I was highlighting and deleting entire chapters out of my first completed novel. A great end-of-the-chapter button vanished. Two carefully thought-out characters ceased to exist altogether. If you worked it out time-wise, probably about eight weeks of writing was deleted over the course of half an hour. Freddy Krueger aspires to be the slasher I was that afternoon. It took a few days of work to patch up the loose ends after the slaughter.

That’s what “killing your babies” means. It means doing things you hate to do. It’s when you’re willing to take huge swaths of your writing, hours and hours of work, and send them to the bin for a tighter, stronger story. You do what needs to be done, even if it means trashing your absolute, favorite part.

Alas, some folks just can’t bring themselves to make these big sacrifices. They can’t bear the thought of omitting the character they based off their high school sweetheart, refuse to admit the story doesn’t need that brilliant monologue on capitalism, and can’t figure out why the beautiful seven page description of a forest brings their story toa crashing halt. Which is a shame, because it’s the only way someone’s writing can get stronger. If you can’t look at your work objectively and see the difference between what needs to be in there and what you want to be in there, you don’t have any chance at improving.

In the end, detective Barroll appeared in one chapter of The Suffering Map. A morgue scene as the body is examined and a gruesome clue is revealed, more for the readers than for the investigators. That’s it.

And, while it pains me to this day, the story is much stronger for it.

Next time, I’d like to talk a little bit about basic concepts.

Until then… get back to writing.

A bit early this week to make up for the time off.

Anyway, let’s return to that mechanic analogy I used a few weeks ago. I’d like to explore it a bit more, because it works really well.

Let’s say you get up tomorrow morning and your car won’t start. The engine will turn over, the headlights and radio work, but that’s it. Unless you happen to be very repair-minded yourself, odds are you’ll contact a mechanic, because working with automobiles is what he (or she– we’re progressive here) does for a living and they know a lot more about it than you do. Car repair is, after all their field of expertise, and they’ve been working in it for a while.

Now, when the mechanic tells you the car’s head block is cracked and it needs major work, would you start to argue? Would you say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Or she doesn’t understand your car and then march off in a huff?

What if you took your car in for a tune up and the mechanic told you the brakes were shot and the steering column was dangerously close to failing? Would you ignore the warnings and head out on that cross-country road trip? Perhaps take the car to your cousin Chris, the butcher, with the hopes he’ll give you an answer you like the sound of more?

Hopefully not. It would mean you’ve probably bought a lot of cars in your time. And maybe had some hospital visits in there, too.

If you ask someone with more experience than you for an opinion on something, it’s kind of silly to then ignore that opinion. If an expert gives you advice from their chosen field, you should probably at least consider what they’re saying.

And yet… how often have you heard the angry amateur writer complain the editor/ professor/ contest judge was an arrogant so-and-so who didn’t get their story? That these people were so hung up on perpetuating the system– with stupid, inconsequential stuff like spelling and dialogue and believable characters –they didn’t see the inherent ART!!!

Now, some folks may argue that writing and auto repair are quite different, so my analogy doesn’t really hold up. Writing really is an art, after all, and art is more subjective and gray than, say, fixing a cracked head block, which is pretty black and white. You can’t apply hard-fast, black and white rules to writing.

Well… yes and no.

Based off my own experience (which is not gargantuan, but sizeable enough I feel safe using myself as a reference), I would guess about half of most rejections are because of the small, basic elements of writing—and those are black and white. Spelling and grammar. Punctuation and dialogue. Characters that are little more than cardboard cutouts. I’m not talking about the odd typo here or there—that’s completely understandable. I mean the ones where your eyes are bleeding two pages in.

A short story…

I once ran the builder port for an online text game. At its simplest, we were constantly writing dungeon room descriptions, like the ones for old D&D modules. “This chamber has been carved from the living rock of the mountain, and in places the walls are still raw stone.” That sort of thing. The game amounted to tens of thousands of individual files (a simplification), each one containing five or six (or more) hopefully-coherent sentences forming a solid description. Being who I am, I held the rest of the builder staff to a pretty high standard when it came to spelling, grammar, and continuity. A few of those folks read these little rants, and I’m sure they can tell you I was close to a dictator when it came to such thing.

Well, one time I got an application from a fellow who ignored all our forms and just sent me a huge list of stuff he had done for other games. His first room description had six typos in it. There were seventeen grammar mistakes on the first page. Two days later he began asking when he could start on the builder.

When I explained he couldn’t, and why, he was furious. Where did I get off saying his writing was no good? It was good enough for other games he’d worked on, wasn’t it? And when I tried to explain why– what gives me the right to tell him he needed to work on his spelling?!

Needless to say, after his passionate and strongly worded response, I did not invite him to try again later.

Now, there is a flip side to taking criticism. When it comes down to it, you shouldn’t listen to everyone, and there are some people who you should ignore altogether. Not every single opinion should count. You should be considering who you’re asking and what their own relationship to the material is (you may remember a while back when I talked about the downside to getting opinions from certain folks). Neither of my grandmothers is really qualified to judge rap music or torture porn films. My best friend is not the guy you go to for a review of your girly young adult romance novel, and he’ll admit that, too.

Another story…

Years ago I had this one client, a beautiful woman who wanted to write a specialized exercise book. Well, who wanted me to write an exercise book for her. I tried to explain non-fiction books are more about pitches and proposals, but she really wanted to see a manuscript. And she was paying well. So, over the course of a month or so we did lots of interviews where she talked at length. Then I would go home to edit, do some research, and arrange it into drafts I could show her.

The problem arose when she would then show the draft to someone else and take their opinions as gospel. Her husband the real estate lawyer. Her best friend. A personal trainer she knew. So every time I came to talk to her, she had a new list of things that “needed” to change in the book. Once she even insisted on showing a copy to an acquaintance of hers who was a literary agent—a copy we’d covered with red ink and editing notes. I begged and begged her not to, she did, and much to her surprise (but not mine) the agent said it looked like it still needed work. The six drafts I did for her ended up being six page-one rewrites.

At least, as I said, she was paying well.

So, a few helpful hints when it comes to criticism.

First, ignore anyone who can’t give a why or how for their opinion. Just toss their notes out the window, delete them from your inbox, or turn up your iPod if they happen to be sitting in front of you. If someone’s just going to say “this sucks” or “you suck” or “you’re a sucky writer”… shrug it off. It’s tough, but let it roll off your shoulders. An opinion needs to come with a few concrete examples to back it up if it’s going to have any weight. “This doesn’t work” doesn’t help you at all. “This doesn’t work because you didn’t set up a relationship between Yakko and Wakko” is constructive criticism, because it lets you look back at something specific.

Second, once someone’s given you specifics, pay attention to them. If someone explains a problem that runs through A, B, and C, look at it. You don’t have to agree with them, but if they’ve taken the time to list a handful of what they see as particular trouble points, you should at least have the decency to look at what they’re talking about. This is one of the biggest problems I see—people who are closed to receiving any type of constructive criticism.

Third, be clear on the different types of feedback you’re going to get. Some things you will have to change. Spelling. Grammar. Formatting. Structure. These are the black and white things we talked about up above, and that I often talk about here. There are no maybes or howevers here. You can yell ART as loud as you want but apostrophes still have nothing to do with possessives and black hair cannot compliment blue eyes.

Other things are more fluid. Story elements. Characterization. Locations. And that brings us to…

Fourth, take suggested changes with a grain of salt. Especially those story and character-based ones. In the end, you’re the one telling the tale. It really doesn’t matter if your best friend thought Yakko and the nurse should’ve gotten together in the end. Or if another one of your critics felt Dot should’ve killed Wakko because of that thing with the girl. Or if somebody expected the story to be about zombies and it turned out to be about clones, so it didn’t seem as good. These are personal preference matters. You’re the person writing the story, and if in your story Yakko and the nurse go their separate ways, Wakko lives, and there’s a swarm of clones wandering around… then that’s the story being told. There are lots of other manuscripts floating around out there in a variety of different formats. Just because your story wasn’t what someone wanted to read does not mean your story is wrong.

On which note, shouldn’t you get back to writing that story? You want to polish it up before you show it to anyone, right?

Despite every loudmouthed producer or “saying it like it is” celebrity you’ve ever seen on TMZ, one of the hardest things to find in Hollywood is an honest opinion. People are terrified of saying “No.” They’ve almost brainwashed themselves against it. Everyone worries about offending someone and the possible ramifications it could have. You can lose your job in Hollywood for upsetting someone. That same someone could be your boss three years from now. The person asking “Do you like this?” could end up deciding whether or not you get health insurance and a new office next year. So “no” is all but forbidden.

Instead, people dance around answers. They waffle. They make excuses or use doublespeak. In some cases they flat-out lie. Anything to avoid speaking the truth or giving their opinion on something.

And the result is movies like Sahara and X-Men 3.

But that’s material for another rant. Three or four of them, really…

Where am I going with this? Well, you’ll see in a moment or two, if you haven’t already…

Except for a few rare exceptions (those lucky folks who’ve found a long-time partner to work with), writing is something you have to do alone. The odd conundrum here is that one of the very few ways you can improve as a writer is to get feedback. People need to read your work and express their thoughts and opinions about it. You need an audience. And it needs to be a real audience.

What’s a real audience? Well, it’s people who will give you a real opinion. An honest opinion. They’re the ones who won’t mince words or spare your feelings, because they understand you need to know what’s wrong with your work so you can improve it. Being nice, just saying it’s good no matter what, doesn’t help you. It only undermines your attempts to get better.

Another little story…

My mother read a lot of crap writing when I was a little kid. The vast majority of it was mine (reading Stephen King’s Christine was her own decision). She slogged through at least three versions of Lizard Men from the Center of the Earth between third and seventh grade, several pieces of Star Wars fanfic (long before there was such a term), countless short stories, and a truly awful sci-fi “novel” that would put the old 1950’s serials to shame with its clichés. I know for a fact I wouldn’t be where I am today if she hadn’t kept reading and encouraging me to write more.

However, there came a point when I made a realization. My mom was always going to say she liked what I was writing because she was my mom and that’s what good mothers do. It didn’t matter if the material was good, bad, or borderline nonsensical, mom would congratulate me on it.

Which is when I realized I needed to start getting other opinions.

Now, granted, this is an extreme example. I’m not saying my mother should’ve told the twelve-year-old me that my writing was childish and predictable and I didn’t have a chance of ever getting published. That would’ve just been cruel, and also a bit unfair. So in one way, this blind kindness was a good thing.

However, this kindness can also be a trap, and many people, willingly or not, fall into it.

Let’s take Bobo for example (not his real name). Bobo surrounds himself with people who won’t give him honest opinions. He’ll only show his writing to family members or to friends so close they’ve got all the same interests and background. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers—people with a strong desire not to hurt his feelings, and, on some level, a vested interest in keeping him happy.

Surprise, surprise, wha’d’you know—these people all say Bobo’s writing is great. His mom and dad think it’s wonderful. His friends got all the jokes. His brother likes it. His girlfriend (or boyfriend—Bobo is open-minded) even thinks he should send it out to some magazines or agents.

Are they all lying to him? Possibly not. There’s always that chance Bobo is the next John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, or Harper Lee, unable to produce anything except pure gold when put in a room with pen and paper. A regular Rumplestiltskin of words, that Bobo.

But, as the men in Vegas say, I wouldn’t put money on it.

Finding a real, honest audience for your work can take years. I came out of college with one friend whose opinion I completely trust and am always desperate to hear. She is tough and merciless, make no mistake, and I absolutely love her for it. In the many years since then (almost–gasp— two decades now), out of the hundreds of people I’ve met, there are maybe five or six more I know I can show work to and get real, useful criticism.

That’s what you’re looking for, after all. Criticism. The real stuff, not the whiny, jealous, ranty stuff of people online or people who never finish their own writing. As the word implies, you want people who can make practical, critical observations about your work. Better yet, people who can make those observations and suggest improvements.
And then, of course– you have to be willing to listen to them. As I mentioned before, honest opinions can be hard to come by. Opinions that come with useful suggestions are almost unheard of.

But the real shame would be if you finally get some and you ignore them.

Now, get back to writing.