Who Will Be Your Critic?

As you metaphorically sweat out your verbal creations, do you ever wonder, not just who might read them, but who might critique them? Assuming, of course, that you don't already have a group to support and chastise and encourage you. The first words written on the board in my 9th Grade English class by its truly talented and unique teacher were: All criticism should be in plus values.


As I do my best to be fair to the authors of books I review or to authors on Fanstory, or the occasional offering of a fellow aspirant, I recall that admonition. Over many years it has proved to be a real byword for my own teaching and current reviewing. I wish the notion could extend to the kind of thoughtless arguments that seem to dominate political discourse to the point where there's a real question about whether our elected officials are over the age of majority.

And as I work through the final stages of preparing my next book, I harbor the hope it may find some readers capable of that viewpoint.

Criticism

You've read and heard the aphorism: those who can do, and those who can't teach. I wonder if it applies equally well to reviewers. Movies, music, painting, books, and a raft of other artistic endeavors are regularly subjected to published opinions. I should know something about that, since I write monthly book reviews for an online magazine.

I try not to forget the first command (written large on our blackboard in the ninth grade) from my high school English teacher:
All criticism should be in plus values. It occurs to me all these years later that that was a remarkable introduction. Its implications weren't lost on us, and they continue to echo to this day.

Have you ever been in a writer's critique group? Do you have trouble deciding what to say about an offering for the current meeting? As comments are made, are they useful? Do they inspire a rewrite? Do they lead to new approaches? Do they make you wish you had stayed in bed?

Admittedly, critique and criticism are not the same breed of cat, though certainly they are related. Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of moving many hundreds of miles from my home has been the absence of opportunities to receive and discipline myself to hand out "constructive" criticism among fellow writers. Writing with a hope of publication becomes kind of like trying to walk without staggering on a strange road after dark. Just remember you can't trust your best friend to show you the way unless they have a flashlight. You really need someone who already knows where the potholes are.

If you are attempting any kind of artistic production, seek out those who may be willing at the very least to make comments that begin with discussing what your story or sculpture or song is before they try to tell you what it isn't, where its problems may be. Maybe equally important (an idea my editor has suggested to me), give yourself the same courtesy.

Until I achieve a critical success with a "traditional" publisher, ignore this whole blog. Don't listen to me, for the reason quoted in the first line.

Mars or Venus?

Most of my adult life I’ve been subliminally convinced that certain aspects of personality are sex-linked, kind of like tri-coloration in cats. As I’m reading a book in preparation for reviewing it, I’m beginning to wonder if that really is the case. I just finished a review of the same novel written by a man. I admire his penetrating analysis of theme. He seemed to have understood the characters and the author’s intention, but he doesn’t say anything about the writing itself, which strikes me as artistic in the extreme. Because this reviewer is also an excellent writer, I was surprised by his silence on the subject.

Then I received a comment from a male reader on my novel that praised it for its content and message. It was a pleasant surprise to have a male viewpoint on a book that has been categorized (not by me) as a romance that tells me he saw the story pretty much as I do. (The people who call it a romance are women.) I have to confess that I'm gratified and a good deal surprised by the praise some men have given it.

Now I don’t know what to do with that subjective observation. After all, what writer hasn’t been told to consider the audience? Which of us hasn’t been warned to think of the market? An addendum to the previous post, I guess.

What IS an author to do?

If only...

As too many fiction writers know, one of the most frustrating exercises is the search for an agent and/or publisher. Among the occasional rejection notes (in place of the non-response or printed forms), I've received two that said the reader didn't warm to my protagonist. There are two arguments in my favor: first, the whole point of the story is supposed to be how that character changes; second, I deliberately try not to set up my central characters as unflawed, but I attempt to show them as real people.

At last I've read a reviewer's comment that seems to grasp what's needed in a critic, whether one commenting after the book is published or someone who will decide whether it's worthy of publication. Geoffrey Wolff, who is a long-time professional reviewer, is quoted in The NY Times Book Review. He says he regrets that too few fiction writers are willing to write reviews. "A novelist knows how difficult it is to write even a flawed novel, whatever an unflawed novel may be." Some flaws, it seems to me, are evidence of that sought-after characteristic we were taught in school to call "verisimilitude." I consider that a requisite for a novelist. (Apologies to genre writers with other objectives in mind.)

I guess I'd add that it's too bad more agents and editors aren't endowed with the same knowledge, and thus might have the patience to read more than the customary first 50 pages.

A good day!

It's rare to have an opportunity to be read by someone who bothers to think about one's story or book or poem. I've just had my day (maybe my year) made by one such reader. All at once, after years of wondering whether I should find another hobby (so-called because it's so hard to claim legitimacy without noteworthy sales), she made me feel a distinct stiffening of my spine, and thus my ego.

The publisher listed Settling as a romance. Fair enough as far as it goes, but there's a theme, neither of the protagonists is without baggage and flaws. I don't want to preach, but I surely do want to give a reader something to mull over after the final page. This reader managed to spot precisely what I was trying to do. Can any writer ask for more?

Critic again

Another wonderful book has come my way. It was published in 2002. I can imagine it becoming an English teacher's standby, especially where a school combines the courses termed "humanities." When the Emporer Was Divine by Julie Otsuka. As you can guess from its title, it deals with the internment of Japanese during World War II.

The opening section has about as much emotional impact as I'm usually willing to endure without a struggle. Perhaps the most artful thing is that no one who figures in the story is given a name. They are "the woman, the girl, the boy." The implications of how effectively Otsuka's characters were dehumanized by their experiences is brought home to the reader on every page. Because the style is as simple as a third grade reader, as unembellished as a laundry list, a story that could become maudlin (especially at this distance in time from the events) with a single misstep has the impact of...I can't think of an appropriate metaphor. Perhaps a blow over the head with a slap stick. In fewer than 150 pages of lyrical understatement, the reader is taken to a place most of us would rather not go and made to keep turning the pages anyway. It's a $10 paperback. Look for it.

Critic

Lately it seems to me that I've read more than my share of good things. So many, in fact, that I wonder if trying to be a writer has clouded or in some other way changed my critical capacities. I'd hate to think I've become so woolly-minded that I can't detect those pet peeves of lifelong standing just because I'm a wannabe. No, that's not it. I still yelp aloud for every "laid" that should have been "lay," I still insist there's a difference between convince and persuade...you get the picture. I'm still annoyed by sentimentality and a sucker for sentiment without apologies.

Is there a reader out there who could help with this? What have you read lately that was so affecting (no, I don't mean "effecting") that you really want to tell the author how much you liked it? What has driven you up the wall? It would be fun to see who's reading what and how s/he feels about it.