[header_box_1 title=”the yeah write 2012 summer writer’s series, part 5″]
Week Five: becoming a more critical reader
Please welcome back today’s contributing editor Kristin W who tweets as @kdwald and blogs at That Unique* Weblog. If you have any questions or need any clarification on today’s topic or prompts, please feel free to begin a discussion in comments.
If you’re here just to hang out, the yeah write #68 hangout grid is open.
[/header_box_1]
Hurts so good
Everyone’s a critic. And, I’m willing to put down a dollar or two on the bet that everyone has been criticized. It can sting either way, and neither role is comfortable. How we give and take critique bares our experience and confidence more than it exposes our ego or ability. Shows like American Idol and Project Runway force artists to face their judges and listen to responses from several different sources. It’s staged, sure. It’s all about ratings and drama and mentioning sponsors, sure. But it also comes down to one performer listening to responses from people who know a little something or other. Some people simply say “Thank you.” Others are defiant and defensive. I’m most impressed with the people who question, ask, filter the commentary—even when it is painful.
Bringing your best stuff
So what is the point? Why do people put themselves through the harsh criticism (the Paula Abduls notwithstanding)? I have to believe it’s because true artists are always hoping to sand and hone and polish and snip their way to perfection. Or, something close to perfection. And that’s how I approach reading every single post in the yeah write grids, both challenge and hangout. I am making the assumption that people who submit a post to a site for “writers who blog and bloggers who write” will always bring their very best stuff without being asked. And I’m making the assumption that those writing bloggers want to improve their skills.
Naïve? Perhaps. Worth pissing people off? Oh, yes. Criticism ought to be constructive, instructive, pointed: the catalyst that helps create true art. And giving feedback in a forum like yeah write is different from reviewing a book or published piece. A review is about recommending a completed work to others. Constructive criticism is about improving the work, or future work, of the artist. Simply saying, “I hate it” is neither. It’s just unnecessary. And in my head, the same goes for simply saying “I love it.”
Reading yeah write as a reader and a writer
The reviewer in me recommends yeah write posts to friends for the emotion or story or beauty in the words. The critic in me wants the entire piece to tighten, flourish, glow, get better. And they can always get better. It’s why I read these yeah write posts as though they are fiction. How else could I be objective about the super-personal issues the YW folks throw-down every week? Seeing the posts as stories, not memories or life experiences, allows me to judge the work based on the guidelines for a yeah write post. It saves me from having to choose whose life gets the laurel wreath. Instead, I can judge based on how the deed is done, not how much raw emotion it brings up.
So, as Erica mentioned yesterday, for the purposes of these weekly yeah write posts, stay true to yourself and do your best to squeeze yourself into the guidelines. We can’t always follow the rules, but if we choose to dance a joyfully defiant cha cha outside of the guidelines, we must accept the fallout. Not all consequences are negative, you know. Just as not all criticism needs to be accepted. But consider it as it was offered: a hopeful suggestion to help you reach your very best.
[line_divider_thick]
Voting on the grid is back
Those of you who’ve been faithfully participating in the summer writer’s series will be way ahead of those submitting blindly to the challenge grid once it opens during yeah write #71. Woo-hoo.
Each week, fewer and fewer submissions are getting published to the grid on the first attempt. Take your time writing, make clear the point of your story/personal essay/fiction/creative non-fiction—avoid hiding it behind cloudy innuendo, then ease into a relevant conclusion without just tacking one on. There’s no such thing as rushing to the grid anymore. You have time to perfect before submitting. Raise your hand in comments if you’ve read this.
We’re back on the challenge grid schedule of the grid opening on Tuesday, closing on Wednesday at 9 pm (or at 50 blogs, whichever happens first) and the voting starting immediately and ending Thursday at 9 pm US eastern time. The winners’ post will publish on Friday.
yeah write #68 badges
[image width=”225″ height=”225″ align=”left” lightbox=”true” caption=”You can grab this one. Click to embiggen. Then right-click and select save this image.” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/yw_wwb_bww.png [/image]
[bullet_list]
- Click in the upper right corner of this page on the plus symbol and the hidden widget containing the button badge codes will drop
- Copy the code of your favorite badge, then paste that code into the HTML view of the post you’re planning to submit to the grid
- If you’re having problems accessing those, feel free to grab the one in this post. Your backlink will be yeahwrite.me/68-open-summer or yeahwrite.me/68-open-hangout
[/bullet_list]
[header_box_1 title=”yeah write #68 writing prompts”]
all your story are belong to you
[check_list]
- Read the summer FAQ page for other details: the grid is being moderated and if you’re missing an element outlined in the summer FAQ, your post will not be published on the grid
- Let the prompt lead you, but do not include the prompt in any way in your post, not at the beginning as an intro, not at the end as a footnote. If you reference the prompt in your post, your post will not be published on the grid
- Remember: no more than 500 words. If your post exceeds 500 words, yup, you guessed it—no publish for you
- If the prompt takes you from thunderstorms to watching TV at your grandma’s house to how much you love Pat Sajak to the oldest person you’ve ever kissed, we want that story the furthest away in your imagination from the original prompt. Let your imagination loose
- Keep your writing style! Do you tell stories with humor? Prose? Verse? Photos? Illustrations? Keep doing that. We’ll read Shakespearean drama on our own time
- Cut away at everything unnecessary to your story
- Don’t forget to badge your post
- The grid now opens on Tuesdays
[/check_list]
[divider_header_h3] This week’s prompts [courtesy of Tom Slatin] [/divider_header_h3]
[arrow_list]
- Well, who says you can’t judge a book by its cover?
- Describe a time you felt alone.
- List your bad habits and/or addictions and how you have tried to rid yourself of them.
[/arrow_list]
[/header_box_1]
If you’re just here to hangout, click here for the yeah write #68 hangout grid. The yeah write #68 summer challenge grid is open…
Kristin, you wrote this in a crunch?!?! Brava! So many fantastic points, my favorites being “Criticism ought to be constructive, instructive, pointed: the catalyst that helps create true art.”, and avoiding the blanket “I love it”!!
I can only speak for myself, but I wish for more critique from the community here and I haven’t witnessed very much (at least not publicly)… am I way off? I have given a critique to one yeahwrite-r, but was *very* scared to do so. (she was awesome in receiving, thank goodness!) Remember that I’m a relative newbie here, who is just trying to set her own expectations. I read all the posts and all the weekly entries, which have helped me improve so much! But that said, if I’m oblivious to my own mistakes and no one says anything to me, how will I grow? Will y’all tell me if there’s spinach in my teeth, please?! 😀
Thank you for the compliment – but Erica edited out some of the gristle before publishing. My original title was even three times as long. Ack!
I am sometimes hesitant to point out typos (and I make a ton!), which are much like having spinach in your teeth. They aren’t a commentary on the teeth themselves, just their presentation.
I definitely want to hear if there is spinach in my teeth, and more to the point, if my heel is dragging toilet paper behind me. (That would be my wordiness.)
A big huge YES to this. I know some people are baring their souls just to be heard, grammar be damned. That’s been me sometimes. However, I also desperately want to hear feedback on how to improve. In other words, yes, I want to hear how I bared my emotional scars wrong. Or right. Specifically.
I love, love, love the amount of specific feedback I have received from the Yeah Write community, and I have tried hard to return the favor. It’s a hard skill, both the critiquing and being critiqued.
In other news, yes, I used present tense, despite the previous discussion, but I thought very hard about it, and could give you a justification if you want to hear it. And it doesn’t specifically say no present tense in the guidelines. I looked. I can’t decide if I’m failing to learn the lesson of the previous post. *sheepish smile*
I screw around with grammar a lot. But I hope that I do it consciously, and I hope it’s part of creating a particular voice in my writing. Same goes for if you choose to use present tense (or any other non-conforming styles). You’ve done it consciously (if you can defend it with more than a foot stomp and “Because I like it!” then it’s conscious), so good on you!
And it’s true that commenting well takes so much work. I’ve been horrid about it the last few weeks. Behind the scenes I’ve offered feedback to those who have been willing to listen to me spouting off, but we never know how it will be received – or if it’s wanted. That’s the whole assumption problem.
That is one of the tricky things about the medium of blog comments. Face to face I like to think I can see if my criticism is falling on uninterested ears and cut myself off before I go too far. That’s hard in a comment. It’s a fine art. One I appreciate more every day. I rarely, rarely comment outside of the realm of yeah write.
This post reminds me of the concept of “the generous read” that was drilled into us in grad school. When we first entered the program everyone was all like, “Look at me! I’m smart! I can scathingly critique anything! Take that, every article ever!” and it was ridiculous because it was all about intellectual masturbation and not at all about learning to engage with the text.
So the Research 101 professors were all like ::: slow clap ::: “Good for you. Now, re-read the text assuming that you’re not God’s gift to mankind and the author’s not an idiot. Engage with the very best argument and the very best narrative. Only after you learn to be a generous reader can you give a critique worth its salt.”
I feel like that’s also true of critiquing more creative forms of writing. It’s easy to take a cynical approach, give a cursory read, and leave a generic comment. But it’s not particularly generous or helpful.
What I struggle with is critiquing pieces that are clearly very personal. I’m terrified any kind of critique will come across as me saying, “It’s great that you wrote about the death of your mother. But here’s how you bared your emotional scars wrong.”
Exactly right, Lark. I remember those grad school classes and professors! Undergrad too, actually. 🙂 And the personal post thing is definitely tough. The thing is, unless you’re sharing your story in a forum specifically for a particular topic – it’s fair game for the crazies to come out. So, the crazies may as well be trying to help you tell your story more effectively.
The yeah write link-up is specifically about writing, so hopefully everyone is coming to it with the goal of reading and writing more with the purpose of improving. I certainly hope to improve, ’cause there’s a lot of room for it in my body of work!
Same with me. I don’t want to come here and just throw up a post to get on the grid, either. I also want to be myself and I don’t want to be like everyone else.
I think that taking criticism (good and bad) depends upon a person’s ability to seperate themselves from the work. You have to know how to stop, take a step back, and then make yourself be objective.
Coincidentally, tomorrow is the first meeting of a writing/critique group I decided to join up with. I’m actually looking forward to it because I have written pieces I’d like to publish eventually. Plus it’s a group that meets in person, so I am looking forward to getting together with other writers.
I have intense envy of your critiquing group. I’ve been meaning to join one, but my area is full of seriously serious writers. So intimidating!
My husband is a designer for the theatre and very frequently his designs are met with, “It was wonderful!” He gets so frustrated by these comments because not every design is “wonderful” and he feels he’s not growing by getting only that comment.
My acting teacher always says that criticism is like a coat — try it on for size and you might be surprised when it fits you. I like to try stuff on…
I love that coat image. So true! Not to mention that just because it fits, doesn’t mean it’s right for you.
Thank you for this, Kristin. I don’t just want to come each week and throw a post up and hope for the best. I want to learn and hone this newfound love of writing that I’ve found inside of me. Otherwise, what’s the point? And, if you’re open to a wee bit of constructive criticism, I think the sentence “Worth pissing people?” might benefit from “off” at the end? 🙂
Actually, it was pissing ON people, but there you go. 😉 I’ll accept that criticism and adjust accordingly.
That was me, the managing editor editing copy while wearing a mesh laundry basket on my head playing hide-and-seek with the toddler. My oversight, not Kristin’s.