Why critiques are like funhouses, except when they’re like black matter and mixed metaphors

[pjthompson]

So, here I am reading a book I’m enjoying immensely. I come upon a chapter in which the writer does something that I know, positively, I have told some young writers in my capacity as a critiquer to never do—switching POV late in a book to one not encountered before. Hey, I’ve been told not to do that myself. The thing is, it works perfectly in this book. As a reader coming upon that shift, I could give a hairy pontiff’s left ear whether the writer has changed POV. I want the information it can give me, I want to know what happens next. And in that moment of realization a great crap paper tide of old critiques fluttered behind me and a voice called across the abyss as it filled with the perfidy of my Writing Thoughts, It doesn’t really matter what you’re supposed to do. The only thing that matters is if you can make what you do work.

Not the first time I’ve had that thought, but it came home especially strong to me today. It may have something to do with rereading one of my older novels—a shuddering experience if ever there is one.

Experience. That’s the key word. The perfidy mentioned above is all about the difference between critiques based on experience (and maybe instinct) and those based on regurgitation. “The Rules” only matter if the story doesn’t work. And here’s the other thing, even if a beta reader or critquer or critic says the story doesn’t work, it still might not matter. That “doesn’t work” can be a question of individual taste, or prejudice, or the sour feeling left in the reader’s stomach by the cafeteria food. If your own gut—not the one turning sour—tells you that something is right, you need to stick by it.

I’m not saying we writers have a magic I’m A Genius Don’t Bother Me With Your Tiny Opinions card. No. If enough people tell you that something isn’t working, you should probably pay attention to that. Be very sure that your gut is talking, telling you a thing is right, and not some fractured corner of your ego.

And even as I’m typing that last paragraph, I’m thinking “Regurgitated Wisdom.” (Because, really, haven’t you heard the one about “if enough people” ad nauseam?) In this case, it happens to be regurgitated with a side of experience, so maybe it’s not total bullshit. Maybe I do sort of know what I’m talking about in this particular instance, as opposed to some of the half-assed critiques I have offered up over the years.

But you never know. Reading my old stuff and realizing how deluded I was about the quality of that work has me stumbling through a funhouse of fractured and distorted opinion. What do I really know?

This is an existential question and has no real answer. The question is the black matter holding the universe together like invisible glue. It is self-contained and complete and needs no critique to make it whole. Sufficient unto the day is the question thereof.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I give you a hearty AMEN here.

Yes, if seven people read your story and stumble over it, that's maybe a sign. But then again, if you absolutely have to write that story that way, write it that way! And maybe one day you'll find the reader who needed to hear it exactly that way. Or maybe you'll stick it in the trunk, pull it out one day, and you, too, will think, ehhh, this would be better if I changed it. Who knows.

There are so many factors to consider. So many.

I got a rejection letter the other day. The editor explained what it was she didn't like. I could totally see it. If you dislike that thing, you will not like the story. But, I like the story that way. So, I'll keep it as it is. Other times, I've been willing to change crucial scenes, alter even basic facts of the story. So it all depends.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

It really does all depend. I've gotten enough rejection letters (hey, there's a brag!) to know that the same story can get opposite advice from editors. Often totally contradictory. When that happens, I despair a little, but then I think, "Well, maybe the answer is just that it's a matter of taste." And if that's the case, as you said, stick with what you've written. And sometimes you just have to leave something the way it is because that's the way the story has to be told.

But the trunk does have a way of leveling these things out, though. I'm slowly working on the edit of a novel I once thought the best thing I'd ever written. I haven't read in in a few years and those years have made a huge difference in how I view it. The broken parts are so evident when I couldn't see them before.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I think what you describe is some of the best sort of writing--when something is just NOT supposed to work, and yet it does.

If it works, it works, and to hell with the rules.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

My Creative Writing tutor had a lot of useful aphorisms. The relevant one was:

"The only rule is, keep the reader reading. The rest is just guidelines." She expanded this to "If something works, do it. If it doesn't work, don't do it."

(Other examples:

"Writers have immaculate homes." We protested (we knew what our homes were like). "Comparatively. There are times when you would rather scrub the kitchen floor than sit down and write."

"Writers are actors without the bottle." Expansion: "They have to get inside the heads of umpteen people, many of whom they don't like, but don't actually get up on a stage and do it in front of live people.")

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

All very sage advice from someone who has obviously Been There.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

*nods*

The rules are there because some things usually don't work - especially if you don't know what you are doing.

Of course, knowing the rules, why they are there and what they accomplish, gives you the knowledge (and hopefully the skill) to break them when necessary, but you need to be good to do so. :)

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

You absolutely have to be good to do so. And you have to have spent some time slaving to obey the rules, and slaving to learn how to break the rules without alienating the reader.

If writing was a cookie cutter instead of a skill set, everyone would be trying to be a writer.

Hey, wait a minute...everyone is trying to be a writer. ;-/

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I have cringed many a time to think of some of the advice I've passed along to fellow writers over the years, all with the best intentions.

I don't know that I've ever had an unshakable conviction that something had to be a certain way in my stories, but I do know what kind of stories I like and when advice seems to run to "tell a different kind of story," I pretty much ignore it.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Yep, a lot of time people are telling you to write the story they would have written rather than critiquing the story-as-is. Learning to tell the difference between the two takes time, though, and I also shudder to think that I might have given somebody that kind of bum steer.