Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Full teacups of ink

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There’s the famous Zen koan about the Zen master, his student, and the cup of tea — rather than repeat it, I’ll point you to this retelling of it — I often think about. Particularly during writing workshops. People often come in with their work and they don’t want feedback, they want praise. And they tell you that your criticisms of the work are wrong — who are you going to believe, the writer or your lying eyes?

I’ve seen a couple examples of this recently. In playwriting class we do a cold reading/basic acting out of someone’s script, the writer speaks about what they think of how it turned out, and then the class critiques what they’ve just seen. There’s always one writer — maybe one or two per quarter, thank goodness, not every week — who starts to argue back. And it goes on. And on. Until people (finally) realize it’s a lost cause and stop commenting.

All of the feedback you get might, in fact, be wrong. This can absolutely be the case. But you have to consider it first. Empty your damn teacup and look at the tea. Not the right tea for you? Great: toss it out. But taste it first before you decide. (In fact, I should tell the playwriting teacher we need a new rule: as now, the writer gets to speak first, and then they shut the hell up.)

Now, I have been guilty of the teacup full of hubris myself: I think I know it all, only to discover, Eh, whoops, not so much. In fact, thinking I know it all and finding out I’m dead wrong seem to go hand in hand. So whenever I’m completely certain I’m right and they’re wrong, I take a moment to consider various ways to look at it.

This doesn’t mean I accept any and all criticism as valid. I’m still the one in charge of my writing, and I have to decide if what they’re saying is true or not.

There are several levels of criticism:

  1. “You are a bozo and ugly and you write like crap.” This is criticism it is safe to disregard because it’s non-specific as to where the problems in the story lie.

  2. “I dunno. I just kinda didn’t like it.” This is tough, because you then have to work with your critic to pick out what they didn’t like. When did they stop? Were they just bored? Was there anything they did like?

  3. “I didn’t like your main character. He should be a ninja!” Aha. Here we get to the Problem and the Fix. It is always safe to disregard the Fix. Your critiquer’s Fix may turn out to be exactly what you need, but more likely it’s not. It is a pointer to where a problem in your story might be.

  4. “He should be a ninja!” Either your critiquer thinks every story should have a ninja, or they’ve leaped right to the Fix stage, wanting to help get your story into the best shape ever. It’s incredibly tough to hear this and not think, “Yeah, tweedy insurance adjuster…not fun. He should be a ninja.” When what you’ve got to think is, “Okay, there’s a problem with my main character being too boring, too passive, or not wearing enough black.”

    This stage requires you to know your critiquer. Is this how they generally express their feedback? Or are they trying to write your story for you? Also, your main character may be completely fine as is and your critiquer is out to lunch.

  5. “I thought the middle section, where they string up the witches and beat them with cream pies, was kind of slow and I lost interest there.” They know where the problem is, but they’re not diagnosing it for you. Excellent. Even better, you know the problem always comes before the point where they lost interest. You can analyze that section and move backward.

I’m sure there are several other types too. (Feel free to post in comments.)

Yes, there can be all kinds of misguided feedback in workshops or writing groups. A certain amount of groupthink does go on and you have to decide, Is this feedback about my play, or do they tell everyone that every play needs a fool character?

So pick your commenters wisely, listen to them, and then consciously decide which parts of the feedback are valuable for you and how.

Otherwise, you’re just wasting all of our time.

Glenn Greenwald for President

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Or at least much better known mainstream political commentator (Tim Russert has a job again why?):

Misadventures in logical reasoning
* Sometimes, people get drunk and drive, or get drunk and abuse others. Therefore, we should outlaw all alcohol (rather than just outlaw drunk driving and assault).
* Sometimes, the media libels people and destroys their reputations. Therefore, we should outlaw all freedom of the press (rather than just proscribe libel).
* Sometimes, children get a hold of cigarettes or pornography. Therefore, we should outlaw all smoking and pornography (rather than just outlaw the act of selling cigarettes or porn to minors).

…

Things I learned over the last 48 hours
* It’s possible to eliminate recreational activities that people have engaged in privately for thousands of years simply by making it illegal and then imprisoning the people who do it. Thus, we criminalize prostitution and drugs to ensure that nobody does those things.
* People who work at an unpleasant job in order to support themselves, rather than because they enjoy it, are the functional equivalent of brutalized, exploited slaves and therefore should be barred by others from choosing that job — when the job in question is prostitution, but not when it’s factory work or fast food cashier or large corporate law firm associate or massage therapist or porn actor.

…

Yes, prostitution is against the law in New York. No, Eliot Spitzer is not entitled to break the law. Yes, Eliot Spitzer should be treated the same as any average citizen who hires prostitutes (neither better nor worse). No, I have no sympathy for Spitzer personally given how aggressively he prosecuted multiple prostitution cases and how guilty he is of rank hypocrisy and overzealous prosecutions.

None of those issues pertains in any way to the points above.

Spring is in the air

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What’s been going on Chez Diane:

  • I set up a Google Alert with my name. Apparently I am a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Lottery spokeswoman and a labor market consultant. Which is so cool, ’cause I thought I was horrifyingly underemployed.

  • I originally spelled “Connecticut” as “Connecticult.” Ira Levin lives!

  • Spring has hit our household with a vengeance. We finally said, “It’s time,” and bought the kids their Serious Bedroom Furniture sets. They had been living with Ikea specials, which are great for little kids, who are quick on the draw with markers, stickers, and who knows what else. However, after seven years of doing their worst, the kids defeated the Ikea furniture decisively (and they used penalty kicks for good measure).

    What this meant was: We had to totally and completely take all of the crap out of both kids’ rooms—both the one they were sleeping in and the one meant to be Simon’s room but was mostly a storage area. We had to get Sophia’s room (formerly: both kids’ room) painted. We cleaned the rooms out and moved the new furniture in. Both rooms look fabulous. Sophia loves that she can stay up and read without keeping Simon awake. Simon loves having his own space (although it took him a night to adjust to being by himself).

    Our dining room, however, is a mess, stacked with boxes and boxes of kid-crap we have to go through and sort into keep and, more likely, throw out.

  • Darin also finally went through our boxes and boxes (and boxes) of comic books. We’re keeping one bookshelf worth, and tossing 7 or 8 book boxes full of comics. That’s a lot of comics. I called a local shop to ask about trade-ins for our comics, most of which are 10-15 years old, primarily Vertigo stuff. “Gotta be honest,” he said. “The trade-in for recent stuff is pretty dismal.” But…you’ll take ’em, right? ‘Cause this is 7 or 8 boxes full of comics and I really don’t have a garage to store them in.

  • Also part of spring: getting the termite killers in. Oy. This involves several days of them ripping up floors and putting stuff in the walls of the house and hammering on everything, it appears. Lots of hammering. I don’t know how I’m going to write with this nonsense going on.

  • Speaking of writing: I’ve begun the time-honored tradition of querying literary agents for my mystery novel. The first week, I queried three agents, as sort of a toe-in-the-water beginning. One agent rejected me immediately… and then another one asked for a partial! Whoo hoo! I thought. A 66% response rate per week! That rocks!

    Needless to say, I’ve queried more, and haven’t gotten one additional response. This is what I get for hubris. However, my March horoscope sounds very promising. Of course, their job is to sound promising. I’m keeping an eye out for developments on March 7.

  • In case you’re doing research on where, how, and who to query, here are some sites to check out:
    • Query Tracker: make lists of the agents you want to query, keep track of when you queried them, and how and when they responded.
    • Agent Query: listings of just about every reputable agent in the biz and what they represent.
    • Publishers Marketplace: who’s selling what to whom and for how much. Invaluable. Yes, it costs. You can subscribe to the free lunch newsletter, but access to PM’s archives is wonderful.

  • I don’t really use horoscopes to judge how well something is working out. I use Tarot cards.

  • I’m workshopping my new novel, an urban fantasy, at Critique Circle. It’s free to join, and so far I’m seeing thoughtful, intelligent critiques. If you don’t have a writing group but you want to try out your stuff on other people, check it out.

  • I don’t really use Tarot cards either. But boy, they’re pretty and fun and good for generating story ideas.