[stylist] Critiquing each others material

Tue Dec 6 20:50:29 UTC 2011

Barbara,

First, why belong to a community of writers if you never post your own
work?

Second, any artistic expression contains a bit of the artist. I find it
humorous that so many artist have self-esteem issues, or are never
satisfied, yours truly included, and yet we work in a field that insist
we bare a part of ourselves, a part of our souls.

As a creative nonfiction writer, I often write about personal, emotional
subjects, yet I tend to be a closed-book type of person. Reading about
my life, for me, is completely different than openly talking about it. I
don't want to discuss my life outside of a creative context. And yet I
love writing, and choose to write about personal moments from my life;
things I would not talk about with most people. Go figure, smile.

And this brings the subject up of what is personal in writing. You say a
poem is too personal to critique, but any writing is personal. As I just
stated, nonfiction writing can be very personal, and even fiction can,
and should, contain a piece of an authors self. We not suppose to
critique, or judge, the experience or person's life, but we focus on if
an emotional response was met, if a reader derived the meaning you
intended, if certain phrasing or structure works; with creative writing
of any kind, content is critiqued in terms of what works and doesn't
with the writing; it's not the person's life on trial but how they
present that life.

When someone critiques an essay I write about my childhood, which can be
a very personal thing, they aren't suppose to tell me what was right and
wrong about my childhood, but they focus on how I craft an essay
detailing a moment from my childhood. Do I construct it in a way that
relays a certain emotion or point? Do I bring it to the life, the people
to life? Do I create three-dimensional people, showing the good and bad
in everyone involved? Do I follow proper grammar and structure? This is
how we critique writing, not judging how a person lives or what they do,
or don't do.

Very few people can write a draft and have it be perfected without
outside advice and suggestion. Especially with a forum such as this, any
critique or comment can be followed or ignored, but without feedback, we
never know how our writing is perceived by others.

Me thinks this smells familiar, but that's neither here nor there.
Receiving feedback, if incorporated into your work, is not the same as
having a co-author, or someone just completely writing for you. I fail
to understand how you think this means your writing is no longer yours,
or that credit can no longer be yours alone. Short of a person ghost
writing for you, you alone decide what comments and advice to follow;
you alone decide how best to incorporate that feedback, and where to
incorporate it. Constructive criticism helps writers strengthen what is
weak, correct errors, open minds to things you may not have thought of.

When an actor is rehearsing and the director calls cut and ask them to
try something for the character, does this mean the performance no
longer belongs to the actor? Or when a musician is given a suggestion to
try a different phrasing or inflection, does this mean their performance
is not longer theirs? Of course not, and the same thinking applies to
writing and feedback people provide for that writing. Even if a person
provides something I didn't initially think of, I'm the crucible in
which the creative endeavor is formed and crafted.

I'm often asked why I critique the way I do, and the answer is that one,
that's how I learned to critique, and two, when people simply say,
"That's good," or, "That's bad," it doesn't tell a person "why" it's bad
or good. We can't effectively revise and work on the good and bad parts
if we don't know why people said that. If we don't have the pulse of the
readers, we don't know how our writing will be perceived. As the writer,
we know what we mean, what we intend; of course it's clear to us, but if
that clarity doesn't extend to readers, we need to know and try making
it clear. We also need to know if we've been redundant, or if characters
are flat, or if different or better language can be used, what works,
what doesn't. Providing this feedback doesn't equate to our work no
longer being ours; it just helps us be better writers and create the
best material possible.

I understand your concern about how your work will be judged. Being a
writer who also has a background in performance, I know how terrifying
and nerve-racking it can be to share your art. And if people don't like
it, that's just the end of the world. Any artist has to make the
decision as to if they want to develop a talent to share, or if it's
just a private hobby. But to believe that feedback of any kind
constitutes to an artist no longer having an original piece of art, I'm
just not quite sure where this thinking comes from. Unless you
plagiarize or use a ghost writer, the work belongs to you including the
creative endeavor.

And for anyone to simply reply with a, "That's crappy," I wouldn't give
much credence to a statement like that. If we can't articulate our
feedback with intelligence and construct a well-thought out critique and
execute it with the emphasis on the word "constructive," then we have no
place critiquing in the first place, smile.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 12
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 15:12:08 -0600
From: "Barbara Hammel" <poetlori8 at msn.com>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] A new list for book discussions
Message-ID: <SNT139-ds106980A6F9285AE147D12AEBB50 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

I, for one, am terrified that someone will say my poetry is really crap
and 
should just junk it all because who'd read that stupid, old-fashioned 
rhyming stuff any way--if I did get brave enough to try publishing. I
usually write poems and what comes out is the final draft, meaning I
never 
edit my stuff.  No, I don't think I'm that good that every one is a
polished 
poem that has nothing wrong with it.  I just don't know how to edit.  My

composition teachers in college and high school had this same problem
with 
me because in my head is this thought that says "I write what I mean so
how 
can I change it if that's what I meant to say."  I know this is wrong,
and 
I'd love to be able to change it so maybe my work could be better than
it 
is.
I also think if someone ccritiques it and I change something, it's not
truly 
my work any more but needs that person's credit, too.  Wrong?  I'm sure
it 
is.
Most folks here aren't poets any way, and how do you critique such a 
personal thing as a poem.
Maybe I should try my hand at writing a novel but my characters there
are 
too two-dimentional.

Okay, that's from my heart about why I seldom want to post writing.
Next? Barbara