"Did you like it?" I asked.
"No! It was so depressing!" and she went on to tell me how she never knew that I had gone through such emotions and felt genuinely sorry for me. This was some of the best feedback I have ever gotten for any of my writing.
Good criticism is incredibly hard to come by at a time where the word "criticism" has a connotation that often gets it replaced by nicer sounding things like feedback. Between my creative writing classes, the Marine Corps, and generally questionable choices that a twenty year old ends up making, criticism has been the better part of my routine since I was eighteen. I don't just love the criticism that I receive but it is required if I want to get any better at my craft in a meaningful way.
The reason I bring this up, is because I want to get better, but I know as a writer just how hard it is to get any kind of traction when you're occupation happens to currently be starving whatever. There are ways to combat this, but honestly there is much that can be done in a vacuum. Every artist, writer, or generally creative person has run into the "this piece is nice but it reminds me a lot of this other thing you have never heard of" moment. The moment where you think you have come up with the perfect backstory, or the perfect lore, or even just naming magic something other than magic just for the sake of not calling it magic, just to find out that the Simpsons did it like twenty years ago. However, I know the main problem lies in the fact that both writer and readers might not realize just how good "bad criticism" can be.
If anyone knows the old adage about "if someone calls you a horses [rear end]..." joke. If you don't, then the basis is if multiple people are telling you something is wrong or needs to be changed, maybe it is time to take a hard look as the beautiful child you have created is flawed and needs revisions. If you are lucky, you will be fortunate enough to hit a point in your creative career where you can look back and laugh in a loving manner about how much you fought to keep not-shadow-the-hedgehog in your book of definitely not edgy teenager that TOTALLY didn't say in a round about fashion "I'm not like other *insert here*s". Without editing, proofreading, and a test audience, it's a shot into the abyss and hoping to hit something that isn't going to eat you. Where the problem arises is when the writer is incapable of receiving any kind of feedback or when the audience is afraid to give any.
I'm sure there are plenty of article that talk about these issues, but from where I stand it is an issue of people believing it would be rude or embarrassing to correct something, with little to no regard with what the alternative is. For example, we have all had that moment where we have a colleague, friend, or whatever who walks up with a zit or pimple smack dab in the middle of the forehead. If you say something, you now for certain it will be slightly to extremely embarrassing to the person, but what is the other option? No one wants to be the one to point it out because of politeness or some other reason, so are you really going to let someone whom you feel no malice for walk around all day with other people who are too polite to say anything? There are very few bathrooms I have walked into where there are no mirrors, so to add to the panic there is little to no chance that they will get home, look in the mirror, and realize "holy crap, I've been walking around all day with this giant milky white pustule on my face and everyone just let me. How utterly embarrassing." As a writer, I have to trust those around me and everyone who reads my stuff to help me pop the plot pimples. If all this sounds gross and too much, imagine how I feel knowing there are there and I can't find them.
Publishers aren't much better, but instead of talking about the overwhelming amount of rejections I have receive that include the message "we used to give feedback but now we don't", I would rather speak about an email I received that helped me by not holding back. I submitted a story to Frontier Tales. The email was simple but the message was loud and clear; I didn't write a western. What seems so simple also was compounded by a little issue I had figured out early into writing these stories. If I took away or changed what was weird and make it mundane, would that take away from the story? Does the werecoyote really need to be a werecoyote? After messing with some of my backlog, the answer was easy to figure out. Yes for some, no for others, but I should be much more focused and mindful of what pieces from what genres I am borrowing from, and not just add things because I think a wand is more exciting than a revolver.
I know this comes off as more than a rant than advice, but there are plenty of things that need to be addressed though an objective lens that politeness often blurs. Is this a suggestion, an opinion, or a part of a story that ruins everything? Who knows! It would be too embarrassing to tell you what's wrong, so instead let me pretend everything is fine so you can send it to important people with all the flaws intact. I know I am putting a lot on the audience, but that's because y'all have power that the writer doesn't. If a writer refuses to change or at least listen to their readers, the writer will get their punishment one way or the other. If three-hundred people tell me they love a story, and only ten people have more to say than "I like it", I'm in trouble.
But enough about all that. I guess the reason I decided to go into such a long discussion over this is because how important something as simple as saying "this is not good" or "this part is the strongest part" really is. Thank you so much for reading, and I can't wait to talk to y'all later.
