If we're with the writer, or his/her voice, and get where they're going, understand them and like them then I think we'll put up with a lot more.

Total sense, but of course you're right that it's the reader's tastes that define self-indulgence as much as the writer's writing.

I know what you mean about 'frustrated poet syndrome', and you've got me nervous now, since Darren cut three of my prose sentences into a poem and posted them in the flavoured coffee thread! But again, it's not really the rich language, is it, or we'd all hate every word of Dickens or Woolf (yes, I know some do), it's that the writer isn't doing it properly.

The over-lush and over-fancy is the obvious kind of self-indulgence, but there's an opposite sort too, where the author is determindly not-going-to-give-anything-away because he (it usually seems to be he, or am I being unfair?) is indulging his desire to appear cool at all costs. Do you remember a cleverly manipulated media fuss over a bunch of blokey novelists who called themselves The New Puritans? They were like that. The Hemingway imitators are like that too, and in a different way, one of the poets in this year's T S Eliot prize (I genuinely can't remember her name) was so spare and abstracted in her work and how she read it that however technically good she was, I just thought, 'sorry, you're going to have to remind me why I should be interested.'

Emma

You're right of course, and I have to agree that uber-cool sparse brigade do tend to be men. Whether the writing be overblown and dense or naked and lacking I think it comes down to the same thing: arrogance.

Or maybe it's got something in common with the reason (some) men drive big cars. Making up for something they don't feel says enough?

Nice, lush writing can work wonderfully well (check me with my allireration!) - as can writing which is sparse and to the point - as long as they suit the story and the story isn't being used as a vehicle to promote that "style" of writing. I think that shows a lack of respect for the story.

Nik.

You're right of course, and I have to agree that uber-cool sparse brigade do tend to be men. Whether the writing be overblown and dense or naked and lacking I think it comes down to the same thing: arrogance. Or maybe it's got something in common with the reason (some) men drive big cars. Making up for something they don't feel says enough?

Maybe it's that if you do find yourself doing anything as dangerously emotional and sedentary and therefore potentially un-macho as writing, you'd better make damned sure that nobody could possibly mistake your writing for all that soppy girly stuff about emotions.

as long as they suit the story and the story isn't being used as a vehicle to promote that "style" of writing. I think that shows a lack of respect for the story

You'r absolutely right (and it fits with the 'well-told story thread'. Sometimes you see bits in the how-to-write books about how you 'develop a style', and I find myself thinking that's the wrong way round. Surely you should develop everything else - a good toolkit of writing skills, a room full of other people's wonderful writing, a head full of ideas, a gut full of your own experience, a well-subdued Inner Critic - and then whatever style happens when you set out to tell a story, it's truly and naturally as much yours as the story is.

Emma

Emma

Yup! Is style something that can be taught? Or is it something that should come naturally and run hand in hand with the story. Surely style comes from the writer as a person, with experiences and a decent library.

Nik.

The act of sitting down to write - with the unspoken assumption that what you want to say is of interest to the rest of humanity - is already supremely vain and self-indulgent, so don't compound your crime by allowing this vanity to show through in your writing.

Yes, that's true. Self-indulgence in the execution of an inherently self-indulgent act compounds the crime.

Emma

If you can make your reader laugh along and enjoy the arrogance or self-indulgence of a character, that's one thing. To think a keen reader won't spot a writer's egotism on the page is just stupid. But that's the problem isn't it - egotism and blindness often go hand in hand. It's like a wall, or hands over the ears, shutting out anything that doesn't conform to the misled writer's own overblown self-image. Unfortunately, the only cure for that is when the cruel honesty flows from the reader.

I've noticed some very odd reactions to bad critiques on WW. Surely, you can't only ask for comments that contain priase, and disallow the others? That is highly self-indulgent, and misses the point of what WW is about. I think that if you think something is utter rubbish, you should be free to say so as long as you're explaining why.

Hurt feelings? Well, the story is the story. Would you rather be led to believe you're a genius when you're not?
That is self-indulgence, and yes, egotism.

JB

Not sure I agree with you Wax. Critiques are purely subjective and should not purport to be otherwise. Even when publishers and agents reject stuff that is complete crap, it is rare for them to actually say it. I think it's unfair to say something is rubbish even if you can substantiate your reasons as this business is so subjective anyway - constructive criticism is the name of the game. Also, writers develop at different times and it can affect confidence if a work is heavily criticised when a writer is at an early stage of their development. I don't think it's necessarily ego that makes a writer only want to hear praise but it may be because of their own self-belief in their writing.

I think it's got to have more to do with what the individual writer wants. If (s)he says Go On I Can Take it, I would assume that they take their writing very seriously (not that someone who doesn't say that, doesn't)and wants people to be as harsh and objective as they can be, so any crap bits can be ironed out before it gets to the stage where an editor/agent returns it. If I say Go On I Can Take It, I want the thing to be good enough so it doesn't get returned to me - and if that means taking some harsh, honest comments, then so be it. You're right, editors/agents and pubs don't tend to be nasty when they reject you - they don't tend to say a great deal at all. They've not got the time.

Having said all that, I would say that I wouldn't expect (or accept) someone to be deliberately rude about my work, or harsh for harsh's sake, and in my experience on ww that isn't generally the case.

Of course I try to be as constructive as I can be when I comment on anything - no matter who it's been written by or what their intentions for the piece are.

But if you're asking for honest feedback tehn I think you've got to be prepared for it. It isn't alwasy nice but it helps the piece, and has helped my writng) in the long run.

I think common sense is what's required.

Nik.

<Added>

Oops! Apologies for the typos - still getting used to this new keyboard! ;)

Two things occur to me:

Criticism can be egotistical and self-indulgent too, if the critic is more concerned either to sound clever or to do to literary equivalent of kicking the cat after a crap day at work.

When talking about too harsh or not harsh enough criticism, you need to distinguish between what you're saying and how you're saying it. If you tell me a chapter's crap in so many words, I will either dissolve into tears and never write another word, or reject the criticism totally in order to protect my self-esteem. If you tell me that it doesn't quite fit the theme, goes on too rather long, could be written much more excitingly... etc, without the slap-in-the-face style, I might start listening. You can be incredibly tough about detail without ever actually saying outright, 'this stuff is bad'. It's the latter that's so unconstructively crushing. Any writer worth their salt, faced with the former, bites their lip, admits the truth of at least most of it, and gets on with the revisions. I try when critiquing to say one nice thing for each bad one. It's always possible, and apart from anything else, half the time trainee writers know no more what they're doing right than what they're doing wrong, so you might as well tell them that too!

Emma

I couldn't agree more. I hope I didn't sound too harsh myself on my previous post. I think it'd be horrid and pointless to say something's crap. Critisism has got to be constructive and for the benefit of the person whose work's being looked at.

Nik.

Criticism can be egotistical and self-indulgent too, if the critic is more concerned either to sound clever or to do to literary equivalent of kicking the cat after a crap day at work.

I think that's spot on. I agree that if the writer requests Go I can take it! they should be prepared to take harsh comments, but this option should not be taken as a licence for blanket criticism. I totally agree with Emma regarding helpful comments. It simply does not help to say this writing is bad, but it is more helpful for a writer's progress and development to explain why or to pick out certain bits in detail.

Again I agree 100%. To say something is bad without saying why is no use to anyone and demoralising, not to mention a touch bullying. What I meant was that if someone says (like me) Go on I Can Take It - they should be prepared for comments that they may not like. Constructive critisism helps. Critisism less so.If someone was to say nothing other than "this is crap" then I don't see why they bothered commenting in the first place. I think we're both singing from the same hymn sheet, Traveller - maybe in a different key.

Nik.

Naturally, I see all the sides of what you're saying, and for a humble growing writer, of course one should not attack their confidence. I meant when someone is blaring out ten trumpets about how great they are, and you don't see that, I think it's only fair to say why. I have always sought to be constructive, and supportive, as I have been treated on the whole, with the same courtesy. I think it's important to see the merit in most things. But if you read something that is clearly copied wholesale from someone else's efforts, and the self indulgence and arrogance of the writer is unavoidable, then why not say so? Surely that is constructive?

JB

But if you read something that is clearly copied wholesale from someone else's efforts, and the self indulgence and arrogance of the writer is unavoidable, then why not say so? Surely that is constructive?

Yes, by all means say so. I think you puncture self-indulgence most effectively by pointing out in grim detail just why it doesn't work: arrogance is part of the defence system of a weak ego, and another part the deafness to general criticism. If they're copying someone else wholesale, it may be arrogance, or it may be a painful lack of self confidence. On the whole, the plagiarists on creative writing courses are the weak students who can't cope and won't confess it.

Emma