As I add my thoughts to the site right now, I'm aware that what I'm saying will be ignored or dismissed by most people who read it. But then I'm only really interested in the very small number of people who are actually serious about becoming good writers.

You don't seem to hold the majority of WW members in very high regard, Terry.

Tony,

I don't think about it that way, i.e. whether or not I should hold the majority in high regard. This is an open site, so there is no 'majority'; there's a collection of individuals with different requirements. My experience on the site is that while most members will claim they want only to improve their writing, and may well actually believe that, their actions don't always back it up. For instance, I get asked by people to look at their work, which I do, and in the belief that they must be asking because they want some help with it. I then do a detailed critique and in many cases the writer is grateful and clearly intends to take up some of the suggestions I've made. But there are those who will either argue the toss or dismiss what I've said. Then, I realise that their motive was more to get validation. And that's the classic problem with open access critique sites: that writers who want validation more than real feed-back, don't ever tell you that, presumably because they know it would look bad if they did. Possibly, they even believe they're open to straight-talking feed-back (after all, just about everybody clicks the 'Go on – I can take it!' button).

What I've also learned is that no good work is wasted. Which is why I still critique when requested, even if I suspect the writer isn't really serious about feed-back. Others see the feed-back and can benefit from it. They also see the writer's unconvincing arguments for why, say, his POV is emotionally distant, and learn from that. We all make excuses for our weak points, and sometimes seeing others defending what are in fact errors helps to shock us into facing up to our own writing faults.

There are many people on this site I hold in high regard. They're the ones who have good hearts and open minds, and a desire to produce great writing no matter what it takes. There are others I just don't know about, and there are those I know from experience are here mainly for validation, either as a writer or a wisdom-dispenser, or both, and who I largely avoid.

So, to be a little pointed here: why are you speaking up for the 'majority', rather than, say, looking to your own corner of the writing world? What exactly are you defending? Who are you speaking for?

Terry

Terry makes a very good point. I can speak from experience (being guilty of searching for validation on occasion), that people actually telling me how I should write my stories if I haven't written something as well as I should have immediately triggers the defensive mechanisms.

I wrote it like that because...
It doesn't need to change...
You're missing the point about...
I did it on purpose...

I can write 10,000 words a day of legible prose, regardless of quality, but trying to get me to edit a word of it, on reflection, is probably often like swimming uphill.

It's just as well I have no grand scheme to become a 'professional', and also just as well I don't prod Terry for his feedback =P

Taking criticism seriously is a really difficult hurdle to get over, and IB just pointed out one of the most common defenses - "You're missing the point about..."

I hold my hand up to that one. It took a while to realise that if the reader really is missing the point, then I haven't written it well enough.

A good one I saw on this very site the other day was along the lines of, 'There is a reason why the drama doesn't happen here [first chapter] . . . Chapter 2 is the one where the real action begins'.

Terry,

I was reacting to the way that you rubbished what was a constructive suggestion about linking to external sources on creative writing concepts. It's one possible solution to the problem raised at the start of the thread. I find it a little ironic that you felt the need to reply at such length and then to impute motives relating to your recent critique of my work. I was certainly not looking for validation when I asked you to critique one of my chapters. I was grateful for the feedback that you gave me and there is no link in my mind between that and this thread. Lighten up, man.

Tony

Tony,

Thanks for the advice. I can't of course respond to that without being in the same position as the man who's asked if he's stopped beating his wife yet. So let's just say I appreciate what you're really saying is I'm a heavy dude with serious issues.

Speaking, then, as a heavy dude, what I've been trying to say is that, fundamentally, the core issue facing any of us who wants to improve is personal development. In other words, how can we a) recognise our barriers to change and b) take them down so that we can flourish? How can we stop defending our current position – ingenious, crafty, not to say time-consuming, though it be? How do we find and keep the courage to be able to look at our work and see when it's really not much good, and start again?

Well, I guess the first thing we need to do is admit that we have barriers. It's those barriers that represent the conditions upon which we ask for advice or criticism. But if we aren't willing to admit they're there, any adviser runs the risk of stepping on one of our land mines (sorry for the mixed metaphor).

I appreciate you think this might appear to be a long way from the start of this thread, but actually it isn't. While it's important to get advice from books, websites, magazines, etc, it's just as vital to know how to specifically apply it through one's resistance-to-change filter system. And that's usually the area which needs specific help.

Terry

I can't of course respond to that without being in the same position as the man who's asked if he's stopped beating his wife yet.

Terry, I loved this and must remember it for when I next meet up with my in-laws!

I didn't get that line at all. I read it again and again but all I get is whistling wind and the clanging of a distant church bell.

OK, let's drop the personal stuff and get back to the substance of the thread.

I think there is some value in the idea of organising material about specific subject areas in creative writing. These could be internal to the site, external links (e.g. Wikipedia) or a mixture of both. They would help novice and improving writers to appreciate concepts that might be new to them. Other specialist websites do this all the time, as a way of organising the knowledge that they contain without members having to trawl through hundreds of threads to find it. Of course this is no substitute for the hard graft involved in becoming a better writer. In fact, there is only a very indirect relationship between the two subjects: becoming a better writer and having some of the basics - or not so basics - explained and discussed in a coherent way.

Tony

Is it worth considering that useful system of creating an automatic link to a document every time someone types a certain word, or combination of words in a comment on a piece of work? Say you type 'active verb', and when you post the comment, the server picks up that you've typed a key phrase and makes the words a hyperlink to a predetermined page explaining the concept. If the user receiving the feedback doesn't know if it, they follow the link and have it explained. I'm sure you've all seen this sort of thing before.

I think that's a good suggestion too. Presumably the info would have to be on a separate page to link to so it could be viewed separately as well. I wwed David about this thread and he said there was some interesting ideas here and they'd look into it.

This is a really interesting thread. I agree some sort of system for gathering together common queries would be very useful, and agreed when Dee raised it a while back.

I think part of what Terry is saying is that often the criticism that we get most defensive over is often the criticism we most need to take on board. That's why taking criticism is a skill in itself. A writer should be able to take a step back a second and think 'why is this criticism bothering me so much? Why am I feeling the need to defend myself so much?' and examine the issue. (Having said that, that doesn't mean we should take on board every piece of criticism we're given, as different critics will sometimes differ in their opinions. Plus you also have to try and remain true to yourself and your aims.)

Terry, you are extremely generous in the time you take to give people critiques of their works and your feedback on my novel was amongst the most useful I recieved. I know I'm not the only person who feels that way. The site wouldn't be quite as good as it is without you. That's why I kind of miss some of your forum contributions sometimes! OK, so you don't think everyone always takes public comments in the way intended, but surely that's just to be accepted as part of open forums, as you say? I understand you then feel you get dragged into what you consider to be pointless debate and you'd rather spend the time critiquing, but there are still a lot of people who have benefited from some of your comments on the forums, even if they don't reply and acknowledge this. I think you have a very direct, no-nonsense approach and sometimes people take it negatively, when basically all you're doing is cutting the crap!

However, I don't think it's fair to be down on people who maybe haven't learned the right way to take criticism. Writing is personal and emotional and tied up with ego, therefore it's easy for some writers to feel hurt by some comments. But surely that's something they can learn about and explore through this site too?

I've probably gone way off topic....

Cath

Cath,

Thanks for the kind words, and it's good to know the critiques are appreciated.

The ability to take criticism, or not, ultimately depends on what a writer is trying to achieve. If he's fundamentally driven by the desire to be a great story-teller, and enrich other people's lives thereby, he'll overcome his initial resistance to being criticised. He just wants to learn and improve. The world is a very different place for him, to the one inhabited by the writer who is more interested in validation. The former is a participant, basically, and the latter a vicarious onlooker.

What I've been trying to say on this thread is that while expert advice, How To books, etc, have their place, the driven story-teller finds the truly effective ways to improve. Usually, these involve sacrifice of some kind, and/or cost in time and money; also hard work and, most difficult of all, personal change. All of which seems 'unfair', 'too much', 'deep', whatever, to the onlooker; but to the participant, it's a leap into the unsafe and unknown which might turn out to be a huge mistake but at least he'll learn something from it. Similarly, the onlooker doesn't find these really effective routes in the first place, because he knows instinctively they'll involve struggle, change and risk. Perhaps the main indicator of the participant, as opposed to the onlooker, is that he doesn't take his work personally. He puts his heart and soul and mind into it, yes, but he appreciates he's telling a story to an audience that doesn't owe him anything: only the quality of the work counts.

Having said all that, I do appreciate it can be hard to take criticism cold, so to speak. Really, a safe, agreed-to, environment needs to be set up first. 'Go on – I can take it' is not really a guarantee of acceptance of criticism. The writing course I did this summer used a system put together at the Milford Conference, back in the 1950s (I think). Around 16 writers sit in a circle, and in turn read out their critique of someone's story (also providing him/her with written notes afterwards). The writer concerned cannot say anything until every person has said their piece. Then, if he wants he can respond. The system works because, a) the writers have agreed to the rules, and b) within 15 people, there will be certain specific faults (and strengths) identified enough times that the writer can't dismiss them. But of course, it would be extremely difficult to set up a similar system on WW. Also, the course I did was for 6 weeks full time, and you had to apply through your work.

Terry