End of a Critique
Tonight I will attend the eighth and final weekly meeting of the small group critiquing my novel. The process is of course not officially over until tonight, but I write Thursday afternoon blog posts, so this will have to do.
It has been a thoroughly rewarding experience. With all do respect to people who claim that they write only for themselves and don’t care if their fiction is ever read, I myself write to be read at some point, and having several fellow writers read my novel and tell me what they thought of it has caused a paradigm shift in how I am viewing the work myself.
To begin with, on the whole they enjoyed it more than I thought they would. That is not a reflection on the particular people involved, nor is it a reflection on my own confidence in the novel. I just was pleasantly surprised that it had the impact that it had as early on in the narrative as it did. That alone made it worth submitting it to the group.
Then there is the feedback. Only a few observations from the group have been, in my view, unusable or inconsistent with what I want the novel to be. The vast, VAST majority of comments and suggestions made have served only to enhance the next draft. I’d say roughly 85% of what they shared with me will at least in part make its way into the next draft. (I plan to have only maybe two more drafts total.)
In talking about my characters each week, I think they’ve actually come more alive even to me, the author. I always believed in them, by and large, but having them reflected back at me from those who have not spend so much time with them added a new dimension to what they are all about. They feel even more alive to me as a result of this process. These eight weeks have injected something into the work, and into my perspective on it that I would not have gotten alone.
Of course tonight, in a way, I am more nervous than I was when the whole thing began two months ago, because the others will be offering their views on the final punch. The lasting impression. So I don’t know how that will come about, but I doubt they will suddenly disappoint after all this time being so helpful.
I will both in a sense miss these sessions, as well as be relieved that they are over. Even when helpful it can be a tad draining for me to open up my work like this. But now that I have done it with the novel, I know I will be doing it again in the future, when I have another novel ready to go. The process and the people both combined to make a memorable experience. If you have a work in progress and have a chance for a group, (as opposed to just one person at a time) read it and offer thoughts, I recommend you do so. Great things can happen.
Leave Me Alone…Sometimes.
Options. They are crucial to success and fulfillment in so many of life’s endeavors. While there is evidence that having too many options at any given time can actually lead to a bit of mental paralysis, making decision making more difficult, my guess is that most would rather deal with the difficulty of having too many options, than that of having none.
As an introvert, I like to have options. The option to stay home. The option to go to small gatherings as opposed to huge ones. The option to behave in a quiet, laid back and removed manner on the occasions I do attend large, noisy gatherings. The option to recharge in the way most appropriate for me. (That term “recharge” comes up a lot in discussion of introverts, have you noticed that?)
I again emphasize the word, “option”. I have the desire and the right to make choices as an introvert that are healthiest, most enjoyable, and most comfortable for me. Yet the choices are mine, and when I am deprived of them, I can feel just as frustrated as the next man. (Or any extrovert.)
There are in fact times I prefer to not be alone. I attempt to rectify this, by inviting people over to my rural home. Or I ask people to join me for a movie in the nearby city. Even an introvert has times they’d rather not be alone.
If you know this blog, you know by now that those invitations are almost never accepted. Three times in the last month alone I asked my local acquaintances to do something with me, as I was not in a good place to be alone in a few cases. I was met with the usual crickets. That’s a hurtful thing at first, than it just pisses you off, frankly.
Yes, people could be busy…every single time. Or it could be I’m just not that popular. Obviously, many people find much about me that is unpleasant, or they would accept my invitations, say, at least a few times a year. I’m not sure what the issue is, but if any part of it is the underlying assumption that I want to be left alone because I’m an introvert, let’s dispel that here and now. (Though one would think that my saying on Facebook, “I’d prefer not to be alone this weekend, could someone come hang out with me, please” would have already made such a point.)
I do have to be alone sometimes. But often I am deprived of the option to be otherwise. Like any battery that is left on a charger for too long, I can get fried when I remain alone without contact for days or weeks at a time. I don’t think this is particularly unusual. Once I’m recharged, I too like being around people who appreciate me, you know. Don’t assume that because I am openly introverted that I’m lying when I say I want to do something with someone.
Nor should you assume that because I’m an introvert, I can’t be good company. You may be surprised at how worthwhile it is to spend some one-on-one time with an introvert. Don’t assume I’m going to request we do “boring” things if we spend time together. Sometimes boring is good, and there are things I won’t ever do, of course. But you won’t know what I’m willing to do if you assume my introversion means I’d rather be meditating all day. (Again, I want options, just like a real person.)
So how about we not judge the introverted based on the fact that they need alone time. When we need it, we will take it. Once we’re adults we can speak for ourselves. We can even use complete sentences. But if we haven’t specifically said we’d like to be left alone, maybe consider inviting the introverts to your stuff once in a while. I can’t promise I will go every time, but I’d like to at least have the option.
Write in One Hand…
I have never been able to decide if I should feel badly for or annoyed by people who constantly talk about being a writer, or wanting to be one. Some even “desperately” wishing they were a writer. But alas, they are mothers or they work two part time jobs, or they can’t get their thoughts organized. So, they don’t write, and talk about it instead.
People ask me about how I do it. And when I do, and even make suggestions to help them begin their writing “dream”, 99% of them have every excuse possible as to why they can’t do it. I take limited time, energy, and experience into consideration when I talk to these people, and I make suggestions accordingly. Nevertheless, it’s almost always, “well, I can’t do that because…”
I hear that so often, I’ve begun to lean towards the annoyed approach with such would-be writers.
The truth is, if you have any instruments by which you can consistently produces letters on some kind of surface, you can in fact be a writer. There are writing prompts, and writing groups. Online message boards, and books for dummies. There’s the two pages you can get done daily if you wake up just thirty minutes earlier, or go to bed thirty minutes later. There’s fan fiction to get your ideas a kick start. There are free blogs you can start, and tweets you can read. You can meet actual writers and talk to them. Book fairs and conferences. Classes and presentations.
There are, in other words, a few hundred if not a few thousand ways anyone can start writing instantly. If one wants to be a writer, there is zero excuse not to be one, as far as I’m concerned.
These people who long for the writer’s world, and yet do nothing at all to get there possibly fall into the category of that old quotation, (often attributed to Fitzgerald), “People don’t want to write. They want to have written.” If that is the case, excuses are just laziness. Why is writing one of the few accomplishments people would wish to have already done, without doing it?
Or perhaps its more along the lines of, “I want to have created something that people gush over at dinner parties, while singing the praises of my artistry.”
Whatever the reason, those who claim to want to write, and never do so, do not actually want to write. I don’t know what they want, but I can tell you what I want…I’m a writer and I want them to be quiet.
“Copper” and the Art of Conflict
This post contains no spoilers for the BBC America show, “Copper”. I also want to point out that the points I’m making apply to any well written TV show, movie or novel for that matter. There are many ways to tell a story. But Copper is timely for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that the season 2 premiere was last night.
About ten days ago I had nothing to do and couldn’t sleep. I had seen advertisements for this Copper show many times while watching other BBC America stuff, but didn’t know anything about it. When I saw the entire first season was son demand, I started watching it. I finished up the first season the night before the second season started last night. So suffice to say, my imagination has been quite stuffed with the characters and plots of that show lately. I’ve found that it has several components right off the bat for good dramatic writing.
For those of you not familiar with it, the show takes places mostly in a slum of New York City, in 1864. Known as the Five Points, this neighborhood was also the setting of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, Gangs of New York. The Five Points, ( a real, historical place, by the way) was full of murders, sex, drugs, alcohol, corruption, and all sorts of unpleasant things. Yet even in such a place, there was law enforcement. In Copper, it’s represented by Kevin “Corky” Corcoran.
Corcoran is a Civil War veteran who returns home to the Five Points after being discharged to find his wife is missing, and his child has recently been murdered. (That’s not a spoiler, you know this in the first five minutes.) Corky, therefore, is a bit broken, for lack of a better term. He tries to do good in his capacity as a Detective, and he accomplishes this. But he’s not beyond smashing a few heads together in order to do it. But not too many heads, and not the wrong ones.
Without even doing anything yet, this protagonist is full of conflict in his own right. You have his struggle to do good competing with his bitterness and anger over what has happened.
But it doesn’t stop with him. Along the way you have his fellow detectives. You have his whore. (This is 1864 after all.) His superior officer. His wealthy, uptown friend. An orphan in need. He interacts with all of these people as they either help, hinder, (or sometimes both) his mission(s). Why both? Because every single other one of the characters in Copper is also desperate to obtain something. As they pursue their own maguffins, they inevitably get in each other’s way…and are often at cross purposes with one another.
Yet another lesson we can take from this show…a group of characters that are all together, yet each pursuing their own mission..some of which will derail the mission of the others. Thus we have characters that can be allies in the open, and secret enemies, or vice-verca. The need for plotting without revealing is crucial to much of what happens in Copper, and we writers can take a lot from that sort of plotting.
Then there is the setting. Five Points. It’s crowded, stinking, dilapidated. You can barely whisper without it affecting someone else. So it’s a pressure cooker…and another ideal type of place to give birth to a lot of drama. Anything can happen at any moment to unleash hell all over town and beyond. Some people want hell, some of them do not.
So we have a conflicted protagonist at sometimes cross purposes with equally compelling supporting characters in a high pressure setting. in the right hands, a goldmine of stories and drama. One we can all take a few lessons from.
Now not every work of fiction needs violence or sex, of course. I don’t even agree that every story even needs an obvious conflict or villain. (I know this puts me in the minority.) But all writers of stories in any medium can learn from Copper. Even if you fiction doesn’t have quite so many irons in its fire, the built in, you could do far worse than starting character driven story lines born of an intrinsically dramatic setting.
End of a “Friendship”
I had a falling out with someone the other day. Over Twitter. Someone I’ve known for a few years via the internet. They are geographically local and we got to chatting on a website, though we never met in person.
Nor we will ever be, after this week, and I don’t much care.
Truth be told, I liked them to a certain degree. She’s smart, a bit funny. But it was clear that she was one of the most self-absorbed, insensitive people I knew. I’ve known a lot of those type of people over the years, and sadly many of them have pretended to be friends of mine.
I unfollowed her on Twitter right afterward, when it became clear that as usual, my feelings on the matter were not relevant to her. She defriended me on Facebook the next day, and with one final “up yours” kind of message to her, that was the end of that. (No, i didn’t have to. Yes, I did it anyway, and I don’t especially regret it. I was only saying to her the exact same thing she had said to me.)
For a short while I was annoyed with myself after the argument. I asked myself if ever I would be able to avoid this sort of ugliness with people. It has been a common occurrence in my life to run into such small people that offer just enough to appear civilized for a time, only to reveal their true colors. But once I calmed down, I realized I have gotten better overall at avoiding/detecting such people.
This sort of thing really doesn’t happen as often as it used to, probably because I don’t let myself invest in people as much as I once did. The sad reality is too many people have treated me like shit over the years, and I finally by default began to adjust by assuming most people are not as fond of me as they appear until actions prove otherwise. Cynical, but necessary.
As a result, despite my disappointment over this recent event, I’m pretty close to over it already. I’m sure I’ll spit and snipe about it once or twice over the next two weeks as I marvel at the pettiness and duplicity of people as a whole, but it won’t alter my trajectory like it once would have.
It had been clear for a while that she only ever really engaged me when she needed something, or when she was whining and bitching about some general point I was making about a topic that didn’t concern them. She even had to publically take away “cool points” from me because I mentioned I was watching a baseball game. I mean, what’s it to you, right? You dress up like zombies for fun, and you don’t see me pointing out the obvious pathetic loserhood of that past time.
She never really offered me any help, and never made mention of anything I said or did with which she agreed. Never a compliment of any kind from her. I’m too old for that sort of thing.
Yet even with all that, absent of a specific attack, I didn’t feel right just dropping her out of my circle, though I knew there was little substance there. I guess in a way it was good she finally pissed me off enough to tell her how it was. (I often say the best way to piss off someone small minded is to behave towards them in the exact same manner they behave towards you, and that’s exactly what I did. Predictably she didn’t like it, and accused me of PMSing…the ultimate in intelligent rebuttal.)
It remains a mystery to me how often people really do express almost no concern for the feelings of other people. I take that back, it surprises me how often I personally cross paths with such with such narcissists. It seems to happen with a consistency beyond statistical probability. Whatever the reason, I don’t and won’t miss her.
Last week all she could mention to me was getting to the 8 pages of her vampire novel she’d sent me…saying she felt “forgotten” because I didn’t get to them as quickly as I had hoped. I had the nerve to be preoccupied by helping my mother in the wake of her surgery last week. Something this…individual didn’t express the slightest interest in.
I’m also satisfied I finally got to take the first step towards severing a connection, as opposed to someone else going first. (Because when people ignore me, they almost never give me a reason for it.)
Why do I write this? I don’t know, really. Perhaps just to express something other than anger over this all too familiar scenario. To express in words the fact that while I am annoyed and let down a bit, I’m at last able to handle at least some of this kind of crap in a more deliberate, calm way. I’m sure someone will make me angry with their attitude and egotism. But it’s nice to see I have enough discernment these days to not feel affronted when I lose the “friendship” of mental children like this.
Still a bit like biting into a sour grape though. But I can spit those out easily enough.
Ty Unglebower 