Called Shot to the Ego: Taking Criticism
Taking criticism is hard, and in this context I don’t mean separating criticism from personal attacks, I just mean it’s difficult to get. To grasp. To comprehend. To understand. To make use of. In particular, I’m referring to the critique of my short story, The Creature in the Quarry, which took place a little over a month ago. It’s taken me a month for the criticism to actually begin to sink in. I’m sure I was probably in shock for a good couple weeks.
It’s finally started to sink in. Something about giving and receiving critiques has opened my mind to other styles and methods of writing. I finally understand how raw the draft I presented for critique really was, and how it fails utterly to convey all kinds of vital character and sensory information. I mean, it isn’t useless — it has potential, it’s just very raw in its current form. I’ve got a pretty good idea, now, of what sorts of things I want to do with it.
I drew an interesting connection between my writing and my storytelling style in D&D. I think it’s really important to describe the details of the setting: what the monsters look like, what the terrain’s like, and how things play out during an encounter. I need to figure out how I can translate all of that into writing. There’s a certain mix of action and information I need to tinker with to achieve the desired effect in my writing. It’ll take practice, experimentation, practice, work, and practice. I’m sure I’ll get it eventually. :)
Whenever I pass something out in group, I go through it several times and tweak things until I get it to the point where I think it’s good enough to be read and enjoyed. And then each and every time I get my critique, I’m horribly, terribly embarrassed that I let everyone see my story–which is apparently so lacking in setting and filled with mistakes–and feel like crawling into a hole and never writing again. Thankfully, the feeling does pass. But I completely understand how you feel. It’s amazing how a good critique session can open your eyes to just how rough of a draft you passed out (of course, that’s why we do it!) :)
I don’t know that I’ve ever needed help from other people to reach the want-to-crawl-into-a-hole stage, but I know that it’s easy enough to help other people get there, which is why I feel compelled to mix in a lot of humor with my critiques. Of course, at that point, I’m not sure if I’m offering anything useful, but I think giving other people permission to laugh at themselves and laughing with them (rather than at them) is helpful across the board. I don’t know. I really don’t know. :O