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Handling Criticism
Mim
dead.Registered User regular
dead.Registered User regular
Hi H/A,
I feel kind of weird posting this but I figured "Why not". Last night, during my creative writing class, I pretty much got my ass handed to me. While the class was critiquing my story I just felt worse as they gave commentary. First, there was silence when the teacher asked for good opinions on the story to the point where he had to pick someone (this hasn't happened before) and then it seemed like the overwhelming response was negative.
I'm definitely not a stranger to criticism and up until this point could handle it pretty well. I'm an art minor and I've taken a creative writing course before, so I know the deal with critiques and typically walk out feeling okay about myself and with the knowledge that I've learned something that will help me. Last night just felt different though and it really bummed me the hell out. Especially when someone asked why something happened in my story that I felt I explained in the story and I thought I did it well. At least one other person seemed to have caught it and actually explained it to that person.
Despite this, by the time they were done I was just silently and felt kind of like crying. I don't know if it was because I felt, personally, more confident with the story and thus wasn't expecting the backlash or if it was because I felt there were stories that were critiqued that seemed half-assed but still got a lot of positive feedback but mine didn't.
How do I get over it? I'm really surprised I didn't put on my big girl pants and feel okay afterward, so this seems just as childish to me as it might to you, but I really need to get back my self worth a little.
TL;DR - Got a brutal critique that's shaken me a bit. How do I handle these types of situations in the future?
I feel kind of weird posting this but I figured "Why not". Last night, during my creative writing class, I pretty much got my ass handed to me. While the class was critiquing my story I just felt worse as they gave commentary. First, there was silence when the teacher asked for good opinions on the story to the point where he had to pick someone (this hasn't happened before) and then it seemed like the overwhelming response was negative.
I'm definitely not a stranger to criticism and up until this point could handle it pretty well. I'm an art minor and I've taken a creative writing course before, so I know the deal with critiques and typically walk out feeling okay about myself and with the knowledge that I've learned something that will help me. Last night just felt different though and it really bummed me the hell out. Especially when someone asked why something happened in my story that I felt I explained in the story and I thought I did it well. At least one other person seemed to have caught it and actually explained it to that person.
Despite this, by the time they were done I was just silently and felt kind of like crying. I don't know if it was because I felt, personally, more confident with the story and thus wasn't expecting the backlash or if it was because I felt there were stories that were critiqued that seemed half-assed but still got a lot of positive feedback but mine didn't.
How do I get over it? I'm really surprised I didn't put on my big girl pants and feel okay afterward, so this seems just as childish to me as it might to you, but I really need to get back my self worth a little.
TL;DR - Got a brutal critique that's shaken me a bit. How do I handle these types of situations in the future?
BlueSky: thequeenofchaos Steam: mimspanks (add me then tell me who you are! Ask for my IG)
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Once you start feeling defensive it cycles and reinforces itself. At that point, you need to take a break. In this case, it'd be take notes during the critique but then not review them until a day or two later.
I haven't read your story, but logically there are three possible outcomes: #1 The critiques were wrong, #2 The story wasn't as strong or clear as you believed #3 Most likely a mix of the two
edit: Oh, if this is just a general anyone can enter creative writing class, you should probably know that 99.8% of people should never put pen to paper. Which, again, is fine but you either need to pick out the good writers and listen to them (not just your friends) or get into some tougher writing courses.
Read some of your old work. I have a folder of my comics from middle school. They are completely terrible. I got mixed reviews and critiques at the time, some of which I still remember, but my perspective is so different now that I can view the drawings in a totally new light. It makes me understand that anything I put down on paper today, if I'm doing my job, is going to change when I look back on it. As a creative person, sometimes the easiest thing to do to divorce yourself from it is knowing that tomorrow you can create something new, and its likely to be better.
That said, I still find my middle school bullshit charming, though everyone can pretty universally see that its shitty. You are allowed to make things for yourself/enjoy work that people just don't see any merit in. If you are still striving to improve, its not going to hold you back.
Edison needed 10,000 tries at a light bulb, Babe Ruth struck out a few thousand times, etc.
As for handling it in the future: gallows humor. If nobody can come up with a positive comment, blurt out "Well was it at least spectacularly bad? Can I rework this as a Michael Bay movie?" Kind of goes hand in hand with not taking it seriously as a reflection on you :P
It's hard not to take criticism personally. It's easy to feel attacked, but ultimately good constructive criticism can help you shave away imperfections and strengthen your story, and you'll be a better writer for it.
Try taking notes impassively and read them later. Then make an impartial decision. Was this paragraph unclear, was this characters motivation understandable etc. Maybe your genre is not their cup of tea. That just means that they aren't going to be your target audience, but they may still have valuable input.
I think this scares me too. I mean, I do not want to be that 99.8% and up until now I didn't feel like I was. I guess I should look at it as though I don't have to be that 99.8% if I choose to actively not be and do something about it, so I'll try to keep that in mind.
Also, I think another thing that got to me (besides the deafening silence and my own ego that I allowed myself to have on this one occasion) is that I haven't felt comfortable with these folks the entire semester. I always felt they were better than me in more ways than one and I think maybe it solidified that in my mind causing me to take it way more personally than I have before. Typically in art class I don't think of the kids who draw better as being better than me. I take them as someone who learned a great deal and thus can pass on their experience to me and one day I'll be as great as them.
Writing on the other hand, especially with a lot of these stories being rough drafts, it seemed like it came effortlessly to them. Which scares me to death to be honest. They are also able to hold conversations with the teacher about music and literature that I don't have because I haven't been exposed to that kind of world. I felt more like an outsider when I made a Johnny Cash reference and everyone looked at me like "Who is that?"
But thank you all, really, for giving me some advice. I'm going to try to put a more positive spin on this and try to not bully myself as much as I have been since last night.
Have you reread your story with their comments in mind? Do you think they are right or wrong? Make sure you experiment with things they've suggested, even if you think its for the worse. This is a learning process, so try new things.
Yeah, when my teacher was younger he was into French and other European writers, heavily and the Greatful Dead (who I've heard of, but not their music). So I was kind of surprised he didn't know who Johnny Cash was at all, as a White kid in the suburbs. But my dad and mom (Puerto Rican and Black respectively), who grew up in urban New York and Philadelphia did.
I haven't yet. I wanted to give myself a few days before reading it so I can calm down a bit first. I plan to read them on Saturday.
But I think one thing to keep in mind is that people build their reactions off the reactions of others. Every critique added to the pile may have made it harder for the rest of the students to admit to liking any part of it, or even remembering what they liked about it. I have a hard time that believing that being in this class and having been in a previous creative writing class, you turned around and produced a story that had no positive points.
So, yes, listen to criticism, but also realize there are times to go with your gut feeling . . . and to rail against your critics (at least mentally), whether they're right or not. Always makes me feel better. ;-)
If they weren't attacking you personally, then you need to take a step back. It is okay to have pride in your work, but you aren't some writing prodigy. Always be looking for weaknesses in what you've made, always be looking to learn, always be looking to be better.
In short, everyone might've felt really weird about it and you might have been too emotionally clouded to hear everything clearly.
Not finding anything to like sounds more like everyone was just tired/lazy from midterms/spring break or something, and didn't put in the effort required to give a good critique. It sounds like a crazy coincidence rather than something to take to heart. It is generally easier to point out the negatives than the positives.
You also just might have to realize that maybe you are in that 99.8%. But if Creative Writing isn't your major, I wouldn't sweat it too much.
Of course, to do a good job, you should read the work and familiarize yourself with the themes. For example, making any pop culture reference is fraught with peril for those not familiar. But you need to know when it's a worthy battle and when you should point out that they simply missed the point. If someone doesn't know who Johnny Cash is, you don't need to be flabbergasted or surprised -- you just need to point out "well, he's an older popular figure, you can catch up on Wikipedia" or something.
So yes, part of taking critique is disassociating yourself from your work, but it also is formulating a good defense. That isn't being able to answer everyone's question, of course, but rather having a good response thought out. If someone has a weird point and you're caught off guard, it's OK to say "I hadn't really thought of that, I'm not sure if my audience would see what you're seeing, but it's an interesting point." If someone points out something that you realize actually is a fault of the work, it's OK to say "That's a good point I hadn't seen, and I agree with you."
When I took a college-level creative writing course, I would often write kind of weird papers, and when the professor handed them back my grade was often "?." And then we'd do some critiques and he'd bring mine up and basically my defense of my paper is what gave me my grade. That's not to say that I wrote well, or that I had unique ideas, but that I showed forethought and creativity. Sometimes other students can't see that; other times you simply end up in a rut and aren't creative.
Don't do what I do. I have decided the world will rue the day they criticized my work and have vowed that henceforth I will only bring misery to this world with awful, turgid, purposefully puerile purple prose.
It's not healthy.
Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with the way you reacted. People say "not to take it personally" but what the fuck does that mean? You wrote something, you clearly felt confident in it, and other people didn't like it, and that rightfully upsets you. Sometimes you write something that you think is great, and other people just don't agree. That's a part of being an artist...of any kind. So I guess I'm going to say "suck it up," but also "there's nothing at all wrong with being devastated."
I'll also say - and mind you I know nothing about your class, personally - that sometimes people go overboard with their critiques, especially in a creative writing class setting.
As to whether or not their criticisms are worth listening to or not...that's not something I can say. Just because one group of creative writing students had a lot of negative things to say about your work doesn't necessarily mean anything. Then again, maybe it does.
English is my major but we don't have a Creative Writing major, just a track in the English major.
Still wouldn't like to be part of that 99.8% though, considering I'd like to do something with it in the future.
You are really putting way too much of your self worth into this. I can see that very clearly. That is why you took the criticism the way you did. But the fact that you see that and do not want to do that again puts you a hundred thousand miles ahead of most people so congratulations!
Hard work, keep your eyes and ears open and roll with the punches. God help you when you start submitting your work for publication.
Oh, I just don't want this to be something I want to do and then find out I'm in that 99.8%, that's all. I'm just hoping hard work would offset that.
They definitely knew who Johnny Cash was. Perhaps you just involved him in an unrelated topic.
And, if you feel like they're all better than you, then who better a group of people to take criticism from. Learn from this, and look forward to it again. The day you start hearing all positive criticism is the day your writing starts going downhill.
Well, I was asking a writer if he named a character something based on a Johnny Cash reference. When my teacher asked for clarification I explained it and told him the name of the song, and he said he never heard of them.
My teacher cuts into our critiques a lot with random music stuff or things from his childhood. So, I feel pretty sure my asking if it was influenced by a Johnny Cash song wasn't unrelated. We're supposed to ask where they get influenced, so I didn't think it was wildly out of left field.
I posted a short story I wrote on the Writer's Block forum and it got ripped to shreds. I mean RIPPED. And I felt bad afterwards, like a giant failure. But when I read my story again with the points in mind, I too saw how shitty my story was and I wasn't upset at all after that. Well, I was upset that I produced such a piece of shit and that I was proud of it but I wasn't upset about the comments anymore.
These days when I submit something, I go in expecting negative comments. Hell, I want them. Because it'll always let me see my product from another point of view, which can ultimately lead me to improving it and all the subsequent works afterwards.
I got angry, hurt, crushed that they couldn't see what I had tried to put to paper. Crushed. And then vindictive.
this was a class where we sent out our drafts over the weekend, monday in class we discussed the drafts and then by friday we sent out revisions.
So by that friday I had completely rewritten the piece using all of their exact comments and criticisms, I wrote it the way that they had said they wanted it written, using everything that they had given me as a critique as the basis for what I wrote.
they hated it. They hated it with so much more burning fiery passion that one boy even said he had not finished the piece, he could not get past the second paragraph. And they continued to offer more critique, more fixes, all of which eventually led to the professor stopping discussion and reading a passage from the First Draft as a possible 'solution' to their issues with my writing.
they all agreed that it sounded better, much better, it was perfect, why hadn't I written that? At which point, the professor just sighed, shook his head and decided to move on. It was only the next monday that they all realized what had happened.
all in all, keep your chin up Mimsy. These things will happen and they will hurt and sting and be as painful as possible. But, the pain goes away, and these people will go away, and in the end, it's you writing. not them.
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The moral of the story is that some of the worst criticism can prompt you to seek out constant improvement.
I should've said "focus" instead of "major". Are you planning on going to grad school? What are your plans with it?
Totally agree. If you want to be a writer, you can be a writer. It comes more natural to some than others. One thing that helped me was to understand that I wont be good until I have written many, many words and really worked to build up my writing skills. That story that you put everything into is a stepping stone to good writing, as are most other things you write until you have enough experience. Try to extract from their comments the real problems with the writing and learn and build from there.
Good.
When I first started writing, I joined an online critique group. You think people were harsh to you? Try being critiqued by people hidden behind computer screens.
The thing is, that they were absolutely right about everything they pointed out. I honestly believe that it was this online group which set me down the path to not only being a better writer, but a better critiquer.
something that I'm not sure if others have pointed oiut or not is that at the end of the day, it's just opinions. There's no law that you have to change anything they pointed out. Granted, if everyone points out the same passage as awkward, or the story as confusing, then they might have a point, but in reality, you should be editing your story because you feel it's the right way to do it.
I just really want to reiterate that the percentage is nonsense.
If we applied that type of statistic to everything, we'd see how bizarre it really is--and how unrelated to you and what you can do.
Just keep writing & working hard. Remind yourself that even very competent people make bad judgement calls and decisions and sometimes do things poorly. The key is to continue practicing, try to keep a very open mind about the criticism you get, and look at it for concrete areas you can improve in.
If you practice the technique and are open to writing about different topics, there is no doubt that you can be a writer who sees people enjoy her work.
If the criticism you receive is not about things which you can change with better writing, then ask yourself if it is the topic. It sounds like you have a really different background then the rest of the students--maybe they just can't relate to the things you are writing about? Their loss, but if that is the case, maybe you should try to write--for that class--on topics that you think might interest them?
I'm not saying "abandon that part of you that is special", but you are in a class--you are there to learn. Might as well spread your wings and explore things that are less familiar or comfortable to you.
Criticism can also be simply wrong.
In college I took a poetry class and we critiqued each other's work aloud and the person who wrote the poem wasn't allowed to speak during the critique. We critiqued a few poems each assignment and my poem was chosen on our very first assignment so we didn't know each other at that point. My poem was about the act of firing a rifle and my routine leading up to each shot. The first person started to talk about how I had built in a cadence that felt like breathing and that they thought it was about firing a gun and then this girl interrupted him and explained how it wasn't possible that the poem was about firing a gun because she is on the club rifle team at our school and she knows how to fire rifles and this isn't how you do it. She managed to convince everyone in the class that it was factually impossible for this poem to be talking about firing a rifle and the class believed her. After that half the class decided it was about suicide and I hadn't included good metaphors for death and the other half critiqued me for being too obtuse. The written comments I got were hilarious because a decent proportion of them had crossed out their initial comments about my poem and changed them as the discussion progressed. The instructor pulled me aside as we were leaving and asked what the poem was actually about and I told her the girl had no idea what she was talking about and the poem was about firing a rifle.
Like a lot of things, the more you do it the better you will become at it. It's easy to get bogged down thinking you suck and you will always suck, but it's not true. If you constantly work at writing -- and that involves getting and taking critiques to heart -- you will improve.
Maybe your writing isn't the best right now, even if everyone in that class is right, the BEST thing you can do is find the resolve and revise the work. 90% of writing is done in revisions and editing. In a month's time you will have already put a lot of mistakes behind you if you write consistently.
Also, you might consider it a bit of a blessing. There tend to be two types of writing groups: the ones who offer you honest, if negative feedback, and the ones who just want to pat you on the back and say you did a good job. I think you can see which ones are actually helpful.
Take a look at what you wrote with their critiques in mind, and if you feel it's worth it, REVISE that work. Take their notes to heart and turn it into something better. You can always post your stuff over on The Writer's Block subforum and people will be happy to critique it for you. We don't bite!
Definitely not planning to get a Masters in Creative Writing (I'm considering Archiving, actually). I'm interested in working on graphic novels and I would like for those graphic novels to be published and sold in comic shops and book stores one day. Which is why I want to be good at writing and art.
I've been lurking around there as of late, actually. I might do it one day.
This is a good point. A lot of time it depends on the content of your material and the audience who will receive the message. If you write about something like animal rights, for instance, then it's going to be ripped apart regardless of its composition and how well you illustrate your points. It's important to distinguish intelligible critique from "I just didn't like this part of your story" kind of bantering.