The Art of Listening
July 31st, 2008 by Guest
Today’s guest blogger is Gavin Cramblet (aka Chro) from a blogsite we like called Journey of the Scribe. Recently, Gavin won the bid for a free critiquing session with novelist Brenda Novak, and he agreed to share his experience with us.
Our sincere thanks to Gavin for taking the time out to blog with us this week. Enjoy!
While I was growing up, I noticed one glaring difference between me and my three siblings: I actually listened to my father. While he was droning on about topics we couldn’t care less about, like civil war battles or the joys of investing, my siblings would zone out, while I absorbed every word, as much as it bored me. With my overactive writer’s imagination, I’m a perfect candidate for daydreaming, and yet I can’t help but listen to people. This is why I can’t write while the TV is on: I have to listen to the characters on screen, even if it’s an inane family sitcom that kills 100 brain cells per minute.
Listening is an important skill as a writer, and not just because you have to be perceptive in order to find inspiration for your works. To have any hope of publication, you must admit that other people in the world do not think the same way you do. Your baby will be perceived by a wide variety of readers, and you must appeal to those readers, even the idiots who don’t understand your artistic vision. This is why we have critique groups and beta readers: so that we can absorb the opinions of those mysterious ‘other people’ and give our works more mass appeal.
But listening to other opinions is hard, because a writer’s instinctive reaction is to defend their work, and tell the critic they’re wrong. For example, Jodi Meadows recently spent two weeks giving out personalized letters to anyone who was rejected by the Lori Perkins Literary Agency. For anyone who’s received a frustratingly useless form rejection in the mail, this was a great offer. Naturally, most people were grateful. But others trashed her online, claiming that her advice was vague, ill-informed, or flat out wrong.
The official term for such people is ‘tools’.
Refusing to listen to someone’s opinion doesn’t accomplish anything. You may not agree entirely with their suggestions, but every comment they make is (most likely) an honest one, and will resonate with at least a portion of the general population. To quote James D. Macdonald (writer and instructor for the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop): “If someone tells you something is wrong with your work, they’re almost certainly right. If they tell you how to fix it, they’re almost certainly wrong.”
For example, this year I participated in Brenda Novak’s annual online auction to find a cure for diabetes. One of the ‘items’ offered was a critique of your first three novel chapters by an agent/editor/author. I won the chance to send my work to a professional editor at an established publishing house, and I was eager to receive an honest opinion about my work. I think I put ‘BE BLUNT!’ about 5 times in my e-mail to her.
She wrote back with a reasonably positive review, saying I clearly knew how to write and had a talent for pacing, among other things. There was just one teeny little problem. My book was unsellable.
Insert the sound clip of a heart shattering here, followed by melancholy violin music.
I had written a child protagonist that was extremely violent — as in, he actually kills people. Despite the fact that he learns the error of his ways and tries to make amends, despite the fact that I pitch the book as an adult novel, my work would be perceived in the publishing world as a lawsuit waiting to happen. I’d be ‘promoting’ kids to take knives to school and kill each other.
Her suggestion was to make my main character an adult. Now, she hadn’t read my whole novel, so she didn’t know that this was impossible. Innumerable plot points were based around the fact that my MC was only a kid, and changing him to an adult would be the equivalent of changing the titanic to a bus, or making Ebenezer Scrooge a shoe-shine boy. Naturally, my initial reaction to her critique was, “What is she, crazy?! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!”
Not listening at all would’ve been the easy way out. But this wasn’t the first time someone mentioned about this issue; a beta reader of mine had similar concerns. I just didn’t listen before. Even though this editor was just another subjective opinion, I decided that her comment was valid, even though her solution wasn’t. Eventually, I came up with another solution to the problem, which required major revisions to my work, but still kept the work intact. And honestly, my book is a lot better for it.
In a world where political parties, religions, and sitcom characters get in the most trouble when they don’t listen to each other, don’t be another one of those authors that follows their ‘vision’ so blindly that they refuse to hear other voices. Listen to every piece of advice you receive, and actually consider its validity before you decide to ignore it. The fate of your writing could depend on it.
Photo by artsyexistance.
When I get two or more people making the same comment on something, that’s when I know it needs to be changed. But I’m still stubborn sometimes!
Great post, Gavin.
Excellent post. I’ve recently had an experience like this where I had to really listen to critique. It led me to a much needed wholesale reorganization of my WIP. It’s hard to take that deep breath and get over the ‘hurt’ of one’s one feelings and ego, but it’s the only way to improve.
Great post, indeed. Listening truly is a critical skill for a writer. I know that with my early readers (beta readers! I like it), several were concerned about the level of description in a sex scene. Rather than assume everyone else in the world is more prudish than I am, I cut it back significantly. Rereading the book recently, I recognized that I hadn’t lost too much at all.
It depends on whether the criticism is constructive or destructive. If someone can articulate what they don’t like and possibly even explain what they’d like better, I’m all ears.
But I’ve met many people throughout the years who are incapable of articulating what they like or don’t like, and would rather just say something sucks.
The problem with that is not just in being negative — it’s not even useful. “It sucks,” tells me absolutely nothing about how to improve the work, other than to rewrite the entire thing — which they may or may not be suggesting — it’s hard to tell with these people.
For what it’s worth, I’ve found it very important to limit early readers to people who you’re confident can give you a significant analysis. As you said, an answer like “this sucks” is of no help whatsoever. Letting a loved one read your manuscript may not be helpful either until you’re sure it’s ready to be read by a wide array of people.
To quote James D. Macdonald (writer and instructor for the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop): “If someone tells you something is wrong with your work, they’re almost certainly right. If they tell you how to fix it, they’re almost certainly wrong.”
Love this quote!
I’m glad you were able to find a way around making extensive changes, while using the critique to improve your work, Gavin. I think thorough digestion is the hardest part of receiving critique. Be open, take it all in, then spend as much time as you need to think about the source of reader confusion/concern. There are always multiple ways to fix threads, but probably just one way that suits your story best. Only you will know that one.