NaNoWriMo 2013 slowly slides to a close, with some writers who fell off their bikes on the 15th pedaling maniacally to catch up, some who pulled ahead early sipping brandy and smoking cigars, some who got lost in the maze of November crying into the 13,531 words of their half-formed SciFi/Noir/Erotica mutants, unsure of what comes next. It’s nearly time for reflection, lessons learned, time to hack away at the manuscript and see if its future is in the hands of an editor, or the hands of the garbage man.
Win or lose, you’ve entered an elite club: people who actually tried to write a novel. It’s not quite as exclusive as the full blown authorship club, but it’s a huge step in the right direction.
To the uninitiated, book writing looks prestigious and shiny, all private toilets and free time and fancy notebooks. But those who’ve snuck into these hallowed halls, tried to pierce the veil of novelcraft with sharpened, inked-out pens, know its dark secret. They know what eludes so many in the dark, lonely nights of a room illuminated only by the eerie blue florescence of a computer screen.
Writing a whole book, with chapters and paragraphs and some kind of cohesive plot, is hard.
Even for the most seasoned literary book-chefs, cooking tens of thousands of delicious words to perfection and then plating them in just the right way to make them appetizing to a hungry reader is a lot more complicated than say, making toast. It requires myriad often uncomplimentary skill sets: creativity, grammar, discipline, focus, logic, organization, hygiene. It’s a highly intense and demanding art form that, at many more times than people like to admit, is a lot like work.
Even if your novel is destined for the haunted sepulcher of that box of artistic rejects under your bed, be glad that you at least tried. Trying in this case won’t actually earn you anything (sorry Millennials! I can joke because I am one), but it does teach you an incredible amount about the creative process.
You learn how much effort it takes to write a successful book. How much mental dexterity and synaptic sweat. How much time, energy, and sacrifice goes into getting those words off the couch, into the gym, and then into underwear-model shape. You should, if you even sort of tried, realize that the authors who can and do write novel after amazing novel, are not just talented mofos, but also really hard workers.
But most importantly, it teaches you to not be so critical of someone else’s art.
There is nothing worse to me than the ruthless, mean-spirited critic who unabashedly slices through someone else’s work with a scythe of subjectivity, who goes out of his way to point out every flaw, no matter how trivial, as if his judgment is the final arbiter in the decision of quality and worth. There is nothing worse than a critic who critiques in a vacuum of ignorance and inexperience. There is nothing worse than the critic who does not create, has never created, and never plans to create.
If you’ve never gotten down there into the trenches, never had to slog through off days and busy days, never had to pour the art from your seeping wounds at the expense of yourself, you don’t know what each mistake means. You don’t realize that the author or painter or brewer put a piece of themselves into that thing you just gave 2 stars out of 5. You lack empathy, compassion, and close association with what happens on the other side of the creative spectrum.
To critique without an understanding of the effort involved is lazy, often valueless, and frankly, pretty boring. Digest something from the comfort of your chair, form an opinion, express said opinion. It doesn’t require a person to truly learn a craft or skill, it’s just an open avenue for them to channel their pathos, gratify their own tunnel-vision fueled interpretation of the piece with little to no concern for its creator.
But now that you’ve tried to write a book, you’re less likely to judge other creators so harshly. You’re more likely to be sympathetic to little mistakes, more likely to connect with what the writer was trying to do, even if the execution isn’t flawless. Because you’ve been there. You know how hard it is to weave in a theme or perfect all the dialogue. Now that you’ve tried to create (or actually have created) you’re going to pass judgement with a softer, kinder, more appreciative eye.
You are now, and forever, if you have even a bit of humanistic empathy in your soul, a terrible critic. And that’s awesome.
“It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.”
― Chuck Palahniuk
Tagged: art, authors, being a critic, content, content creators, creators, critics, finish, NaNoWriMo, nanowrimo2013, nation novel writing month, what now, writers, writing
Literature and Libation 
Oh, OG! I passionately disagree!
The art of criticism is very different from the art of creation. Just because you are familiar with creation does not mean you will be good at criticism, and vice versa. A literary critic certainly understands the effort that goes into a work. But their job is not to praise the author for doing it–that’s the job of the author’s friends and family. A critic’s job is to inform the reading public of whether they will enjoy the work or not. It is their duty to point out flaws (not to nitpick) because such flaws might impede the reader’s enjoyment of a work. Likewise, it is their job also to praise the strengths.
Is the process subjective? Of course it is. It’s up to the reader to discern whether the critic is trustworthy and whether their tastes align. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a job worth doing. A critic should have a command of the genre and be able to compare it to similar works, as well as a knowledge of other genres and art forms, in order to communicate where a work falls within a given spectrum.
Also, I take particular exception to lumping critics with bashers. You know the bashers–someone who has a bone to pick, and so they point out every little mistake. I agree, that’s not very productive (unless all of those mistakes add up to a work that is not worth reading). There’s a world of difference between bashing a work and criticizing it!!!
And criticism is necessary to the art of creation, just as the art of creation is necessary to criticism. Yes, art is subjective. But there are some fairly well-established goal-posts to what is considered good and not-so-good. Criticism helps refine a work in ways that creation alone can’t accomplish. (Not to mention, without the opinions of others, I would waste a lot more time on bad books.)
In conclusion – yes, it is possible to be both. But know that they are wildly different art forms.
I’m glad you disagree; disagreement helps us both learn.
I think my point was more: there are people who self-describe as critics (especially in the wilds of the internet), who do not understand the process. It’s easy to be dismissive and critical from the outside, when your only role in the whole thing is digesting the final product.
I’m not saying criticism isn’t important, it is. Educated and thoughtful critics help set standards and establish measurable objective quality. No argument from me there.
I’m saying that by being on the creative side, too, you have much better ability of peering into a work, breaking it apart, understanding its failures from a more educated perspective. In fact, it may actually make you a BETTER critic, who just so happens to be less harsh.
My apologies if the joke/trope didn’t fully realize. I still stand by the message: creating makes you more sympathetic to other creators.
Yes, Oliver. I think you’ve hit the nail better in this comment than in the post. Having created something truly allows you to understand how it’s made, and thus overall better critique something (compared to you pre-maker). That’s why writers’ groups can be so helpful, why homebrew clubs matter, why art classes exist.
But, yes, there’s a group of assholes in anything who feel it’s their job to “play devil’s advocate” or “offer some criticism” that just amounts to them shitting on others’ hard work. Those folks are, in many ways, the worst. They seem louder than anything that’s actually useful and serve to undermine faith and self-esteem.
Looking at your comment below as well, it looks like you’re seeing some encounters with that kind of asshole online. And that’s another spot where being a true critic, or creator matters. That means it’s time for us to come in and help drown that kind of person out. Make sure it’s clear ass-hattery is not welcome.
yes, i think standing in someone else’s shoes helps your empathy to grow )
This is a very eloquent and lovely piece about the writing process!
I must humbly disagree about critic, however. I’ve tried hard many times to write books, and I don’t expect readers/critics to have any empathy for that work. I expect them to read it and enjoy it or not according to their own taste or preference or judgement. Readers and critics (because critics are at heart readers) read in the hopes of connecting to the story or characters. If the book fails them in that, then they have every right to judge the books as they feel. Their experience of the book has to do with the writer (with the minor exception that the writer is required for the book to exist). They have no obligation to be empathetic to the writer’s efforts and they are not heartless for that.
And as a writer whose tried and knows the taste of that effort, I’m no less honest now than I was before. I don’t run around being nasty or rude (I’m generally polite about it), but if I give a book two stars, well, that was just my honest experience.
Andrea,
Thanks for the perspective. Melody (above) said similar, and now that I’ve had some time to think about it from the angle you describe, I actually agree with you.
I think I’d gotten overwhelmed by the “so called” critics who stomp all over the internet like entitled toddlers, and had lost sight of the notion that a true critique – a reaction to the book and its awesomes or not so awesomes – is totally separate, and totally legitimate. And that a critic isn’t always just someone out to bash other people’s hard work.
Sometimes it takes me a whole blog post to figure out something that simple!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Reblogged this on moejtahid and commented:
assalamualiakum