I'm confused!
I find ABC tales to be a great site with a lot of talent and I like the freshness and openheartedness of many of the authors. The fact that we seem to vary so widely in terms of age, life experience and whereabouts we live is also a draw. I live in a small town which is friendly and has a good music scene but it has its limitations because it is small and being on this site can feel like a free day out.
Where I am confused (this is not a criticism or even a personal problem this is simply me talking about my state of mind) is in terms of my response to peoples' work. Obviously I have an emotional response to every piece I read but is this towards the work or the author?. If I read a book which I think is wonderful (for example Cloud Atlas) and I have no communication with the author then I am responding almost entirely to the work of fiction (and not to David Mitchell as a person). On ABC tales because we are people who also write comments to one another the boundaries seem, for better or worse, to be more blurry. Also it probably would make a difference to how involved I felt with a piece of work if I knew whether it was autobiography or fiction. This too can be a real puzzle. I have a longer work which I have written over the years and completed in about 2006 and I may well while away some of the winter hours in November and December by putting it up online. The work is a complete patchwork of invention and personal experience and I am sure that this is true of many peoples' writing.
You're all a nice bunch anyhow.
All the best
Elsie
Hi Elsie.
No one said it was easy. Maybe I'm not analytical enough. Good to have you posting and commenting on here. Every style and every viewpoint makes it a more interesting site.
I'm not a scholar of literature, but I find people's character does often seem to come out in their writing - it's hard to sparate the two (I think).
On the autobiographical / invention thing, mine is totally mixed in terms of experience, observation and invention. Depends on my mood, and the fact that I adore ambiguity might drive some people mad, but that's just me.
Look forward to reading more of your stuff.
Kev
Parson Thru
Hi Kev
Good to hear your point of view and I agree with you about peoples' character seeming to come out in their work.
With me my poems are usually straight autobiography and my stories are often a patchwork of 'experience, observation and invention' - (you expressed that well) But there is no essential reason for this! Look at how good Bees' recent poem 'The Stench of Ignorance' is and the first person narrator of the poem is 'the enemy'. Creating that outside point of view is what makes it great.
I look forward to reading more of your stuff too.
Elsie
Hello Elsie,
You make a valid point about how you comment on peoples work when you also know something of the author. For example, if you really like someone on the site do you still give an honest critque or are you influenced because you like the person and don't want to upset them?
For my part I would recommend you to look at the work of Harpie as she is also kknown by. We have become friends on this site but she never fails to give an honest critique whether it please or offend. Though she doesn't set out to offend. She only tries to help by making very astute observations. For an example look at what she has to say about my story A Disappearance and The Man in the Dirty Raincoat!
Moya
Hi Moya
Good to hear from you again. Yes I am sure that when I get to know someone over time as you and Sooz have done a friendship develops.
As for critique giving I think it's up to each individual to give what they feel comfy with. Years ago when I lived in Edinburgh (I have to admit there was more happening on the writing scene in Scotlands' capital than here in little Exmouth where I have lived since the millennium) I used to be part of a wonderful womens' writing group. We met in a community learning centre along the Dalry Road called The Adult Learning Project. All were welcome and it was free to join, we just paid 50p for T and biscuits. No-one person was the leader we took turns. The group met weekly on Sunday afternoon and there was a free creche. Absolute perfection!
We never discussed giving critiques at all and the group informally fell in to the way of simply telling one another what we liked about one anothers' writing. We read our work out loud to the group (if a newbie felt shy of doing this they were welcome to ask another person to read their work out loud for them). If we thought a piece of writing was outstanding the author would be asked to read it twice.
For me ABC has a friendly community feel too it to but it's all more tricky because there are so many of us and we do not meet face to face or hear the work out loud.
Thanks for responding to my forum topic and I look forward to to reading more of your work
Elsie
Hi Elsie, I think your emotional response is to both person and their work if you interact with them at any level. You can't take the author out of the work, autobiography or not. I gave up writing due to a critique group I used to be in. The group feedback was so disparaging that I started to shred my work. What I learned from that ridiculously stringent group of ar**s is that nobody has the authority on writing. Too much critique stops the creative process.It took me months to write again. I'm fairly new to ABC but there's a balance here. Writer's respect other people's hard work but they're honest if something doesn 't work. You will strike up a rapport with certain people and you can only hope they will point your typos out.
Hi Vera. You drew the short straw with the group you were in before ABC. I had a lucky escape from the Exeter Writers' Club a few years back - they rejected me as a member! The deal was you could go along to observe and then send samples of your work to them and see if they accepted you. I did not warm to them as individuals, feeling they were stuck up and for little reason as none of them were known names.
My work came back with a snotty note from Jan Cascarini and Sue Barkla (yes exactly!) saying it was unpublishable. I had sent them photocopies of work that had previously been published in community journals in Edinburgh so obviously I took their rejection with a big pinch of salt.
You take care. Elsie
Couldn't agree more. I got some very constructive criticism on a prose piece very early on. It was balanced, detailed and absolutely bang-on. I'm not sure the contributor is on the site anymore, but I printed the advice and kept it - his points are always in the back of my mind now when I write. It is a balance, but I can't thank that person enough for taking their time and going out of their way to help me. Like a lot of things, it's not the what, but the how.
Parson Thru
Hi elsie, I have been following this thread with interest. I would have posted sooner but my circumstances at the moment are difficult (hopefully they will change next week and my time will be less taken up).
I give feedback to lots of members. Some of that feedback is quite extensive. I avoid platitudes along with harsh negativity. You do get a 'feel' for what different members want/can tolerate regarding the perspicacity of the critique that you give.
For my part I try to be constructive and helpfull yet honest and realistic in equal measure regardless of whether I have a 'relationship' the the other writer or not. If the writer is serious about it then I guess that they can take something from the feedback. But - and there is a but - giving feedback is a selfish activity.
Reason - when you give feedback you are engaged in a constructivist model of learning - ergo you are gaining as much if not more from the process than the writer on the receiving end.
Welcome to ABCtales by the way.
Hi Scratch. Interesting to read your point of view. I go for being a Cheerful Charlie, simply pointing out the bits I like. After all a person can come back to a piece years later, extract the strongest lines and then build it into something new. I certainly do.
I feel comfortable with my style of feedback. If William Topaz McGonagall were writing on this site I would probably have told him that - yes the Bridge was 'beautiful' and 'silvery' is a good word for the river Tay. Perfectly true although some advice on scansion and rhyming may have been helpful to him too!
All the best
Elsie
Elsie, I drew a dud straw. It was an elitist group, my work didn't fit their world - wasn't prepared for it. It was a harsh lesson but it gave me terrapin skin - for which I'm grateful for. Have smiled at your membership refusal. I'd consider that an achievement in itself.
Vera, there might have been an element of personality clash or even of envy in their harsh treatment of you which they were too dishonest to admit. Something in your writing style or even your personal style or image... I would have to have been present to form my own notion of what was really happening and I have no wish to hang out with these guys...
I know that in Exeter I arrived 10 minutes late (not deliberate just trains and maps) and was wearing a fairly flamboyant coat - black velvet with a grey tie-die pattern. Also as a newbie I was supposed to simply sit and listen with great respect. However their practice homework for the last month had been to write a limerick. I had a good one in my bag so I butted in and read mine.
Next up was writing Flash Fiction on the spot. My bit, inspired by the atmosphere of the Club was about a woman who felt that she was an outsider in a room full of people so in her minds' eye she imagined going out into the street and chucking a brick through the window, I happily contributed this too!
Oh dear! Sometimes best to laugh and then move on.
All the best Elsie
Gosh I don't think I will be attempting to join any writers clubs for a while after reading your experiences!
I think giving feedback is especially difficult because writing is so personal and I never really feel brave enough or perhaps confident in my own writing abilities to make too many comments, other than to say if i have enjoyed it. Having said that I love getting comments, and the more detailed and critical (constructively of course) the better.
All the best
Rachel.
Hi Rachel
there is a difference between a group and a Club. You may well find a local writers group which is non-exclusive and very friendly and welcoming. I have good memories of more than one writers group back in Scotland
all the best Elsie
Hello Elsie, I don't think this is a subject worth getting too hung-up about. But for what it's worth, if one can be honest and at the same time constructive and encouraging, then that's the way to go. The kind of comments that I will never do and also hate receiving, are those that are glib and seemingly insincere, the kind that are just for keeping in people 'good books' and currying favour just to be popular. We all need our ego's massaging from time to time - there will never be a writer or artist without some degree of ego - bit personally I'd like to see more in-depth comments across the board that actually say something rather than just going through the motions in only the couple of seconds they appear to have at their disposal for the sake of their own popularity.
Anyway, Elsie, heven't spoken to you before - welcome to the site and are you interested in sailing because that looks like a life jacket you're wearing?
Trev
TVR
Hi Trev
I read your comment with interest. A lot of writers here are saying that they actively enjoy receiving constructive criticism.
I am sure I would hate it like hell! I like receiving praise, the more specific the better. (Although I would find it helpful if another writer points out typos or punctuation errors, or errors of fact)
Also if a writer tells me that an idea or a scene or a bit of dialogue or a phrase I have written has lead them to go on and create something themselves or to think of something new, that too would be welcome news.
No I am not wearing a lifejacket, it's a bodywarmer I borrowed from my daughter! I have never been sailing and I am sure it is fun.
all the best Elsie
And that's goodbye from me on this thread. I can see that this is a topic that could run on forever! You guys are welcome to keep going...