tanaise | Critting musings

See, a common thread on the workshop is the argument that you learn the most from critting people, not from having your own stuff critted. Despite my arguments to the contrary, such as when I pimp Clarion as critting first, writing second, I still think that I don't learn so much from critting people as from watching others crit people. And while I don't disagree with it completely as a theory, and I know that it works that way for plenty of other people, I've never really felt that it worked that way for me. And I was thinking about that today, while writing someting about Clarion, and I think maybe I figured part of it out.

See, at Clarion, usually I would read the stories ahead of time, and write some notes in the text and on the back of them as I went. And then I'd go to the class, and I'd sit there, and as soon as others started talking, I'd start making notes. And some of it would be related to what others were saying--"Ditto this person" and "anti-ditto that person."--but a lot of it--most of it--wouldn't be. It's just....one thing the plot focus taught me is that I don't seem to look at writing stories the same way most others do, and so it makes everything seem sort of sideways when I get around to looking at stories, and I get completely stalled, even on stories that I know are flawed. So when I watch people crit a story, I see how they look at it, and I see how I need to look at it if I want to fix it. And suddenly I'd be able to see the things I thought failed, and I'd be able to write about how I thought they could be fixed. And that's probably one of the most important things Clarion taught me--how to shift my perspective on a story to an angle that lines up with other people's remarks. Even if I disagree with someone completely, it helps me straighten out my thoughts when I can line up what I saw in the story with what others saw in it. And one of my biggest flaws is that I can't do it every time, I'm practically incapable of doing it with my own work, and I quite often still need the help of others to get started--this is why I get frustrated when people point out flaws without obvious solutions.

And I'll believe that people who are...who write in a more straight forward way, can look at other people's stories and see how to fix their own stuff from it, but i need to look at the crits before I start seeing that. Like bear writes in a completely different way than me. And so I can believe that she can look at a story and see her flaws in their writing. but I need to look at other people's crits to be able to find my answers in them. I don't crit as well with a sit down essay question type deal as I do when Chelsea corners me in IM and has me help her fix her story. I'm more of a dialog critter than a lecture critter, and I think that's one reason why I get stalled and panicky when people say, "you did this wrong." and don't suggest ways of fixing it. Sure, I'm also likely to mock their solutions, but even seriously bad solutions get my brain into the right gear to start coming up with the good answers. I think this is also why I write reviews the way I do--I'll, not quite rewrite someone's story, but make suggestions. "I don't find this plausible. Maybe if he did X instead." I do it up and down the lengths of my crits, and I hope it doesn't bother people because it's not something I can stop doing. :)