Unless you write in secret and never show anyone your
stories, sooner or later someone will give you feedback. It could be a relative
or classmate, or the editor of the school literary magazine. Or friend with
whom you’ve swapped fanfic. What you want to hear, of course, is that they
loved it. And chances are that’s what they’ll say, either because they’d love
anything you wrote or they’re so impressed that anyone they know wrote
anything, or they have no idea how to evaluate a piece of writing. If your
friends are still in high school, they might have a passing acquaintance with
writing book reports, but that’s not helpful in critiquing a manuscript.
I think this stage in the development of writers, readers,
and reviewers is just fine. We all start out with boundless enthusiasm and
undeveloped critical ability. When a writer is just starting out, praise and
encouragement are a whole lot more helpful than disapproval. Case in point: the
story of the Wranglers and the Stranglers (attributed to Arthur Gordon in A Touch of Wonder). Various versions run
something like this:
A group of male college students with literary talent formed a club. They met regularly to read and critique each other's work. These men were merciless with one another. They dissected the most minute literary expression into a hundred pieces. They were heartless, tough, even mean, in their criticism. They were so relentless in their criticism that their group became known as “The Stranglers.”
Not to be outdone, the women of literary talent in the university were determined to start a club of their own, one comparable to the Stranglers. They called themselves the "Wranglers." They, too, read their works to one another. But there was one great difference: the feedback was positive. Sometimes there was almost no criticism at all. Every effort, even the most feeble one, was encouraged.
Twenty years later of all the bright young men in the Stranglers, not one had made a significant literary accomplishment of any kind. From the Wranglers had come six or more successful writers, some of national renown such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who wrote The Yearling.
Talent between the two? Probably the same. Level of education? Not much difference. But the Stranglers strangled, while the Wranglers were determined to give each other a lift. The Stranglers promoted an atmosphere of contention and self-doubt. The Wranglers highlighted the best, not the worst.
That’s what we need to get started: kindness and
encouragement. Eventually, however, most of us encounter situations in which we
benefit from critical feedback in order to overcome our own creative blind
spots. And once we’ve started publishing, whether with a traditional publisher
or self-publishing, we enter a new realm: our work being reviewed.
