primitives discuss how to tell the CalPig primitive she's a lousy writer

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=216x6305

Oh my.

Disguising the details, but preserving the point, is an old literary device used when one talks about someone.

The primitives are afraid to be honest with the CalPig primitive.

Orrex  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-23-10 02:26 AM
Original message
 
A minor bummer, writing-wise

I recently got back in touch with a friend I hadn't seen or corresponded with in over a decade. We didn't have a falling-out or anything; we just wound up living on different sides of the country, and so on.

Anyway, he's been an aspiring writer for a long time, and many of our conversations back in those days involved whatever he or I was writing at the time.

I got a look at the novel he's working on now, a massive tome near completion. He hopes to start shopping it around to publishers in the next month or two.

So...

It's horrible! Flat characters, bland plotting, drab action, and utterly lifeless prose! There's nothing to recommend it unless we think of it a story that he's telling off the top of his head, rather than as a novel he's been working on for years!

How do I tell him?

Do I tell him?

Do I accentuate the positive and de-emphasize the negative? Will that help him?

What's a friend to do? I could let the publisher reject him and leave it at that, but I know that he's going to ask my opinion, and I don't think that I have the heart to tell him.

Maybe I can just lie low for another 12 years until this all blows over?

yellerpup   (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-23-10 11:53 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. In "Bird by Bird" Ann Lamott writes about receiving a harsh critique from a friend that changes the tenor of their relationship forever after. As I recall, she recommends that friends be friends rather than critics and I agree. Chances are, your friend wouldn't believe you anyway so you are better off letting the "pros" rip his work apart. You are much more valuable as a friend when you are there to pick up the pieces after you friend gets his first rejection letter. Unless, of course, you can "fix" his book before he shows it to anyone else and providing he will let you.

valerief  (1000+ posts)        Sat Jul-24-10 04:45 PM
Response to Original message
 
2. Yellerpup is right. It's better he thinks you're stupid or talentless than cruel. Leave that to someone who isn't a friend.

SheilaT  (1000+ posts)      Sat Jul-24-10 06:43 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. About the best thing for you to say is something like: "Oh, it's not exactly the kind of book I normally read, so I'm probably not the one to try to judge." Hopefully the first half of the sentence is reasonably accurate.

The other thing you could try is asking him questions that might steer him in the direction of recognizing what's wrong:

"Do you think it really moves the plot along effectively when Steven, your main character, spends two chapters trying to decide which tie to wear to his mother's funeral?" You get the idea, I hope.

Unless he is willing to be part of a writing group which critiques each other with as much honesty as possible, there's probably nothing you can do for him. At least not and keep your friendship.

nuxvomica  (1000+ posts)        Sat Jul-24-10 11:10 PM
Response to Original message
 
4. There actually is a strange dynamic with writers who are friends

You really can't judge their work objectively, and certainly in terms of it's marketability, because you know them and the writing is so full of them that of course you are going to want to read it just to understand them better. It's like whether you'd want to read your friend's diary. Of course you would.

Tell him that. It's the truth, anyway. At least that's what a friend of mine said after he read the first few chapters of my novel...

Orrex  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jul-28-10 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #4
 
5. He would take that as a cop-out, and (honestly) so would I

When he asks my opinion of the work, he asks knowing that I enjoy the process of critique and have been doing it, on and off, for many years. If I suddenly pull up short and claim that I can't read it objectively, then he's going to smell a rat.

What most concerns me is that an honest critique would hurt him personally. If I decline to critique his work now, after reading it, he will (quite reasonably) infer that I judge the work to be of poor quality. If I had declined to critique his work prior to reading it, he would have inferred that I expected it to be of poor quality. I could have made some claim about not having enough time, but this would have been a lie.

Another thing that concerns me is that if I don't give him an honest critique and a publisher or agent thereafter attacks his work for the very shortcomings that I've noticed, then I'll feel as though I failed to warn him adequately.

I recognize that, as an aspiring professional writer, it's up to him to develop skin thick enough to take criticism, but I also recognize that reality doesn't allow it to be that simple.

SheilaT  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jul-28-10 06:11 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
6. Then he needs to be willing to hear what you have to say.

As someone who has written a little, had a couple of minor publications, I've learned the realities of the writing market place. And it's brutal. It's especially brutal to someone who is not a very good writer, and has unrealistic notions of how good he is. He's going to have to learn that.

You are going to have to figure out a way to be as gentle with him as possible. But the truth is that if his work is as bad as you say, you can't possibly sugar-coat it. You can point out that you are only one person, with your one opinion, and he might well seek another opinion.

Has he ever submitted anything? Has he ever workshopped anything? Too many would-be writers work in glorious isolation, and get so enamored of their own words that they just have no way of knowing how mediocre or even how bad they are.

By the way, franksolich watches for the mailman every day, confident that soon there's to be a check in it, his 15% commission for acting as writer's agent for the CalPig primitive, from the Watch Tower magazine.

[JohnnyReb]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=216x6305

Oh my.

Disguising the details, but preserving the point, is an old literary device used when one talks about someone.

The primitives are afraid to be honest with the CalPig primitive.

By the way, franksolich watches for the mailman every day, confident that soon there's to be a check in it, his 15% commission for acting as writer's agent for the CalPig primitive, from the Watch Tower magazine.

Hang in there Frank, the check is in the mail I'm sure but the summer snows caused by global warming have been recking havoc with the mail system.

[BlueStateSaint]

Hang in there Frank, the check is in the mail I'm sure but the summer snows caused by global warming have been recking havoc with the mail system.

 

[PatriotGame]

Orrex  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-23-10 02:26 AM
Original message
 
A minor bummer, writing-wise

I recently got back in touch with a friend I hadn't seen or corresponded with in over a decade. We didn't have a falling-out or anything; we just wound up living on different sides of the country, and so on.

Anyway, he's been an aspiring writer for a long time, and many of our conversations back in those days involved whatever he or I was writing at the time.

I got a look at the novel he's working on now, a massive tome near completion. He hopes to start shopping it around to publishers in the next month or two.

So...

It's horrible! Flat characters, bland plotting, drab action, and utterly lifeless prose! There's nothing to recommend it unless we think of it a story that he's telling off the top of his head, rather than as a novel he's been working on for years!

Oh I get it - a collection of post-tripe from the DUmp since 2001.

Why do you DUmmys *think* we have been making fun of you for the past eight years?

[BattleHymn]

DUmmies, here me out.  There is no need for you to be so stressed out about dropping the bomb on Calpig.


I have heard there is the slim possibility that making a mole on DU is a plausible idea.  I bet you could probably create one of these moles, and then casually drop a link to CC in your subject line, or perhaps even in the body of your introductory paragraph. 

If you need help, some of your fellow primitives seem to think they are very deft at name dropping.  Just have them adapt their skills to form a link dropping.   

Please, send them this way.  You see, just like in the real world, us conservatives have already done most of the work for you.

[Duke Nukum]

You should lie to him and tell him how great his book is and then when it either fails to be published or bombs, blame Bush or Reagan or Cheney or Thatcher.  If it's a huge, huge failure, blame all of them.

[JLO]

DUmmies, here me out.  There is no need for you to be so stressed out about dropping the bomb on Calpig.


I have heard there is the slim possibility that making a mole on DU is a plausible idea.  I bet you could probably create one of these moles, and then casually drop a link to CC in your subject line, or perhaps even in the body of your introductory paragraph. 

If you need help, some of your fellow primitives seem to think they are very deft at name dropping.  Just have them adapt their skills to form a link dropping.   

Please, send them this way.  You see, just like in the real world, us conservatives have already done most of the work for you.

 

[DumbAss Tanker]

I prefer to go with ambiguous comments that will be taken as supportive but don't involve lying, like "Some of your best work yet!"

 

[BlueStateSaint]

I prefer to go with ambiguous comments that will be taken as supportive but don't involve lying, like "Some of your best work yet!"

 

The phrase "best work" being relative . . . 

[DumbAss Tanker]

But of course!

 

[AllosaursRus]

Oh I get it - a collection of post-tripe from the DUmp since 2001.

Why do you DUmmys *think* we have been making fun of you for the past eight years?

Don't know if PJ has received a check yet, but I suspect he's the only one in the runnin'!

DUmmies couldn't buy literary sense if they won the frikkin' lottery!