The Best Lies I’ve Heard in Constructive Criticism
It’s rare to have someone knowing lie about
their opinions. Or, at least, I would assume it is. I’m a pretty good judge of
character, but after a jaunt with a certain boy, I do have to question my naivety
on the existence of good and evil. I’ll admit I’m not much of a
believer in stupidity or true malevolence, attributing most conflict to
miscommunication, necessity, or impulsivity. Because I’m not much of a liar, it
is rarely my first conclusion.
Loyal readers of this blog hear me claim that
the first step in vetting the usefulness of criticism should be determining
whether or not the speaker believes what they’re saying. Not because it’s
common they don’t—again, I think it’s incredible rare that it doesn’t have at
least a foundation of truth—but because if they
don’t even trust what they’re saying, you know it won’t be of any use to you. It is one of the few occassions I would recommend just throwing something out.
But why would someone lie? Why would someone
knowingly make something up when they’re trying to help?
It doesn’t happen often, it does happen.
“Superman is a well-written
character because he has weaknesses.”
The lie isn’t that weakness make a well-written
character, it’s that Superman is one. It’s the implication he’d ever read a
Superman comic or watched a Superman film or done anything that would remotely
familiarize him with the character.
As a child, I liked Batman. Partially because
of the animated series, but even when Justice
League came out, Bruce Wayne absorbed my interest far more than Clark Kent.
Full disclosure, the Martian Manhunter was actually my top choice, then the
Flash, then Batman. Both Wonder Woman and Superman didn’t interest me much
because they were too good, lacked personalities, and almost always did the
right thing. (Although I didn’t dislike Diana, and she too had her moments of
fallibility.)
Because I didn’t like Superman, I didn’t watch
much that featured him, but I did still watch plenty, (and read a few early
comics) and he is rarely well-developed. In the early comics he’s more vicious
than later, but still, there’s a notorious black and white issue with his
morality. He is a good person through and through.
As for his supernatural weaknesses, kryptonite
is a pretty painful choice. He’s either a god, or he’s an infant. There’s not a
lot of mobility in the process of taking him down.
I would rarely consider Superman a well-rounded
character, nor do I think his “weaknesses” should be emulated by other writers,
if for the sole reason the all or nothing power set-up is difficult to do
right.
Why he lied about it:
At one point, this man in question admitted he
didn’t read much. He actually was just starting out as a writer, and as far as
I know, he only wrote six pages into a memoir before he vanished from the
writers group. He came in a lot, but kept redoing the same beginning pages.
A woman who had been writing a detective novel
had a scene in which someone had gone through the protagonist’s hotel room and
left a bug. The protagonist proceeded to seek out answers as to who had done
it. Our male peer believed she should have gone to the police—it was the only
natural thing!
I couldn’t say as I wasn’t far enough in the
novel to know the detective’s backstory, why someone would bug her, or, more
importantly, what she thought was going on. I didn’t question her reaction, and
after he did, it seemed to me there would be many logical reasons she might not
wish to go straight to the authorities. But our peer was insistent.
The writer didn’t argue, just listened to what
he had to say, but didn’t gush over his brilliance. He scrambled for more and
more arguments to prove himself correct, finally announcing the truth of
things: “I don’t believe a lone woman wouldn’t turn to someone else for help!
Don’t women turn to each other for help on everything?!”
Women don’t have to be strong all the time, he
said, in a group of women. Strong characters are created by having weaknesses.
“Superman is a well-written character because he
has weaknesses! He’s not strong all the time!” he stammered.
There was true faith in his opinion, he just
didn’t know how to prove it.
“There is no backstory in
the first act of Star Wars.”
In the same vein as above, an older mystery
writer found herself out of her area of expertise when reading my
science-fiction novel. My real speculation is that she was new to criticizing
in general. It wasn’t her first time, but she definitely exhibited some
behaviors and ideas that are typically groomed out of you once you’ve been
collaborating for a while.
After handing me a worksheet on proper plot
structure, she explained to me that backstory shouldn’t ever be in the first
act. What surprised me most by this gesture was how seemingly oblivious she was
to the possibility I wouldn’t take it well. Many people vehemently don’t
believe in formulas or writing rules and anyone giving criticism should be
savvy to that. She acted as though she spoke of a scientific law, as true as
the existence of gravity, when, in fact, it was more like overly-simplified,
general suggestions.
I didn’t say much to this. It wasn’t until she
continued on, stating, “If you watch Star
Wars, there’s no backstory in the first act,” that I became noticeably unconvinced.
“What?” she said.
“Star Wars starts with backstory.”
“Where?”
“The big scrawling credits it’s famous for?”
“Oh. Well, that doesn’t count.”
Why she lied about it:
Name dropping is a common tactic in issuing
criticism. It’s easy, inarguable, doesn’t take self-reflection, and actually
can be helpful. Don’t know how to write an action sequence? I don’t either, but
read this book. It has excellent ones.
The problem is, if you don’t actually read the
genre, it’s not easy to offer up examples of works that were successful for
you, and in many, many cases, it’s
not that the book didn’t do something, but that you didn’t notice. Maybe it’s
because they did it so well it was virtually invisible. Maybe, just as
frequently, you just didn’t think to question it because that was THEM and this
is US. Reputable “experts” are not inherently questioned, so their
mistakes have to be grander and more cut and dried. Or, in this case, what she
meant is Star Wars didn’t revealing
backstory in the way I had—my “backstory” was a visual attempt to build the
world by describing the protagonist’s first impression of his new home one year
prior, a very successful 11th attempt at painting the culture early
on.
Considering she stuck to tired and
non-subjective clichés for advice—systematically pointing out each adverb I
had—and lacked a sense of sarcasm, humor, lie detecting, or hyperbole, I
believe she was name dropping successful
works, which would have been an effective argument for her as a writer. She was
talking in the way she would be convinced, but didn’t have the resources to seek
the best examples for her points, so she pulled one out of the recesses of her
mind and assumed both she would be correct, and I wouldn’t be more informed
than her.
Past versus Passed.
A Facebook post some years ago asked, “What’s
the difference between past and passed?” About 100 people commented. They all
disagreed. Adamantly.
In one humorous case, a woman commented in a
long winded version explaining the difference between the two using parts of
speech and other grammar jargon. Another person agreed with her, simplifying
her answer. They said the exact opposite things.
Each person staunchly stated the right way to
use the sentence in question, despite the next comment staunchly asserting the
opposite. At least a half of them had to be wrong, but no one was even hesitant
to believe their choice.
Why they lied about it:
Because they thought they were right.
Being wrong isn’t a lie, but speaking from
assumption rather than education and then not questioning it when many others
disagree is negligence; you’re willfully spreading incorrect information you
haven’t fact checked.
I question a lot of things in my life; it’s the
cause of my anxiety. My conclusion jumping is flawed, and I hate making
mistakes. I want to find the truth of things, which often requires me to
reassess my assumptions.
You can’t live like that.
While questioning what you assume to be normal
or true is an important factor of being a good person and being successful,
sometimes you do need to just trust yourself, act on impulse, believe you’re
right, and take action when the getting’s good. You literally do not have the
time to question everything. I am not
sitting here saying, “Does ‘while’ mean what I think it does? Does
‘questioning’? ‘What’? Will my readers agree with me on those meanings?” I do
often come across words that don’t actually mean what I think they do, (words I
use a lot even) but I can’t always second guess myself if I want to complete a
blog post in a reasonable amount of time. Most of them I’m right about.
I personally thought I understood “passed”
versus “past” until I worked with an editor on a short story and realized I
very much didn’t. I had believed
“past” was only a noun in reference to time. But it’s also a preposition. To
walk “past” something dictates where you are. To “pass” something is an action.
You pass past.
The best time to question yourself is when
someone else points out they’re disagreement. If 50% of people answer wrong,
you would benefit from doing a quick Google search before throwing in your
two-cents.
“Don’t end your sentence in
a preposition.”
Let’s be honest, the reason why this is on here
is due to the competitiveness inherently attached to this statement. What’s the
non-WASPish benefit of not ending a sentence in a preposition? Perhaps clarity,
in some cases. Outside of that, I have found attempts to not use a preposition to be far more invasive than just using it.
“Wake,” or “Wake up,” that is the question.
Rundown: Prepositions are “locations” of two
objects relative to each other.
It is on
the chair. It is under the chair.
It, due to a freak accident, is in the
chair. On, to, about, in, under, above, through, and even, for some reason,
“for” are all prepositions.
Of course when you end a sentence in a prep,
the second object is typically implied: “He walked by (you.)”
However, this isn’t an actual English grammar
rule and has never been. Back in the late 1800s, there was a push to make
English more like Latin. No official grammar editions were convinced, but the
masses heard this and just assumed it was correct. Today it is pushed by many
people, including highly successful writers and editors, but the fact is, it’s
not a fact.
Why they lie about it:
Considering that most people think this is
true, it’s not really a lie. But for the same reason not checking your
resources on “passed” versus “past” is deceitful, defending any rules with guns
blazing before really understanding why is problematic.
More so, since there’s not a lot of artistic or
linguistic benefits the change, often insisting on no prepositions can come
down to a sole attempt to sound intelligent. The lie is continually propagated
by people who want to believe it
because it makes them feel like they know what they’re doing. Whenever you see
an article about this very subject, you see many comments that insist ending a
sentence in a preposition is wrong, despite not offering any argument as to
why, suggesting to me they just like believing in it.
“Science-fiction novels are
supposed to be short.”
She was my elementary school teacher who ended
up in a writers group with an adult me (years later, of course.) She wasn’t the
first person to say this, and I know she believed it. I have a high level of
respect for her, mostly due her respect for those around her.
But again, there was a moment in which she
insistently said something untrue due to her lack of experience.
Why she lied about it:
She was older, which contributed to this. Back in the 1960s-1980s, science fiction was notoriously cheap, mass paperbacks. Due to the methods they were sold (via grocery stores mainly), smaller books would fit more copies on the racks, which meant more money for everyone involved. ‘Cept the author, of course, but who cares about them?
In the recession of the 80s, the publishers
needed to up their prices, but the grocery stores refused to charge more for
the same “weight,” so publishers began to pick up larger manuscripts.
Adding into the gradually growing popularity of
secondary worlds (instead of magical/high tech elements on Earth) caused by Lord of the Rings in 1954, science
fiction and fantasy books have slowly grown in size for the sake of developing
the worlds as well. Then there’s the improvement on science fiction’s
reputation as more of an intellectual piece of literature rather than silly
fluff, which makes “serious readers” drawn to it, who typically enjoy longer
books.
In any case, since the 1990s, most
science-fiction books are around 90-100,000 words, a debut author able to sell
at 120,000 more easily than someone of another genre.
I include this on this list, not because she
was intentionally lying to me, but because this woman who I had high respectful
for was delivering me faulty information—right after I had informed her the
opposite was the truth.
And that’s the underlying theme. These lies
stay in my mind, not just because I’m obsessive and neurotic, but because they
acted so certain about what they were saying despite their information being
incorrect. To the extent that they didn’t even waver at disagreement, they
pushed their beliefs as fact, and the simple truth is, had I not known any
better, I probably would have believed them.
Don’t believe everything you hear, and don’t be
convinced by confidence. As much as you question yourself, make sure to
question others because some people can tell you lies, assumptions, and
fabrications without even flinching.
If you liked this post, want to support, contact, stalk, or argue with me, please consider...
Liking Charley Daveler on Facebook
Following What's Worse than Was
