I have had a handful of folks respond to my writing — whether in informal writing groups, classes, or hired editors — by saying “this doesn’t work for me” or “this isn’t working.” And I have taken that comment — rightly or wrongly — to mean that I should abandon the idea.
Perhaps the reader/responder didn’t mean to give up on the idea. Maybe I was experimenting with and idea or a craft decision to see how it worked and I heard their comment as sort of a final judgment.
I needed to add a word to their comment … yet. As in, “this doesn’t work for me….yet” or “this isn’t working…yet.”
If I am experimenting with an idea or a craft move, maybe I owe it to myself to keep experimenting, playing, exploring, examining, wondering rather than being so quick to abandon it.
In reading Maggie Smith’s Dear Writer, her subchapter, “On Feedback” serves as a great reminder (for some points) and an insightful new philosophy (for other points) on responding to others’ writing.
She writes, “my goal is to help them bring their vision to life and to push their craft further.” I recall several conferences with students seeking advice on what to do their writing. My goal was for them to keep working toward their vision. As Smith says, “my goal is never to make another [writer’s] work more like my own.” Oftentimes, I would think “man, if this were my piece, I would do ….. this and that.” But it is not my piece. It is their piece. (And I read some terrific ideas that I wish I had thought of and I had to remind myself that it is their idea and their piece — let them grow it!)
Her comment that the decisions must remain with the writer, “you must be able to stand behind them,” took me back to my Creative Writing course with Dr. Wayne Ude at Colorado State. The classmates were engaged in providing feedback about a piece I had written about two workers in a factory. The fictional piece was mostly autobiographical. I had place the two characters in a truck stop diner that I had often frequented with a co-worker at the end of our swing shift. And the dialogue was as close to verbatim as I could manage.
One of my classmates took exception to one speaker’s liberal use of “bro” throughout the dialogue. “It’s just not realistic,” she said." “It’s too repetitive.”
Dr. Ude responded by asking her how often do we hear others say “like,” or “you know,” or “that’s cool”? Sometimes phrases are filler. Other times they reveal character.
When I spoke with Dr. Ude later in his office, he reinforced what Smith is saying here — could I stand behind my decision to repeat “bro” in this dialogue. It was my story, my choice. Did I want to own it?
One of my favorite questions to ask students during a writing workshop or individual conference was “What if …?” The question was meant to stimulate their thinking. “What if … this part came earlier?” “What if … you built on this image?” It even worked with argument writing: “What if … you moved the counterargument later in the essay?”
“What if…” allows students to experiment with their own writing in ways they may not have considered. I have had students come back the next day and say “I tried that ‘what if…’ and the answer for me was that it wasn’t as strong as what I first had written.”
And isn’t that a great response? They considered a different way but maintained ownership of their piece of writing.
“This isn’t working for me … yet” and “what if…” both offer the writer an opportunity to stick with an idea and experiment further.
Thinking in terms of “yet” and “what if …” invite the writer to try on a few versions and either celebrate a new discovery or let go of something that they decide is not going to work.