Discussion During the Critiquing Process (Or: "Arguing Back")

First of all, I of course meant explanation from the artist. Secondly, one can appreciate Finnegans without accompanying commentary; they just won't get most of it.

EDIT: Not that they get it with the commentary anyway...

 

Okay, I was mostly kidding... Yet, with Joyce, I think my joke actually applies. If you don't have a WOG anwser, what do you have? For all I know, my high-school english teacher could have been MSU when he "explained" Joyce, and even if he wasn't purposefully, how does he know his interpretation is right? Maybe I thought the whole things was a load of bollocks, and you can't prove that it wasn't without an artist explanation. On the other hand, with, say, Morrison's Beloved, I didn't need anyone to explain it to me. So it's still just a crapshoot.

Also, I just had a critiquer comment on a poem where they had one impression, and I was going for something else, and it was a profitable exchange. Of course, it resulted in a possible change, and from a slight misunderstanding, so maybe it doesn't quite fall under the scope of this thread.

But the other issue with your comment is that different people will be able to appreciate different things. So if one person gets it, but anothe doesn't, does that mean I am still a failure?

In the piece referenced above, I compared a girl's crying to a fire, and some people made the connection, and some didn't. What's the verdict then?

 

That's a bit harsh. Not everyone sees things in the same way. Some people will get it. Others won't. You can't please everyone.

 

Well, I think it would be unreasonable for us to expect everyone to get what we're trying to say. When I said "If the audience cannot appreciate the piece without explanation, the artist has already failed," I meant the audience as a whole. Maybe it would have been clearer to say "If no one can appreciate..."

Also, I think a distinction needs to be made between appreciation and totally "getting" what an artist is trying to say. I have no effing clue what Salvadore Dali was saying in his work, if anything, and he probably didn't either. But it's pretty easy to appreciate. Just because some people didn't intellectually pick up on the comparison between fire and the girl's tears doesn't mean the poem was totally lost on them and that the poem didn't take them where it was supposed to.

I totally agree. But like I said above, if no one can appreciate it without the author pointing to every piece and saying "Okay, so here's what this part means. This is how this part is to be interpreted," something's wrong. That should have been done in the body of the work. It should be able to stand on its own for at least some people.

 

That's a much clearer and/or reasonable stance. Sorry for misunderstanding.

 

Bad's all mine, yo. A writer should know how to express himself clearly.

 

Definitely. You have to be specific. You're not going to please everyone, but there hs to be someone. If you had said "no one" from the beginning, I would have understood what you meant. But the fact remains, not everyone is going to understand/appriciate a piece of art/writing, no matter how good it is.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that if a writer finds himself spending a lot of time on his own thread, explaining and defending the choices he's made, it probably means
-the piece needs to be scrapped,
-the piece is in need of a massive overhaul, and/or
-the artist's ego is in need of a massive overhaul.

It's actually a pretty good gauge that I've made use of myself. If I find the urge to defend my work on the rise, it's time to get back to the drawing board, and time to get my foot back on my ego's throat.

 

While I agree with FF, every writer must also know when to listen and when to ignore criticism. Notice I said ignore, not debate or try and harass someone into changing their mind. Either way a polite thank you should always be involved.


WARNING: Such decisions are for a mature writer who has excepted years of criticism and has developed both a personal style AND the ability to effectively tell a story.