The Pursuit of Perfection
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In this WMG Writer’s Guide, international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch discusses the destructive ways peer workshops and the quest for perfection derail many writers’ careers. Listening to critics and academics—amateur and professional—often strips out the joy of writing. And a failure to recognize writing as a business furthers the potential damage.
But Rusch offers hope for writers who have suffered at the hands of critique—external and internal—and outlines a path to healing.
The Pursuit of Perfection
And How It Harms Writers
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Copyright Information
The Pursuit of Perfection
Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in slightly different form on kristinekathrynrusch.com as the blog posts, “Perfection,” “Careers, Critics, and Professors,” and “Writers and Business” June 27, 2012, July 4, 2012, and July 11, 2012.
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Iqoncept/Dreamstime
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Perfection
Careers, Critics, and Professors
Writers and Business
Copyright Information
About the Author
Introduction
In the summer of 2012, I taught a class for professional writers in the short story. You’d think that pros would already know how to write a short story, but many of them do not. It’s a separate art form from novels, and it requires different attitudes.
That workshop reminded me, as every craft workshop I teach does, how destructive the modern teaching techniques are for fiction writers. Most never make it through the classes or peer workshops. Most wannabe fiction writers give up their dreams after one semester of a creative writing workshop or table their first novel after it goes through a rigorous critique.
I spend most of my time in the craft workshops that I teach repairing damage done years, sometimes decades, earlier. That damage isn’t deliberately malicious. It comes from the assumption that perfect stories not only exist, but can be revised into existence.
That assumption is not only misguided; it’s destructive. And I hate seeing what it has done to generations of writers.
I write a nonfiction blog on my website www.kristinekathrynrusch.com every Thursday. After I finished that June workshop, I blogged about the wrong-headed notion of perfection, and received hundreds of comments in response. Those commenters asked questions, of course, but they also gave their stories. Many of those stories ended with “and that’s when I gave up on being a professional writer” or some similar sentence.
My heartbreak increased. I answered a lot of those comments on-site, but they inspired me to write two more blog posts and do some digging into the history of peer workshops.
By peer workshops, I mean those workshops in which everyone, from the professor (or editor or writer-leader) to the unpublished students, gets to weigh in on the manuscript before them. Many of these workshops have a no-holds-barred policy: the critiquers can say whatever they want as meanly as they want and at whatever length they choose. I’ve personally heard critiques from beginning writers, wannabe writers, and writer-hangers-on (who have never written a word, but say they will) that have lasted 20 minutes or more, often on stories of less than 3,000 words.
Someone might say something positive about the work, but the writer never remembers that. The writer remembers the excruciating evisceration of a fledgling story that seemed to go on forever.
So if traditional peer workshops and the quest for perfection damage a writer, what will help them?
I explore all of that in this short book. It’s an edited version of all three blog posts. I left some of the immediacy here, because there is a lot of raw material. If you want to see the comments, go to my website, click on The Business Rusch tab, and hit the link for the post called “Perfection.” Read the comments there, and on the next two posts.
If I don’t convince you that this method of teaching writing is seriously flawed, then maybe the commenters will.
For those of you who have suffered damage in a quest for perfection, I hope this short volume helps you on the road to healing. I hope the rest of you find something of value here as well.
Whatever you think of this short book, please realize that I wish you the best in your writing endeavors.
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lincoln City, OR
December 31, 2012
Perfection
At every craft workshop I teach, I make at least one writer cry. I wrote this chapter while teaching a short story workshop for professional writers. The writers who attend are workshop-hardened folk, people who have been eviscerated by the best of them, people who come to my workshops having heard that I make writers cry, expecting me to be the most vicious critiquer of all.
How do I bring writers to tears? Usually by saying this:
I loved this story. It’s wonderful. Mail it.
That’s my entire critique.
Is the story perfect? Of course not. No story is. Not a one. No matter how many times it’s “polished” and “fixed” and “improved.” No one can write a perfect story.
If such a thing existed, then we would all read the same books and enjoy them equally. We would watch the same movies and need reviewers to tell us only which movie is perfect and which one isn’t. We would buy the same comics, again, going only for the comic that is perfect, and ignoring all the others.
Am I telling people to write crap? No. Because the choice isn’t between crap and perfection. Those are false choices.
I learned this lesson long ago. Dean Wesley Smith and I were visitors at a writing workshop taught by science fiction writer and editor Algis Budrys. One of the early volumes of Writers of the Future, which he had edited, had just appeared, and he asked the students to read one of the stories in the volume.
Then, without telling Dean and me what he was doing, he asked us to comment on the story.
Here’s what I remember of the piece: It was 2,000 words long. I think we spoke more than 2,000 words in our elegant, impressive critiques.
Algis looked at both of us sadly. Then he said, “Ignore them. The story is wonderful—or at least it is to this editor.”
He had expected us to praise the story, thinking we all had the same taste. Instead, Dean and I both had gone after the story in critique mode. When a reader critiques something, he goes after it by searching for what is wrong.
And he will find something. Something is always wrong. From an infelicitous turn of phrase to a plot point that could have been stronger, something about the story does not work.
As I’m teaching this concept to my workshop-experienced students, I always begin by asking them this, “What’s wrong with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
Well, we’re all raised to believe that Shakespeare is a god who never could do anything wrong. Had he done anything wrong, had his stories been less-than-perfect, we wouldn’t be reading them? Right?
Wrong.
If William Shakespeare—professional writer—had turned A Midsummer Night’s Dream in at a workshop I taught, I would have told him this:
“Bill, lose at least two of your endings. The main story of the play ends in Act IV, Scene 2—and then you go on for two more scenes. All of these endings would work. Pick one.”
Bill Shakespeare, dutiful workshopper that he is, would nod sadly, go back to his room, and delete one of the most favorite and quoted scenes in all of English literature. Puck turns to the audience and says,
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
I would have said to Bill, “Lovely. Thematically significant. Beautifully written. Lose it. You can do the same thing elsewhere.”
Yeah, right. My harsh words, spoken with authority, and Workshopper Bill’s insecurity would have stolen 400 years of enjoyment from audiences all over the world.
Anything can be critiqued. Criticizing something is easy. It makes the critiquer feel smart, and just a little bit superior to the writer.
But that kind of critique serves no real purpose, because that kind of critique is wrong from the moment the critiquer picks up the story or the manuscript or the 400-year-old play.
Readers read for enjoyment. They vote for what they like with their cold hard cash. Traditional publishers who recently ventured into the world of free online e-book promotions were stunned to realize that people who receive a book for free are more apt to write a vicious, nasty review of that book than people who paid money for the same book.
There are a few reasons for that. One is that people see no value in something they get for free.
But the one reason that’s relevant to this essay is this: If people have paid a little for a book, they have a vested interest in it. They take a small bit of the blame if the reading experience didn’t turn out exactly like they hoped. They should have looked at the cover more closely, perhaps, or read a snippet of the opening. But they didn’t. So they got a book they didn’t like. It was an accident. They’ll do better next time.
Readers are more realistic than writers. Readers understand that many books out there in the universe won’t be to their taste. All sorts of marketing tools have sprung up over the centuries to help readers find works that will be to their taste. From cover art to genre categories to back cover blurbs, all these things exist to help a reader choose the right book for them—a book they won’t regret purchasing. A book they will enjoy.
When a reader samples an e-book, she gets a small portion of the novel. If it’s to her taste, she will then decide whether or not to purchase. But if the book is really, really good, the reader will punch that “buy” button just to see what happens next regardless of price. (That’s how a lot of e-books priced over $10 sell to people who swear they’ll never pay more than $9.99 for an e-book. The reader samples, gets hooked, and buys, without checking price at all.)
What does that have to do with critique? Simple. Critiquers get the manuscript for free and they’re asked to criticize it. Of course, they will find something wrong with it. In that circumstance, we all will.
So I change my students’ mindset to a reader/editor mindset. How do I do it? By giving them only three valid responses to something they’ve read:
1. I liked what I read.
2. I quit on page [insert number here].
3. I liked what I read and I would have bought this.
Book and magazine editors don’t have time to read every manuscript that crosses their desks, and certainly don’t have time to critique them. Editors want to find something the readers will enjoy. Better yet, the editors want those people to return for a second bite from the apple. So they want the readers to enjoy the first book, and come back for the second by the same author. In fact, the editors want readers to return to the publishing house again and again, which is why imprints exist. (If you liked this book by Suzy Q. Writer, then try this book by Jane X. Author, published under the same imprint.)
In other words, editors also read for enjoyment. And if they’re not enjoying a book on page 2, they’ll jettison that book. The only time they use their editing superpowers on that book is if they bought it sight unseen from a professional writer and can’t reject it for cause. Then they try to help the writer “improve” that book, when really, if the editor were an average reader, he would have simply tossed the book aside and asked for another book (maybe even by somebody else).
Harsh? Not really. Not compared to a thirty-minute critique of a romance novel by a hard-science fiction writer forced to read said romance novel as part of a workshop. You ain’t heard harsh until then.
But I’m sure all you writers out there have heard just such a critique. And many of you have taken it to heart. I know dozens of writers who quit writing because they couldn’t stand the pain they received from their peer-level writing workshop. That’s a tragedy. How many stories have we lost? How many Bill Shakespeares have dumped the “unnecessary” second and third endings from their immensely enjoyable stories because some idiot told them to?
I don’t let students drone on and on about a story, especially if they don’t like it. I will occasionally give the student something to improve the story, but before I do, I remind the student that 1) My word has equal weight to every other reader’s word in the room; 2) I can be wrong; and 3) ignore everything I say if you disagree with me.
I go last, after I’ve heard the rest of the workshop. If anyone “buys” the manuscript at all and I didn’t like the manuscript or had found “flaws,” I remind the writer that someone already loved it and was willing to spend cold, hard cash on it.
Often, I tell writers this: Do not touch this story. Mail it. Everyone in the room liked it but me. Therefore what I have to say is irrelevant.
In other words, I never tell a student to make a story perfect. I often tell a student that the story is really good and needs to get out into the world where readers can find it.
I also teach writers bits and pieces of craft, things they might not be aware of. I don’t want them to create my perfect story. I want them to write stories that only they can tell.
So many writers table perfectly good stories because someone—often someone with power (an editor, a writer with a few novels under her belt, a well-published nonfiction writer)—will nitpick the story to death. Or suggest revisions that will alter the story dramatically. If the story already works, who cares if it has three endings? Those of us who don’t like the story don’t know if the people who loved the story loved it because of those three endings, not in spite of them.
When I became an editor, I learned just how important taste is. The difference between the short stories in Analog and Asimov’s, two of the science fiction digest magazines (that now have e-book editions each month if you haven’t seen them before), isn’t that there is such thing as an Analog story or an Asimov’s story that I as a long-time reader can tell you about. The difference is in the taste of their editors. Trevor Quachri of Analog likes different kinds of stories than Sheila Williams of Asimov’s does. Occasionally their tastes overlap. Most often, they do not.
If there were such a thing as a perfect sf story, then both editors would always buy the same stories, and you couldn’t tell the magazines apart.
As readers, you all know this. As writers, you forget it.
And when you forget it, you make the weirdest decisions.
You give control of your product to the wrong people. You submit romance novels to science fiction markets (and wonder why the editor didn’t read your manuscript—was it the passive sentence on page 32?). You try to revise to please everyone in your peer-level writing group.
You self-publish your novel, make sure it’s edited and copyedited, add a fantastic cover, and then revise to address concerns posted by reviewers who gave your book one star. That’s complete and utter idiocy. Seriously.
Some nutty brand new writer with one or two novels to her name posted a blog on Digital Book World espousing just that. She says writers should always address their critics’ concerns.
I read that and nearly snorted my tea all over my iPad. If I even tried to address all the nasty reviews I’ve gotten over the years, I’d neve
r write anything new. If I tried to address all the somewhat valid criticisms I’ve gotten on my books, I’d still spend forever revising.
Only a writer with one or two publications to her credit would have time to even think such a thing is viable.
Her blog post has gone viral, and I’ve seen new writers everywhere wring their hands over the fact that they now have to pay attention to their one-star reviews and constantly revise.
I’m here to tell you this: If you want a career as a writer, ignore your critics.
When the book is finished, when the book is published for heaven’s sake, then it’s done. Irrevocably done. Mistakes and all.
And there will be mistakes. Lots of them.
One of my copy editors has been comparing my final manuscripts to the previously published editions of my novels as a final prep for the books’ reissues. She’s done that for two years now, and she’s found many things that copy editors missed. (Failing to capitalize Diet Coke in a novel published by Dell, for instance.) We’re fixing those tiny copyediting things because WMG Publishing is reissuing the books. Reissues always need proofs as they go into a new format because the format itself can introduce errors.
But she’s been having fits over one of the latest two Grayson novels, which will be reissued this summer. She complained in person to me about it. I frowned and said that I seemed to recall a bad copyedit on one of the Grayson books.
She wrote an e-mail to me later saying, “You really did have a horrible [copy] editor on this one. S/he/it (and yes, that really does say a lot about it) faithfully reproduced nearly every misspelled word, and introduced some errors...in the ms. Yeesh!”
In other words, the entire book was riddled with typos—and yes, we’re fixing them. But am I taking the opportunity to revise the book? No, I’m not. The book stands as it did when I originally wrote it. Readers loved those books. I’m not going to try to invalidate their reading experience by “improving” on it. I might take out the thing that they love.