A few days ago in one of my writing groups, a member told me she didn’t like the stories I’d submitted because they were too depressing. “The world is such a mess,” she said. “I don’t want to read things about death.”
While this writer is 100% entitled to her opinion, as well as her subjective preferences and dislikes, I found this a particularly hard comment to take in, even though I dutifully wrote it down and thanked her for it. And before going on, I’ll add that I trust this very talented writer in matters of craft. She and I have been in a group together for more than 30 years, and over those years, she’s offered tons of astute and discerning feedback that has made me a better writer.
But this comment wasn’t about craft. It was about personal preference. That’s what made it so hard to deal with.
And what am I supposed to do with that? Only write about happy things?
I’ve been around many writers who’ve bemoaned their predilection for dark subjects, lamenting, for example, being unable to write about anything but their dysfunctional family, their recently passed lover, their fear of climate disaster, or whatever. But several gurus on writing continue to remind us–we don’t choose our subjects; we submit to them.
Because, whether we like it or not–and whether others like it or not–our purest creative juice can be found in what matters most to us at the moment we’re committing pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Sometimes these can be joyful places; other times we’re compelled to delve into the dark spots. The important thing is to stay with the authentic truth of what matters to us, but attempt to do so in a way to make the impact of what we’re writing universally felt by others.
However, there will be times when these others will not want to feel what we’re writing. All of us have moments where we choose the rom-com instead of the true-to-life re-enactment of some horrible moment in history. And that’s okay. Taking care of ourselves also matters.
So how do we balance our needs to limit how much darkness we can deal with and still be helpful to our peers in the writing world?
We need to bring less of our personal biases and more of our writing selves to the table. First and foremost, we need to consider the piece from the premise of what the writer is trying to do. Then, as much as we can, we need to put our subjectivity aside and respond from an impartial read focusing on our knowledge of craft on where the piece is doing what the writer intended and where it isn’t quite yet meeting that mark. And I noticed, after I got home and read her line comments, that even though my writing group friend’s overall comment in our meeting got under my skin, her notes on the actual manuscript were far more measured and extremely helpful.
And, later I realized that it was actually a good thing l that I knew her biases up front when I read her line comments, because I could evaluate them knowing more about the subjectivity that influenced them. Much as we try to eliminate it, every comment will have a subjective element. There are many kinds of writers and readers out there, all of whom will have their different list of favorite spices to add more perkiness to what’s being offered.
This doesn’t mean that feedback will never sting again. I’ve come up against many readers who don’t get me. But don’t get avant garde jazz or super abstract art. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means I don’t get it.
Anyway, while I’m not ready to abandon dark writing, I am considering the idea of putting together all the joyful poems I’ve written in a little collection. My friend certainly isn’t wrong in wanting to consume content that amplifies all that’s good in life.
Oh well, I’ll tackle that issue later. First, I’ll have to think about the reframing. I’ll keep the current version, just in case, but in general, I like revision, which I think of as re-visiting, rather than correcting something that was previously wrong. I’ve recently discovered that in my piano life, as I re-visit pieces I struggled so hard with four years ago, like Beethoven’s Pathetique, I have a lot more facility in bringing them back. Frequent practicing has made my fingers stronger and more flexible, and I can focus less on the notes and more on the shadings of a piece, how I want to express it, which gets to the soul of the creative process–especially as I’ve learned to let go of the expectation that I’ll play every note and every rhythm perfectly and without bumps.
And when I arrived to take care of Manu, I was greeted by his parents with a strawberry rhubarb pie. (Strawberries are an important birthday theme for me, since it’s strawberry season here in western Mass.)
