Following on from the previous article (Critique Objections 1 to 5), here are the next five objections many beginner writers make when receiving a critique of their story.
6. If I Take Your Advice It Won’t Be My Story
This is less of an objection and more of a concern.
Writers do sometimes worry that to make changes that someone else has suggested is to somehow be untrue to their own vision of the story. This is an issue that only the writer can decide on. If the changes suggested strengthen the story, make it more plausible, give it an added twist or enrich it in some other way, then maybe it would be a good change to make.
Any change that completely alters either the direction or message behind the story probably isn’t a good idea (unless you want to write a whole new story), but small changes that will enhance the existing story won’t turn it into either someone else’s story or a new one.
7. But That’s How It Happened In Real Life
This also relates to objection number 3. When you’re writing fiction, you’ve got to think in fiction. Real life rarely translates well into fiction, especially when you’re writing about incidents that really happened.
The reason is because fiction is a world in a bubble; time is contracted, speech is edited for content, events are manipulated into a particular sequence and nothing outside the story is referred to.
In real life we have a million and one things going on at the same time and focus is scattered. In fiction the focus is on just one thing, one problem. Lots of little things might impinge on the bigger problem, but generally the story exists to solve just one problem.
So bear in mind when you’re bringing real-life events into fiction that you may need to alter them just a bit to make them fit the demands of the story, the demands of the market, or even maybe the demands of society.
By all means draw on life experience. Use emotions you’ve felt, use circumstances you’ve found yourself in, use drama you’ve experienced – they’re all vital ingredients to writing compelling fiction, but be wary of relating events just as they happened, and if you really must use actual events, make sure they are a vital part of the story you’re telling.
8. I Write Like I Speak
Just about everyone uses verbal short cuts and incorrect grammar when they speak. We all have little quirks; we may say things like ‘lek’ for the past tense of ‘leak’, and ‘led’ for the past tense of ‘lie’. Or it may be that we write things like ‘allot’ when we mean ‘a lot’.
For a writer the danger lies in not knowing you’re saying it incorrectly. This applies particularly to writers who live in regions where a strong dialect is spoken, or to those who’ve never paid close attention to grammar lessons or studied it through their own interest.
The argument ‘I write the way I speak’ doesn’t hold up unless you’re deliberately writing in dialect or regional slang.
By all means speak however you like. The verbal quirks we use are what makes us individual and what makes life so interesting and funny sometimes. And yes, let your characters use them too because it breathes life and depth into a character to let them be natural to their background and personality type. But in the narrative, try to get it right.
9. My Publisher Will Correct MyGrammar/Punctuation/Spelling
No, actually, they won’t, they’ll just reject your work and move on to the next hopeful who took the time to get it right. If you know this is weak spot for you, then take advice from someone who can help you and do the work needed to make your manuscript as error free as you can.
10. That’s My Best Bit – I Can’t Take That Out
Have you heard the phrase ‘murder your darlings’?
It’s arguably one of the hardest lessons a writer has to learn, but we all have to learn it. You know which darlings I’m talking about. They’re the lines, descriptions, phrases, sayings, passages, scenes, that you absolutely love and can’t bear to think of losing.
But they’re also the ones that don’t fit in with your story, that slow the action, that weaken the dialogue or muddy the otherwise clear characterisation.
It feels like murder to delete them, but they’ve got to go for the sake of the greater value of the story.
Save them if you must, but get them out of the story when you know they don’t fit properly. Put them in a different file with the title ‘murdered darlings’ and see if you can use them elsewhere. In fact I challenge you to try. It can be a good exercise to find the story they do fit into.
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