My first critique, and the pain therein.

The very first professional writer who ever looked at my work was a local newspaper reporter named Joe. Joe was a good guy, had been reporting for a while, and when I told him I was a writer, he perked right up. He bugged me for a while for a piece of mine to look at. I didn’t realize then what a compliment that was — that he thought I was interesting enough that my writing might be worth something.

The first piece I showed him was a flash that I had dashed off on a work break. I was eighteen at the time and still committing horrible writing. I inflicted it on poor Joe. He read it, out loud, which embarrassed the fuck out of me, and just sort of nodded vaguely. “Sure,” he said. “That’s pretty good. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Oh, I walked around for weeks with my chest puffed out! Joe thought I shouldn’t change a thing! My writing was perfect as I laid it down! Yeah, me!

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I brought him another piece, this time a short that I’d actually put a lot of time and effort into. I was so proud, so excited to hear what ol’ Joe would think of my awesome writing this time.

He tore it to shreds. I had to change this, I had to change that, cut this, add that, explain this, make it shorter, find the point. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck when he handed my six pages back to me covered in his scratchy handwritten suggestions.

What had happened? How could he have liked a flash that I dashed off in my spare time but hate a longer story that I really worked hard on?

I didn’t know. It took me a long time to figure it out, but I did figure it out.

That flash piece I gave him was garbage. An exercise to keep me writing during a short break where I didn’t have enough time to work on something longer but wanted to put my pen to paper. Showing him that was like showing him a grocery list. It meant nothing. So he gave it nothing. “Oh, sure, don’t change a thing.” That’s the kind of response you give a new writer when they suck. You don’t waste your time or breath dissuading them, but you don’t waste any effort helping them, either. I’ve given that response myself to other beginning writers. That’s partly how I figured out Joe’s response to me.

The longer piece, though, that I actually put real effort into, that I cared about, that I wanted to tell someone really bad — that piece warranted another look. It was still awful, I will not lie, but Joe knew the difference between a grocery list and a real effort. He saw something in the real effort that made him believe I wanted to be a writer, that I needed help to get there. So he offered me help — change this, change that, cut this, add that, make it shorter . . . It’s just not always easy to recognize this sort of thing as the helpful compliment it is.

My first response when he gave me back my six pages, was “You think I suck, huh? Well, I’m going to keep writing! I’m going to work my ass off at this until I rock so hard I’ll make Stephen King look like an amateur! You can’t stop me by telling me I’m awful!”

Not a bad response, certainly. It meant I had the guts to keep going in the face of adversity.

What I realized a long time later, months after Joe had gotten a job in another state and moved away, was that what I should have said to him was: “Oh, my god! Thank you for spending so much time with this and giving me such great advice! Thank you for believing in me enough to show me where I can do better!”

Now, I love it when someone says, “Hey, I think you should do X on page 128.” Whether or not I agree with them, it means they like my  work enough to try to help me improve it. That’s probably the best compliment there is.