How to Get Solid Feedback: The One Paragraph Shred

[Stuart Dren]

They expect it if that's what the story promises. Even then, that can be worked around. You don't need characters who are good, you need characters who are *understandable*. None of the characters in Pulp Fiction are likeable. Leto Atriedes spends most of God Emperor of Dune being a dick, and deliberately. Game of Thrones is full of them.

In fact, The Boys is mostly like that, and the one "good" character is the least interesting one of all.

Well, the cover and blurb play some role in the promises.

I will respectfully disagree with you on this. Yes, the characters in dune and Pulp Fiction are not likeable.

None of the characters in Pulp Fiction are likeable.

Hey hold up. What's unlikeable about Bruce Willis' character? He loves his girlfriend, treats her well, and wants to run away with her after screwing over some gangsters. He jeopardizes this move to go back and get his father's watch out a sense of sentimentality/duty partly magnified by Christopher Walken's story.

 

[Naomasa298]

The Gom Jabbar and Kwitzak (however the fuck you spell it) are on page one or two, the plot line of which has more inertia throughout the series than the Harkonnen plot line, which plays out in book one.

Yes, I mean the Harkonnen invasion, which kicks off the whole Harkonnen vs Atriedes action sequence of the first story.

 

[Naomasa298]

Hey hold up. What's unlikeable about Bruce Willis' character? He loves his girlfriend, treats her well, and wants to run away with her after screwing over some gangsters. He jeopardizes this move to go back and get his father's watch out a sense of sentimentality/duty partly magnified by Christopher Walken's story.

Sorry, I actually meant Reservoir Dogs.

 

[Naomasa298]

But people expect the main character of most ANY work to be good and heroic. I mean, Game of Thrones has Ned Stark as the lead. Imagine if the lead was Cerci or Joffrey? As for understandable, my characters are, but I think readers don't want to admit they relate to these characters.

A Clockwork Orange. American Psycho. Lolita. Breaking Bad?

None of those have likeable or heroic characters.

 

[Homer Potvin]

But people expect the main character of most ANY work to be good and heroic

I don't know about that. If anything, I'd say the current zeitgeist is overloaded with anti-heroes.

But I also think there is some readers who literally don't get it.

Get what? Your ineffable brilliance? Haha... just teasing. Seriously though, you ain't gonna sell anything by blaming the consumer. There's always a middle ground.

 

[Luxuria]

A Clockwork Orange. American Psycho. Lolita. Breaking Bad?

None of those have likeable or heroic characters.

That's fair. But I am going to point out that there seems to be a modern trend of hating the AUTHORS, not the characters of these works. Which is annoying.

I don't know about that. If anything, I'd say the current zeitgeist is overloaded with anti-heroes.

Again, Anti-HEROES. They are still meant to be heroic. My stories tend to just have villains as the main characters, but it's NOT a flipped book of writing it from the villain's POV. It's that this main character is both the main character and does evil things if it suits him.

 

[Luxuria]

Get what? Your ineffable brilliance? Haha... just teasing. Seriously though, you ain't gonna sell anything by blaming the consumer. There's always a middle ground.

I understand that. But I also do think that readers need to understand what they are getting into and be able to understand character nuance and be literate enough that I don't have to spell things out for them like they are kindergardeners.

 

[Homer Potvin]

That's fair. But I am going to point out that there seems to be a modern trend of hating the AUTHORS, not the characters of these works. Which is annoying.

Again, Anti-HEROES. They are still meant to be heroic. My stories tend to just have villains as the main characters, but it's NOT a flipped book of writing it from the villain's POV. It's that this main character is both the main character and does evil things if it suits him.

I don't have to spell things out for them like they are kindergardeners

By what, using all caps so we know which words not to skip? Haha.

 

[Kallisto]

Me, I won't tell you specifically how to fix it, but I'll tell you what I find confusing about it, and you can go off and fix that on your own - that's your job as the writer. If *all* your descriptions are confusing, that's a deeper problem.

I wouldn't use this style, because what I'm looking for isn't paragraph level feedback, it's story level. You're not going to get that my character is a whiny little bitch just from one paragraph.

That's exactly what I meant. I hope, even in workshop, you're not just saying "Oh this is confusing" and leaving it at that. I how much good is that when you have a 2000 word manuscript? So yeah, I agree you can't give a person an answer in a workshop, but you shouldn't be so vague that you're not actually helping at least point the writer to a spot in a manuscript you're referring to. So glad we agree!

And you're also right that this technique is not good for everything. I think I did mention that in the beginning that you will still need to get a good run through of your book. This is just looking for the easy fixes that will make a big impact. If you're writing too much in passive voice, that's going to really make everything in your story feel horrible. But it's also an easy fix and not something people will need to read your entire manuscript to point out as a major problem.

I guess the best way to state what I'm putting down is that this is a good way to prepare to have your book beta read. Just the little clean up before you turn it over to someone who is going to spend a significant amount of time. Or just for manuscripts not really ready to be unleashed to the beta readers. It will make the person who does eventually sit down with your book to read it all the way through, life just a tad bit easier.

 

[Kallisto]

I mean, on any of these forums, what, five people might read what you post in the workshop?

OP finds it distracting or unhelpful to get broad picture comments; they apparently just want prose critique. Posting a shorter excerpt generally increases the number of people willing to read and comment, too. Seems like win/win. I'd say most writers tend to want much more than prose help, though.


You go, girl.

This is true. I'm not pretending like if you only do this, you're suddenly going to have an amazing piece. You do still need people who will go and read it through from beginning to end because doing this is insightful, but limited. It will definitely never tell you whether or not your story is actually good or not. Or your characters make sense. Or the plot moves smoothly from point a to point b.

But it's a thing you're going to want to try before you go to the beta readers. It's meant to identify, as you said, issues with the prose. It's meant to identify bad habits. For example, if you're constantly spelling things wrong. Or you're stuck in using passive voice. Those are fixes you can then take from that one paragraph or whatever, and apply it to the rest of your story.

Then you can go to the beta readers, and they're going to have a much easier time identifying the things that they can help with. Like whether your plot is coherent and your character arcs feel resolved. Whether or not the ending hits the way you hoped it would. Which, in my experience, is very hard for me to focus on when a manuscript is full of serious writing issues.

I also found it opens up discussion from my writing a little more, which was something I've been needing very badly for so long. Instead of "Yeah this doesn't work for me" I actually got instruction on how to write it better. A lot of us don't have the resources to go to college or take a master class to do this. Some of us are using free software, for pete's sake! I think it's because they're not spending 2-3 hours going through your manuscript. So they can spend that little extra giving that little extra instruction on the fundamentals and why its preferred to do it one way instead of another.

I'm throwing it out to fellow writers as a suggestion to make a big part of your feedback process. It's less scary than a full blown critique. Less for you to get defensive about. It helps out your beta readers, because you're now cleaning up these little tiny silly mistakes that would otherwise be a distraction. And it makes it possible to fix your own work because you've been told how on that little snippet.