This week: Being an Empathetic Reader/Reviewer Edited by: Lilli  
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"Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was."
~ Jackson Pollock
"What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy."
~ Tom Robbins
"All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was."
~ Toni Morrison |
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Last month, I submitted the following newsletter; "Making Readers Feel Something" . As the title describes, it talked about making the readers care about the characters. Whether it be cheering for them, crying over them, or getting angry at them. Drawing emotion from the reader means more that more than likely, the author felt something as they were writing it.
I received an email from a reader who wrote, “Tell them something unusual about the main character. It should be something very personal that hurts to tell, so you may have to find it in yourself. But it’ll be all the more powerful because of that. And there’s nothing like a secret shared, even if it’s a bit dirty and little, for bringing you close to someone.”
In a follow-up email, the author said, “This is the sentence that taught me that: He looked into those eyes and it seemed to him that there was only the woman, so fine and so precious, so high and so awesome, so unattainable, so beautiful, so terrifying, so profound, so mysterious and so holy, and his existence dissolved in a fervour and clamour of heartbeat and blood rushing and pulse thumping so that nothing existed for him but the sight of her and the glory of her. It’s from my unpublished book (title redacted) and I’ll never forget how hard that sentence was to write. 72 words that cost me so much to set down and yet they’re the most powerful in the book in my estimation. And the sentence breaks most of the rules in the book. Somewhere in there is one with over a hundred words and I’m kinda proud of that. But the above one is the best. Which is why I remember it, of course. It hurt.”
During our email exchange, I recalled a story I had written and a review I received for the story. The reviewer told me the story wasn’t believable and something like that would never happen. Those words made me angry and sad because it was a situation that did, indeed, happen to me. It was a painful memory to recall, and to be told it was impossible, well, it taught me a lesson: readers and reviewers need to have more empathy. If you read something tragic in a story or book, count yourself fortunate that you haven’t had to experience the same thing firsthand - rather than discount the author so quickly.
Granted, there are certainly disputable things that you can share with a fellow member in a review or email exchange. For example, the incorrect capital of a state, how long it would take to walk a mile, the number of miles between two known points, how many glasses are in a bottle of wine, etc. If you have evidence that disagrees, you can dispute the facts included in each other’s writings. However, I would urge you to be sensitive before trying to address things that you have no direct knowledge of. For example, different forms of abuse; child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, systemic ritual abuse, etc. Likewise, if you have direct knowledge of those things - you have my heartfelt sympathies - but remember that everyone reacts and heals differently.
Many writers put a bit of themselves in everything they write, myself included. The same goes for the anonymous source I quoted above. There are plenty of things that we can argue over, like spelling, the Oxford Comma, sentence structure, and the like. I would urge you to err on the side of compassion when reading certain topics, though. If the writer tells you that the story is 100% fiction, ask if they want suggestions for making it more believable/realistic before discrediting their experiences. |
| | | Panda Foot (E)
Writers cramp 24 hour prompt-write a story about humans encountering a Panda. In progress
#2316197 by Joseph  |
| | | Running (18+)
Jim and I discovered something else that day that became very precious to both of us.
#2315046 by deemac  |
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Drama: March 20, 2024 Issue [#12465]
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