Savage Writing: Constructive Feedback

I do not condone all the attitudes espoused by this narrator.

___

I read your manuscript. I burnt every page of it in my fire, in the middle of a summer heatwave, because that is how little those words deserve to be seen. What were you thinking, giving that to me to read? Every inch of your neuroses was written in your characters’ pores: in the way they run their hands through their hair like you, in their verbal hedges (“Uh”, “Yeah”, “Right?”), in their complete lack of agency. Do you think I want to read about characters that never make a fucking decision, just like you? Do you want me to feel sympathy for the way your plot bludgeons them the way you – erroneously – imagine you’re bludgeoned by your own circumstances?

And knowing you as deep as I do, it makes me sick to understand where they came from: the protagonist is half your libidinous fantasy, half a corrupted version of your ideal self. Did writing him overcome his own failings give you some catharsis – and don’t kid me that he wasn’t you. Every first book main character is the author in a secret or not-so-secret way, and changing his gender doesn’t hide the fact that it’s you. I know you. You haven’t changed. Fifteen fucking years and you haven’t changed an ounce, especially not in the sort of fictional men you find attractive.

Oh, and his “trauma”! You haven’t had a single moment of trauma worth recording in your life. Does it give you some validation to put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s actually suffered? That horrible shit you had happen to your faux-self isn’t romantic in real life. It’s gross. It shutters and shackles your mind in five hundred ways, ways you can’t easily get around in a hundred thousand words and a feel-good character arc. You have no right to claim those experiences, even vicariously. Thank god no-one’ll ever publish this, because anyone who read this knowing about your sheltered real life would go howling to the twitter mob and excoriate you in public for all eternity. I did you a favour. I’m doing you a favour telling you this now, because everyone else will sugar-coat it – and I’m your oldest friend, and you need to know the truth so you don’t embarrass yourself any further.

What was that “plot”, by the way? And endless series of contrivances and back-alley meanderings. Endless reactivity and one-note one-shot characters. Your villain’s motivation was patchwork, shod into whatever shape you needed it to be to create the situation you’d already planned out. And the love interest! How do you even pronounce her name? Did you google that or make it up? Did you just take out Scrabble and dump some of the tiles on the coffee table, then run with it? But she was likeable, at least; the flaws you gave her to make her less likeable, more challenging (I presume) actually made her interesting in a way no other character was. Why the fuck wasn’t she the main character? Would it have hurt your pride to empathise with another woman for once, without trying to out-compete her?

I can’t believe you showed this to other people. I can’t believe you sent this to agents and actual professionals who work with people with talent. This is like a window into the dark recesses of your psyche where all the penises and maggots live. It’s all the shit we used to talk about and fantasise about and cry over when we had sleepovers years ago, back when we would stay up til past sunrise. That shit is not for popular consumption, honey. I’m ashamed on your behalf. Did you not think that any stranger might look through this and straight into the core of you? Did you not consider how dangerous that is? I’d feel less worried if you’d flashed people in the street – at least they don’t help decide what’s on the shelves at Waterstones.

I know you worked really hard, but I can’t even give you a mental teacher’s sticker saying “You tried”. I’m not sure you did, at least not at the right things. I’m sure you can tell me a bunch of details about the setting and the characters’ backstory, but did you try to think about how you might be perceived through this? Did you try to mould your ideals into something palatable to people other than yourself, or did you just vomit your id onto the laptop screen?

Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’ve burnt it, and I’d advise you to delete the original file, or at least bury it some pen drive or hard drive in a folder so deep that future data archaeologists won’t be able to excavate it.

I guess I can say that it’s not the worst first attempt. It was coherent, and the prose wasn’t painful. Maybe think of it like the water that comes spilling out of the ketchup bottle when you first squeeze it: disgusting, but you’ve got to get it out of the way before the good stuff can come out. But no-one wants to eat the fucking ketchup water, darling.

Chin up. Don’t look so put out. Think of it as a new beginning, now I’ve set you straight. Start over. Try again. Do better next time.