This is a super interesting question, and I think it may be worth a thread. Short answer: Nope! And that's ok! Let's talk about screwdrivers.https://twitter.com/BaskingSnark/status/1224021952609898496 …
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I am good writer. I am confident with a lot of my tools, and I know how to use them together. Part of what makes me confident in my tool-skills is a willingness to experiment and then to see when something is or is not working.
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Experimentation leads to the ability to be INTENTIONAL, and intentionality is the foundation of art.
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The most common criticism I see of A Conspiracy of Truths is that it's "too slow". Slow is fine. Some books are slow, and some cabinets are blue. Some people like blue cabinets, some don't. "Too" is a value judgment--an opinion--and therefore can be disregarded.
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So the natural question to ask here is: Did I mean to write a slow book? Did I mean to build a blue cabinet? (Yes.) Those are useful questions to ask yourself at every stage of the writing process. Did you mean to do that? Did you mean it?
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90% of the time, if you're answering "Yes, I meant it" then you're fine. (The other 10% of the time, your beta readers will say "ok but are you SURE tho".) "I did that on purpose" isn't something to excuse or invalidate criticism. Those are words to ground yourself with.
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Let's return to the initial question: Have I gotten any useful constructive criticism from a reader review? Nope! Because by the time the book makes it into the reader's hands, it has gone through so many rounds of edits that I have soaked Intention into every fiber of it.
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Reader reviews are often "Here are the things the author did." Sometimes those are good things, sometimes bad. Sometimes two reviews have different assessments of the same fucking sentence. The same question: Did I mean to do it? Did I mean it?
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But here is the thing. The review still isn't really FOR ME. I'm not SUPPOSED to be getting constructive criticism from it. It's for the reviewer to process their own thoughts, practice their own tool-skills, and benefit other readers.
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When you have enough iron-bound intentionality in your work, every review both good and bad is just... "We noticed you painted the cabinet blue." "Yep, I sure did."
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You don't always have to be Certain, or Secure, or Calm. You can be Uncertain, Insecure, and Anxious. You can be Afraid. It can be really hard. But just keep asking: Am I using this tool, or that one? Am I doing it on purpose? Do I mean it?
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Constructive criticism is most useful when you don't yet know the answers to those three questions. When you're still puzzling it out. When you're experimenting.
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I often joke that I don't know how to write a particular book until the moment that I have written it. Sometimes it takes 7 drafts to Have Written It, experiments and experiments and EXPERIMENTS... By the time a reviewer sees it, it's not an experiment anymore. It's On Purpose.
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So no, I don't get useful criticism from reviews, but that's not to say that *other people* might not get something useful from it: Half of learning a tool, dear monkeys, is watching someone else use it and listening to discussion about it.
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Watch, listen, discuss, learn. Create with deliberate intention.
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Čini se da učitavanje traje već neko vrijeme.
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