Tuesday, April 3, 2012

C

‘WHAT ARE WORDS?’

C is for CRITICISM or CRITIQUE {criticism~the practice of judging the merits and faults of something or someone in an intelligible(or articulate) way. critique~the method of disciplined systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse. Commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment, but it can also involve merit recognition.}

In a perfect world there would only be constructive CRITICSM. But, we don’t live in a perfect world. All too often CRITICISM comes in only one form – fault finding. It hurts everyone.

CRITIQUE is another animal all together. Writers (as distinguished from authors or those who are published) crave a good critique. We believe it will make us better, help us to resolve the unresolved, lead us to becoming authors. A necessary evil, masquerading as good (or maybe god as I first mistyped). Be careful that those CRITIQUES/CRITICISMS do not become vampires.

From Title of Show ‘Die Vampire Die’

“The Vampire of Despair who creeps into your head at four AM to say…
   Who do you think you are kidding?
   You look like a fool.
   No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good enough.
If some dude walked up to me on a subway platform and said these things, I would think he was some mentally ill 
  a—hole.
BUT, if the vampire in my head says it…
     It’s the voice of reason.”

Be careful what you put into your head. CRITICISM and CRITIQUES may be a necessary evil, but first trust those to whom to lend yourself, else your ATTITUDE becomes BELLIGERENT and you succumb to the ‘Vampire of Despair’.

{definitions courtesy of Wikipedia or Wiktionary}

A to Z Challenge – 
Want more information? Go right over there to that little A to Z Badge, CLICK and see what it’s all about. While you’re there checkout some of the other participants. It’s fun. You will like it. Go on now, you know you want to.




27 comments:

  1. A great post for today! I especially like (and can relate) to the Vampire of Despair part. =)

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  2. I don;t want anything to do with the vampire of despair! I do enjoy constructive criticism told to me with a respective attitude. And I try to reciprocate with the same as best I can.

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  3. I love the line about not letting them turn into vampire bats.

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  4. The poem on my blog today somehow mirrors this entry.... in it's own psychotic way. ;D

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  5. Yep. It's an odd world where you hope your ms bleeds red (in a positive way).

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  6. Great post. We're all in a tougher profession than outsiders think.

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  7. I'm grateful for any kind of critique. Just someone taking the time to read what I've written feels like they've already done me a huge favour.

    Great blog, now following.
    mood
    Moody Writing

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  8. Oh that voice in the head! Or in your case, the Vampire of Despair. I've learned to expose its nasty existence to my writer group who quickly shoot the shit out of it. Ha, ha, HA! Take THAT you mean, rotten voice/vampire!

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  9. I have the best critique partners on the planet!

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  10. Hey, it's nice to meet you...ahhh, the dreaded 'c' word of criticism...I teach school and really have to be 'careful' how I present it when giving it to kids!
    great post! I love the beach scene; my kind of place!

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  11. I think I am my own worst critique and criticiser. :/ But have thru the years learned to accept it as well.

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  12. I'm going to rub garlic on my keyboard to ward off the vampire of despair.

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  13. I do appreciate a good critique, but sometimes I'm my own worst vampire.

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  14. Great insights.
    Critical thinking is not always an intellectually or interpersonally positive thing!

    On with the A to Z! I put up SIX different blog posts today. Whew!

    Linda Ann

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  15. Sometimes we are the hardest critic of ourselves. Nice word for the the day.

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  16. You are so right. I try to be fair in my critiques to other people. But I know how it works. You can get a glowing review, but one criticism of our piece, and you can let it eat you. Can't disregard the good stuff.

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  17. In my critique group, we're careful to point out what's wonderful in the other person's writing and then make suggestions to improve it. During this process of looking for the good in other people's writing, I can now see that there's always something good in mine. :)

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  18. not sure how i feel about all of this, but do know i recently wrote that i am not sure i want writers to read my stuff, only readers---was having a bad day---thanks for the post!

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  19. I've tried crit groups and crit partners, and the partner option works better for me. (online)

    Good choice for the A to Z Challenge. Critiques help us improve, but we have to digest the info first.

    Thanks for visiting my blog!

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  20. So true. I did quit a group because the people were just so mean. So I work with people online and they're honest, positive, and don't just tell me something sucks. They tell me why it sucks and how to fix it.

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  21. Lovely to meet/follow you. Thanks for coming by and reading about Cathy.

    Criticism/critique can be fraught, can't it? It is difficult to write a good critique but I'm a believer in positive first and last.

    Denise

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  22. For me a helpful critique has to be a balance of praise and criticism. If all your going to do is beat me over the head, I'll shut down! :)

    Great post!

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  23. Yep, an excellent choice for C. I love a constructive critique... if they can't be honest, I don't want them to bother, and it they can't be constructive with their honesty, than it's not worth my time.
    My CPs are awesome tho!

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  24. Great post. I am very careful who I turn to for advice/critiques in my life.

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  25. My beta readers recently gave me some harsh criticism regarding my sequel. I took it all to heart and now have months of rewrites to do before it will ever be ready for eyes again.

    Criticism is hard but necessary.

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  26. I love a good critique but self-criticism can quickly turn UGLY. :)

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  27. Ah, critique is a great C word. As you so well described, it has so many connotations. I'm a fellow A-Z blogger and a new follower.

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