I don't think there is an occupation out there more subjective than the livelihood of an artist. And as the saying goes, it's true that everyone's a critic.
I say this because I recently entered four of my novels' first five pages in a contest. I didn't do it to win. I know by now that my writing tends not to fit in the mold of the Christian publishing industry, and I'm at peace with that. It's why I'm planning to Indie publish instead. In fact, I may have had nearly perfect scores in two of them, except that there was one judge for each that couldn't see the vision.
But I didn't want to skip off to Createspace to format and publish my own books without at least hearing out the haters. Which is why I entered the stories in the contest, because inevitably, 12 judges' comments are going to bring a few weaknesses to light that I would do well to care for before I ask people to take my books seriously enough to pay for them.
As authors, we need to develop two things just as badly as we need to develop strong dialogue or compelling characters.
1. We need the ability to accept constructive criticism.
Naturally, artistic personalities tend to be highly sensitive to criticism. After all, the very nature of art requires that we put our whole heart and being into creating something that resonates with the soul. We basically turn ourselves inside out and reveal all that might be lurking beneath the surface. This can elicit different responses from those that are watching us. Some are jealous of our ability to be transparent, and they try to belittle and scoff at our attempts. Others are focused on making us better than we are, and they go through, poking and prodding at our exposed souls to point out every weakness that will surely cause us to fail. Then there are some that are encouraging, helpful, kind and understanding about our situation. And inevitably, there's the criticism that is always over-enthusiastic, with nothing bad to say, but that rings as insincere with the discerning and intuitive mind of an artist. To me, the worst possible criticism I have faced as an artist is those who simply say nothing. It's easy to feel invisible in a world of silent critics.
As you can see, there's quite a bit of possibility to receive biased information from others. So how do we sort through it? How do we find the truth in a part of life that is so agonizingly subjective it can defeat us before we even start?
Here's what I'm learning. As I sorted through the twelve judges' reviews of the first five pages of these books, I saw patterns. After I looked past the obvious discrepancies like "This is very emotionally engaging" to the next judges' "The author needs to be more emotionally engaging" (Yes, that really was what they said), I saw that there were things all of them said. And it wasn't always bad. I heard from almost every judge, even the haters, two common themes: I needed to beware of the passive voice and use strong dialogue to pass along information (Easy to say, but one of the areas of writing that just takes a LOT of practice to get the hang of.) The other theme? "You're obviously meant to be writing/storytelling."
So I can come away from all the criticism rolling around in my brain being confident of those two things, if nothing else.
2. We also need the ability to turn off the criticism that is biased or incorrect.
Here's where it gets a little dicey. You see, the more inexperienced the artist, the more vulnerable to self-doubt we can be. If you don't know any better, you might receive a boat-load of criticisms about your work and feel completely ineffective. A failure. Believe me, I've been there.
But if you're meant to keep creating, you will, and inevitably you start to get better. When you look back and see the mistakes you were making, you can see the criticism that was true. But a more experienced outlook will also reveal to you the hidden motives of criticism that are more murky and subjective. Usually, it has more to do with the criticizer than the artist.
What's the danger in "over-hearing" murky criticism? I'm going to say something I believe more passionately the longer I hone my craft. There is grave danger in allowing yourself to become "just like everyone else." There is an attitude in the publishing industries that everyone must follow the same sort of rules and create the same stories. If you don't, you will be evicted from the pool of acceptable authors. But art is meant to make an idea stand out. It is meant to draw attention to itself. If your voice is just like everyone else's, no one will ever see the idea that is written on your soul. They'll easily forget you and your work.
For me, this meant abandoning my dream of sitting in my office writing stories that I happily sent off to the publisher and let them do everything else. It's not going to happen for me, simply because I'm unwilling to lose my own voice. But you know what? That's okay. The more I think about it, the more I learn and prepare, I realize there's a whole other aspect of publishing my stories that I would have missed if I let someone else do it. Cover images, design, back cover blurbs, even formatting is turning out to be kinda fun! I'm excited about this new chapter.
But let's not ever outgrow our ability to be taught. Be humble enough to learn something new, even if you achieve the highest level of success an author can manage in this world. The best artists never stop growing.
So get out your computer or your paper and pen (or your art supplies, or your music composition paper) and do some growing!
What do you think? What have your experiences in the publishing world (or on the fringes, or on the outside) taught you? Leave a comment and follow this blog if you found this post helpful.
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