An Eye-Opening Experience

Hey there! Still crashing towards deadline on my next IM. Still working at the hectic insurance agency. I took time out to do a critique of an unpublished chapter members manuscrip - she won the critique in a basket at our conference. Because of deadlines and belonging to three chapters just in this area, I don't go to many meetings, so I've never met this woman. The chain of events - while still shocking to me - have led to me deciding to resign from this chapter. All because of one person.

Let me tell you about it:

The chapter arrived via email. I read it over and emailed my critique partner to ask her how honest she is when doing these kind of critiques (we are totally honest in critiquing each other's work.) She emailed me back and said to be honest and if I wasn't, then I was wasting my time. Since I agreed with that, I sent an email critique back to this person. I made sure to point out good things about the mss as well as the things she needed to work on. In my opinion, it was direct and to the point - and showed easily what to fix.

One day later, she emailed me back a note thanking me for my input.

Two days later, she visited my web site and used a post I have there detailing how I came up with the idea of Shadow Magic (coming to grips with skin cancer) and used snippets of this post to personally attack me.

I was shocked. Appalled. And confused. I couldn't understand why someone would do this. After all, I didn't attack her personally. I didn't email her a scathing critique saying she was the worst writer I've ever read (she wasn't) or that she should give up and choose anothe profession. I merely pointed out that she head-hopped (she'd asked about this), that her pacing was off - and outlined why and how to fix it, explained why in dialogue one should never have characters pass the time of day, and listed all of the adjectives and adverbs (some conflicting) she used in describing her heroine in the first four pages of the mss, stating she shouldn't have the heroine feeling sorry for herself, but should make the reader feel sorry for her and by using all these adjectives, this made her character seemed moody. I explained why characters have to be sympathtic and that it's hard to like a woman like that .

That's not a personal attack. At all. This was a fictional character, in a fictional work. When I pointed out to the writer that her heroine was unsympathetic, and showed her why, I was stating my opinion only. Once, I would have paid to have a published writer show me something like this in my own work. Like many pubbed authors, I have the requisite four or five unsold manuscripts under my bed . Unsympathetic characters is a common reason for rejection - I've gotten it, my friends have gotten it - yet I would never dream of attacking the person who rejected me for that reason. It's a business, and everyone has their own opinions.

But to attack me personally - I'm still reeling. My skin cancer experience was, as I put it on my web site, intensely personal. It led to my writing a book about a heroine who couldn't go in the sun. If a reviewer wrote that they hated this heroine, I would never dream of personally attacking them. Same with a reader who might send me an email or letter. Everyone has their own beliefs and opinions. If you don't want help, why ask for it?

I don't get it. But now I do understand why many authors won't sign their names when they judge contests and why they won't offer critiques. I know I won't any more. Not after this. That little bit of service (ie; helping or attempting to help) isn't worth this.