 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to From the Desk. Today we are talking about constructive criticism. This is going to be more of a rambling type vlog, bit of advice thing because I don't have any notes. I didn't bother writing anything up. The reason for that is I want to get out some thoughts and I want them to be spur of the moment kind of deal because it feels like my videos are better when I do it that way instead of reading off a list of things. Because even when I read off a list of things man, I still forget to mention things. I don't know how that works but I can have the list right in front of me on the computer. You can see the glow of the screen. That's why it's called From the Desk. I can be reading it off and I'll still skip things or miss things or maybe something I didn't write down. So I'm just going to go off the top of the head. Constructive criticism and how to use it and whether or not you should use it. First off and I feel kind of silly bringing this up but I want to go ahead and draw the line in the sand between subjectivity and objectivity. Subjectivity is of course someone's opinion. It's what they think. It is not fact. It can be fact if it is actually objective but I mean once again there's a thin veil there. Either it's a subjective or objective. Subjective would be if someone reads your work and goes I don't like the ending. That's subjective because you know they didn't like where it went. Somebody died that they didn't want to die. That kind of thing. Whereas an objective opinion would be there's some information in the end of your story book whatever that is objectively wrong. It is a fact that you were wrong. Another way to look at this is grammar spelling punctuation all that stuff. Objectively 2 plus 2 equals 4. That is not a subjective opinion that is the objective truth of the situation 2 plus 2 equals 4 where you do get that thin veil that I was talking about is if you look if people are using different style manuals like you have the Chicago manual style and there's another one I always forget the name of it I personally use the Chicago manual style and I suggest you do too but you can use either one I think there's one or two there's I know there's two there might be a third one but I only use CMOS. So if you're looking in there they say some things about comma use being subjective and the the reasoning for that is there are authors who do not use commas or use them very very rarely like Cormac McCarthy he also doesn't use quotation marks now some people bulk it that I don't mind it I can tell very clearly he's he writes well enough that I always know who's talking and when you don't know who's talking you're not supposed to know who's talking and I know that irritates some people but it's it's the truth and that's the way his writing works and he gets rid he said himself he gets rid of all that extra punctuation not to confuse people to make but to make it easier to read and I feel it works I always have in fact before I even knew he felt that way I felt his stuff is probably some of the easiest prose to read and the reason for it is you're not having to really pay all that much attention where people get hung up is people expect these things and when those things aren't there because they've been taught they need to be there it breaks them and it breaks the experience and it makes that experience bad for them but again that's their subjective opinion as long as you're getting across your your main idea and nothing is confusing then you're in a good place but then again you've had the subjectivity side of it like I said there's a thin veil there where people are confused because those things aren't there so I always suggest that you 100 all of the time rely on grammar rules and spelling rules always go that route to make your message as clear as possible because not all of us are Cormac McCarthy I use quotation marks and commas and all that other fancy stuff I use that because I need to I can't write like that man I've tried and every single time I've tried even the people who love Cormac McCarthy have sent it back going dude you need these things you need quotation marks and whatever another one is Victor Laval Victor Laval's I think what is it the ecstatic I think it is and his first collection only collection actually slap boxing with Jesus or Jesus I'm actually not sure which way it's supposed to be pronounced that collection they don't post that book and that collection they don't he doesn't use quotation marks either he uses m dashes which is I don't even know the rules behind that one if you guys know the rules to that one let me know down there in the doobly-doo so but subject let's get back on track here um I sorry I prefer these rambling videos because it feels like I'm talking to you guys like we're sitting there having a you know a back and forth conversation even though there's no back and forth because I'm weird like that but uh subjective opinions you you really have to take with a grain of salt if somebody tells you if you have a certain vision in mind and someone tells you that that vision is wrong um it's whatever I mean honestly you either take that advice or you don't as long as not it's not objective I say go with your gut instinct now here's the problem with going with your gut instinct that person may be right as far as the majority consensus is concerned if that person says your ending sucks that could mean that most of the people to read your book think your ending sucks it could mean that all the people who read your book think your ending sucks because you have broken some kind of popular um not opinion but some kind of popular rule that isn't written in any textbook you know or any uh style manual so you you have to weigh things that's why I always say that you need more than one beta reader you only need one line editor um and I explain that in my line editing video um it basically you don't want the confusion of multiple people fixing something because of the different styles and whatnot you only want one line editor one content well one content editor one line editor and then you can have multiple proof readers you can have multiple beta readers that's fine but when you're dealing with the content and the structure of the piece you only want one person for each and those two people need to be different now furthermore on to constructive criticism just because it I think this goes without saying but just because something says something it does not make it the rule of law if somebody goes I don't like the way you're doing things even if it's constructive even if they're trying to be nice it that really has no effect on whether or not you should use it you need to take the advice as a whole and decide yourself as the creative individual whether or not you're going to use it um some creative some constructive criticism I would say never listen to would be anybody that says change your dialogue um uh then there's a reason for this um if you're if you when you're writing you hear a character saying something in your head and you express those the way that you hear it in your head the only time I would say that you need to change dialogue is whether or not um there's something objectively wrong with the dialogue phonetics and vernacular and things like that man that can be that can be tough you're gonna lose a lot of readers so somebody comes along and says hey this was hard to read you have to decide whether or not you want it to be hard to read now there is something to be said about frustrating your your reader along with uh your character they it lends a sense of frustration over the whole and it brings that point it's like some some books like uh I was at a hundred years of solidarity and some some other ones they purposefully confuse the reader because they want the reader uh the handmaid's tale they want the reader to be confused as the characters so you're not supposed to understand everything you're supposed to be confused um and you're supposed to dive deeper instead of what's just on the surface um that's why many casual readers can't stand David Foster Wallace or Thomas pension because those writers are writing for themselves to to prove points now here's an the end goal of a book does not always have to be pleasant if your goal like my goal with the bedding of boys is to offend people um I want you to be offended and I I really wish I would get more negative reviews on it because the book covers some topics that I myself find offensive and it'd be nicer it'd be nice to see more negative opinions of that book or more warnings like hey this book you know this book is full of full of some hot garbage and not not not hot garbage in the way it's written but it's the the actual content it's some foul disgusting stuff when people tell me they love that book I I gotta I gotta be honest with you I just kind of it's it's one of those I'm like okay I'm glad you I'm glad that it was something that you read that you enjoyed that you got your money's worth but that's not a book that I want people to enjoy I want it to upset people and I want people to think you know about the double standards and all that stuff so objectively I didn't do anything wrong in the story but subjectively it's some pretty awful content now here's where the line between subjectivity and objectivity comes into the grander scheme of publishing when you get to a certain level of publishing anything beyond independent really you start to lose control over what kind of say you have in the finished manuscript by the time you get to the end of end of a process your whole book could be rewritten um I had one book with a major publisher that I I can't make I can't make hide in her hair of what it used to be it is now better it is now a much better experience now that it is the way it is but it's nowhere near what the beginning what that book was to begin with and that's what I submitted and then it completely as for major rewrites do it this way and luckily I wasn't so attached to the story that I just collapsed also I was under contract so I couldn't do anything about it even if I wanted to I would have to break contract and pay back my advance and he's not gonna do that um so when it comes to small press up to legacy press you're going to have to deal with whether or not your publisher likes your content and if your publisher does not like your content unless it says specifically in your contract which I have nowadays I didn't have back then um unless it says that you have control over the final manuscript there they can change anything at will sometimes most of the time they'll ask you to change it but some of the time they'll go in and change things and say here's what we did and this is what we're publishing I've had that happen to me twice because I didn't agree with the changes um and both of those times was with uh my the publisher the first publisher I used under this name um so that was that was a bad experience uh kind of put me off of small presses all together um and then the dark fuse thing happened uh they collapsed and here I am man I just don't trust small presses until one comes along that really woos me I'm not even going to submit you know I don't even submit to anthologies anymore because I just don't want to deal with it um but anyway I think that's everything I hope that's something you wanted to watch for what 12 minutes uh and I'm still going on so I'm just gonna go ahead and wrap it here if you have any other questions or comments or if you just want to fuss with me and tell me how wrong I am down in the comments that's fine go ahead um but until next time I have any you've been you this has been from the desk I'll talk to you guys later bye bye