What’s that? More whiny self-deprecation, please? Your holiday wish is granted!

Just after Thanksgiving I was CC'd on an email with the subject "Re: Links for Writers". Not too surprising, considering my habits, except that the thread was fourteen years old and I had no recollection of it, the context, or the contributors. The new message:

What now? Who the? Is this coming from inside the house?

The thread was from a creative writing class offered by Main Line School Nights, a non-credit "lifelong learning" program out of Radnor/Wayne (MontCo, PA). That name rang a distant, misshapen bell. Couldn't tell you where it was held, nor identify a single name or face from the class. My only memory is of an in-class prompt to write an over-the-top "dark and stormy night" prologue, and doing something about a posh couple pulling up their blood-brown Bentley to the porte-cochère of the gloomy, fog-cowled Stabbington Estate or something. And...that's it. K*****a? I don't even k*****a!

Long/short: I agreed to help.

I’ve been part of five writers’ groups over the years. Few of the members were traditionally published. Most had no dedicated or accredited writing instruction. There were YA’s penning their epic Harry-Potter-but-with-Furries breakout novels, twenty-somethings developing their Hunger-Games-but-with-Furries breakout novels, thirty- and forty-somethings with their (requisite) epic Game-of-Thrones-but-with-Furries breakout novels, some dark fantasy with prose well into the ultraviolet (ahem), some “literary” superhero stuff well into the ultraviolet (ahem), expertise-specific hard sci-fi with the usual flat archetypes showing off said expertise, so many seniors with memoirs, some poetry with no verbs, a few folks just learning English...

And K*****a’s emailed draft ranks... It’s rough. An accounting of its problems isn’t necessary; assume that everything that can go wrong with English prose occurs at some point. But this is the dear, personal work of a seasoned, educated, multilingual professional who's just starting their journey as an author. Of course it’s raw, loose, flawed. Awful, as she feared. There’s no virtue in savaging a freshman effort; it’s not like she’s E. L. James or Dan Brown.

In later emails she asks after these bullet points (copy/pasted):

• Characters- fully fleshed out? strength, credibility, way they speak, actions, relationships with other characters

• Main character- all the above, plus do you get her, are you rooting for her?

• Narrative - overall story strength, relatability, interest?

• Plot- keeps your interest? Are you wondering/do you care what will happen? Too dramatic/not dramatic enough? Mundane? If you start daydreaming during a section- that means I need to improve it!

• Structure- it’s unusual, does it work?

• Chapters- number, organization, length, level of detail

• My writing style (author’s voice)- any irritating features or inconsistencies? Repetitive? Unclear?

• What’s missing? Are there any fatal flaws?

• What/How can it be improved?

It’s so much a “starter” project that it’s hard to know what feedback or depth of feedback would be most helpful. Some of what she’s concerned about is lost in the background noise. “What’s missing?” Shit if I know.

Were this my first work, what would I have needed to hear? At some point I was where she is; what feedback helped me level up? Actually, I don’t remember. It was quite a while ago.

Quite a while.

Her email shook me up. Fourteen years?! And MLSN wasn’t my first rodeo! I’ve been “at this” for...for how fucking long now?

My BFF is author River Adams (they/them). River and I attended some of the same nonsense writing classes back in the day. We traded drafts, critiqued one another. They came to the U.S. at age nineteen not knowing even basic conversational English; they now have an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson (among other degrees). Their 2023 literary debut novel, The Light of Seven Days, has been nominated for several awards, and rightly so. Highly recommend it. They’ve appeared in a number of literary journals, and their first book, published in 2014, years before the MFA, was a quirky biography and also well received.

How’s my journey going?

Since my ol’ undergrad days I’ve attended several (how many is “many”?) non-credit “adult ed” writing, uh, “classes”, and four for-credit college-level writing courses (only one dedicated to straight fiction). Let’s not count the how-to books and videos. Been a paying member of two writers’ guilds. I can occasionally write solid scenes. Individual lines of dialogue mostly ring as natural, but not so all exchanges between characters. I still abuse commas, em dashes, semicolons, and parentheses (obvs). I’m inclined to overwrite, aiming for “clever” and “erudite”, pushing my prose into purplish Gordian configurations, but I’m getting better at dialing it back. No, really! I’m not an astute observer of human nature, so my character building and development leave some readers cold or bemused. My story arcs are shaky; I know the various theories for satisfying storytelling (Freytag, Campbell/Vogler, Truby, Harmon, Snyder, Coyne, acts, rising tension, complications, beats, stakes, promises, all-is-losts [alls-are-lost?], false endings...), but effective implementation is still the next story away. What’s that? Theme? Are you kidding me right now?

Got 40k into a “literary” (har!) superhero novel but abandoned it when I realized it thoughtlessly depended on stale, tasteless tropes (refrigerating the lesbian pal, manic pixie dream girl, the “crazy homeless guy” that’s victim and antagonist, all that bullshit. Shameful.) Dozens of unfinished short stories, a bunch of barely-outlined novels, a few stabs at screenplays, a terrible, terrible play written for class, some other garbage (I am NOT a poet). One submission to an online sword & sorcery mag, rejected. I have earned money, kinda: < $500 USD over four pieces (a silly short story to open a [long defunct] TTRPG product, an essay in the local writers’ guild mag, and two flash pieces placing in local contests). That’s it. Decades. What the hell am I doing.

Sigh. Whine.

River is very smart, very talented, well and specifically educated, and dedicated to their craft and career. There’s no point comparing our journeys, considering the gulfs in our instruction and energies devoted to “making it”. But, dammit... Just dammit. It’s not even envy. It’s disappointment in myself, something approaching shame when I tally how much I’ve given up in this anemic pursuit. This...hobby.

I’m not evolved enough a writer to be authoritatively critiquing a piece which (a) exceeds the scope of anything I’ve finished to date and (2) is in need of such fundamental guidance. Had I known what to expect, I’d have deleted her mail. But I did my level best to answer her questions and offer whatever other honest thoughts arose while trying to be encouraging.

Reading this draft was a slog. Trying to be positive and constructive hurt my brain and heart. But reviewing my notes I found:

Subtle mixed POV mistakes. An unintended layer of detachment in some of the third person narration. Uneven tone in the prose. Melodrama for drama. The protagonist lacks agency. Unearned character development. Telling instead of showing. Page time on minutia while summarizing truly telling events...

...Things I wouldn’t have picked up on a few years ago.

River did a lot of guided reading and analysis at Emerson. Sounds amazing. But I think experiences like this are helpful, too. Refreshers on basics, building confidence knowing I’ve moved beyond the tutorial level, etc. This will certainly be on my mind when I next to put middle finger to backspace key. Which will be...

Yeah. When?

I can’t keep playing around with this bullshit.

I mean, I can.

It’s just you and me, 2025. Mano a año. Let’s see who blinks first.