The Importance of Ignoring Critique
Only you know what you want to create.
In a previous essay I wrote on the importance of critique, hammering out what critique should be and its value to writers. Near the beginning I wrote the following:
Everything is critiqued all the time and on the internet it is encouraged. The easiest content is critique and because of that most critique is dogshit.
The problem for creatives is the sheer abundance of critique once you reach a certain level of readership. How do you parse between the good and the bad? What is valuable and what isn’t? Between the readers who get it and the readers who don’t? By ignoring it. Robert A. Heinlein refrained from rewriting (more on that later). Most internet essayists don’t burden themselves with beta readers and test audiences, they write, edit (maybe), and hit publish. Fiction and non-fiction alike becomes bloated with too much input from editors and beta readers. A team of 1 is superior to a team of 10.
The creator may be blind to some of the flaws in their work but they are also the only ones who know what the vision is, what the work is supposed to be achieving. No one else can see what you see, no one else will be able to envision what you do. Each reader will have their own ideas when reading a work and writers hope to have conveyed their ideas with sufficient clarity. Some readers will have an idea closer to the original than others and some will miss it entirely. A few will spot opaque references while others will focus on the drama of the story. Some will enjoy reading a piece that agrees with them, others the opposite.
I concluded with the following:
It [Critique] should focus on the work as it stands and the creator needs to consider whether the critique makes sense to them, their style, and their aims. Not all critique is good critique nor is it useful but it is vital to improving in your craft.
This is crucial for a creative. Accepting any and all critique results in a confused, muddled, and hodgepodge creation suffering from committee. Even good critique can fall into this category. A few trusted readers may get it, or they may not. A beta reader could like your story and style of writing but have criticisms that don’t fit your aims or read something into it that wasn’t intended and that they want amplifying but you would rather remove. Their critique is ‘good’ in theory, detailed and distinct to your work, but ‘bad’ in the sense that it misses the point you attempted to create. Sure the beta reader has alerted you to a muddled message, or they simply misunderstood - an occurrence impossible to eradicate totally.
Much of what I write is a flow of consciousness. I start at the beginning and go to the end whether is fiction or non-fiction, then work backwards to make sure the ending strikes the right chord. Jumping around a story or essay causes me to lose the thread of thought joining beginning and end. Writing is the attempt to communicate this thread of thought and the input of others can create tangents or kinks in the thread. Over-explaining a certain part or adding in a tangent somewhere at the suggestion of test audiences can diminish the overall work, the overall thought. Only the creator knows the aim and because of that it can be necessary to ignore all critique but their own, and sometimes even that.
The ability to critique our own work is vitally important. We cannot rely on others to do it for us and must be confident in our own ideas and works to ignore the opinions of others. Not only because other’s don’t get it but because the reader, viewer, critic, etc., may lack sophistication.
This element goes unsaid much of the time. Reading is a skill, a muscle that needs training. In the same way I wouldn’t recommend to start reading sci-fi with Dune or philosophy with Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations I wouldn’t listen to a readers opinion if they had not read widely enough, lacked a critical eye, or appeared low resolution in their thinking. You need good readers to offer good critique and most readers aren’t good.
Many readers skim, read for speed, or read for pleasure. We all do this to varying degrees. When I’m reading for pleasure I am paying less attention than if I am reading to review which takes twice as long. I make notes, I scrutinise, I interrogate the craft, I flick back and forth to check consistency in plot, in characterisation, and even after all that I could still write a review that doesn’t gel with the writer. So be it. The writer knows better than I do. And don’t just take it from me, take it from Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and many others). His rules were as follows:
You must write.
You must finish what you start.
You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.
You must put it on the market.
You must keep it on the market until sold.
Straight forward. Write it. Finish it. Sell it. These rules are from 1947 but writing hasn’t changed. Technology and sales have though. It’s much easier to write and there is no more need to mail a story around to multiple magazines and buying a stamp every time. Email is free and much quicker. Word processes make writing easier and quicker too. Heinlein finishes with this:
The above five rules really have more to do with how to write speculative fiction than anything said above them. But they are amazingly hard to follow – which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I am not afraid to give away the racket!1
Painfully true. How many writers would rather go another round of edits rather than try and sell? How many would rather worldbuild a bit more rather than hit publish? What an odd craft where we work over and over on the same piece rather than create, finish, and start fresh. That’s how I paint and draw. Paint it, finish it, move on to the next - I’m working on the selling bit. The trepidation of how a work is received paralyses us. It shouldn’t. The work isn’t you, you aren’t your work. Write it, finish it, sell it. Start over.
Want proof? Go to your local bookshop and start reading the latest releases, not just in speculative fiction but all genres, and you’ll find writing you think is dogshit from someone with an agent, a publisher, and quarterly royalty cheques. Stop overthinking it and just do it.
For other discussions of Heinlein’s Rules. check out https://deanwesleysmith.com/heinleins-rules-introduction and https://harveystanbrough.com/pro-writers/the-original-heinliens-rules
Robert Heinlein in Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing.