Fiction Critique, HALP!

OH, my professor would have a field day with this. :) He's of the aesthetic that you have to write what you know. Aka, I'm only allowed to write characters 24 and younger, female, of my decent. Also, I wasn't allowed to write jobs I hadn't had [talk about limiting].

Though, I don't completely buy it. Depending on what level class this is, this could be a whole world of hurt. Maybe mention that the character doesn't feel authentic - but try not to say - YOU SUCK. :)

I'm trying to think of how I'd critique the story. I'd probably try to avoid the elephant in the room and see how the professor handles it. And react on more revisable sections - rather than telling her to put it in a drawer and never look at it again [which I've heard from faculty].

Maybe ask questions about the character - try to really get her to consider where she's drawing this character from. Maybe she's not sure of the cultural differences. Obviously to write from a remove - you have to do a LOT of research about the culture. That might be something to bring up too, that it feels too removed when it should be steeped in culture, but not forced - something that doing a LOT of historical/cultural/biographical info would help - aka not reading fiction as your "source".

And if your workshop is structured like mine is - she'll have to revise it by the end of the semester - so do your best to give her some help. Maybe talk about how maybe a death of the character seems to forced in the situation? I just like to say no death in general. And force her out of that comfort zone.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

Ah Sharon you are SO helpful!

I'm just anticipating how awkward it will be to critique this story. This is for an intro to fiction class, so I mean, I wasn't expecting greatness, but I wasn't expecting THIS MUCH awkwardness. Intro to fiction here follows a basic intro to creative writing where we do poetry and short stories. I kind of hoped that the quality would be a little better than it was in that class, bu alas. Not really.

And I'll definitely be saying something along the lines of not forcing the culture. Because I can tell that she knows what she's talking about, more or less. She might have taken some religion classes or something, but it's very, very, very forced.

It's first person. That was pretty much the only requirement for our first story.

That's perfect! My brother told me I should just write something along the lines of "You're white, stop it."

You're much more helpful.

I mean, unless you're actually from Saudi Arabia, and it shows that she has no idea what she's talking about. If that's the case, you can completely ignore me.

But the writing is terrible! She made up words. According to the dictionary, garrot is a noun meaning a stick that helps close a wound or something along those lines, and she used it as a verb....?

And I did say it wasn't bad, but going through it again I've discovered that there's all this unclear language, and at least six tense shifts.

Sigh. I mean obviously I'm not going to go to class and is there and tell this girl she has no idea what she's talking about. That's rude, a personal attack, etc. I mean, maybe she does. It's just the way the story is written, it seems more like maybe she studied Islamic culture/Saudi culture somewhere and decided she knew enough to write a story.

And yeah, that IS me making an assumption. Buuuuuuuut as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty justified.

@Corey - the point was she was FORCING the culture. From a point of view story in first person - you don't go around announcing everything that's AMERICAN, when you're in America. Maybe if this was told from the perspective of a white girl visiting Saudi then she would be noticing these things, but instead it sounds like she's bringing to life points that are pretty mundane that a person of that culture wouldn't focus on.

I'm sure the girl did some research, but is probably not steeped enough in an intro to creative writing class to be emmersed. Or if she is knowledgable of the culture - then she needs to make light of the issue with first person character's observations not lining up with this.

I'm all for writing what you don't know, but when you're starting out it's important to have a steady base for which to grow from. But what do I know. I only want to teach creative writing for a living. I was just giving her advice that's valid from a workshop stand point that would be brought up in any of the workshops I've ever been in.

So yes, it sucks that we make assumptions based on the writer - but she made the assumptions based on the writing, and then evaluated the girl to some hints. It's like when I write a story from a guy's point of view - it's more in jeopardy of being analyzed that I am in fact a girl - writing a male point of view. And that can come out as quickly as just reading the author's name at the top of the story. While new criticism has been a huge deal in the 20th century, we cannot completely ignore the author anymore. Especially in an intro to writing course. It's ambitious - so I'd give her points from that, but I might try to steer her to something more in her everyday life until she builds the tools necessary to execute a story from outside her everyday experiences.

I was just asking for advice on how to critique the story respectfully, because in class I don't want to make the assumption that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Sharon gave me some very helpful ideas about how to do so. The point of my problem is that, while the writer knows the technical aspects of the culture well enough, there is no intimate connection to the culture present in the writing.

@sosane: Have you personally experienced the culture?

Well put and point taken.

It is, however, still possible that she completely understands the topic but is a terrible writer.

The whole point I was trying to make is that you can't discount what she is writing about simply because she doesn't appear to be of that culture.

Corey,

She's not discounting the writing. She was looking for suggestions on how not to be a dick when the writing isn't up to par. This is a reader-response based approach to writing. If a reader doesn't believe the character they'll say so. My own professor JUST Monday told me my characters didn't feel authentic and this is due in part that he KNOWS I'm a twenty something, white, female. But his aesthetic is that you should NOT write out of your demographic.

Now all professors do not believe this. Some think it is a VERY useful to write outside your demographic. However, for an intro to writing class this is VERY ambitious. I applaud the girl for being ambitious. Given I've probably read hundreds of student written stories, I have a GOOD idea as to what's probably occurring in the text without actually reading it. I said it's LIKELY she's doing this. If that's so - you should respond to something along these lines.

I did not say she was for a FACT doing that. Instead from the way Sosane spoke about it, I was inferring the possibility. You can't tell me you've never made assumptions based on the facts before you - ever. In this case, I would AGAIN tell the girl, that I really appreciated her ambitious nature but that there were several red flags for me. In Sosane's case, she feels there's not enough personal connection to the material. From the sounds of it, the story sounds more like an anthropological view point.

While I wasn't telling Sosane to say VERBATIM my opinion. I was offering her suggestions for dealing with this situation. Sometimes it's HARD to give constructive criticism - and if you look at my advice, none of it is prejudice or ignorant or rude. I told her to make comments BASED on the writing in front of it. I told her to focus on things HAPPENING in the story regardless of the nature of the story. When it comes down to it, you have to comment on craft. Note where are sections she's using description well, where are places that she's belaboring that the story takes place in Saudi.

And I don't believe Sosane ever discounted the quality of the writing just because of the nature of the subject matter having anything to do with the girl not appearing to be Saudi. Instead, she read the story - felt it was forced and then came to the realization that maybe, this student didn't have an intimate connection to the culture because of the lack of intimate connection in the story.

@pepper - hah i get heated in my caps use sometimes.

@sharon: Note how sosane felt it important to disclose the writer's skin color before telling us what the story was about? She then went on to say that it was "so clearly far removed from anything she's experienced" as if to say that there is no way this little white girl knows anything about Saudis or the loss of a mother. I get the feeling that sosane doesn't really know anything about this girl.

Your opinion basically amounted to "A person of a certain culture would make light of anything in that culture" which is completely ridiculous. It's like saying that inner-city rappers shouldn't rap about gang violence because it's part of their culture.

Neither of you are familiar with the culture, by your own admission. Yet somehow you know she is out of touch with it.

You don't write for yourself, though. You write for your audience.

Oh, my bad. I didn't know that sosane's class was full of Saudis. Please disregard everything I've said.

So what you're saying is that everyone in the US is a Saudi? In the world?

But I'm not a literary major, so my opinions are not relevant.

So it has to be about whores or something Japanese to talk about the culture?

i like how the argument has turned to complete nonsense now.

i'm not saying that you can't explain things, but the way in which one does so is important.

but by all means, get sarcastic and huffy. helpful!

James Joyce did a wee tad more that "make up" in Finnegans Wake, which is in my opinion, one of the greatest books of the 1900's even if nobody has the patience to read it.

I'm sensitive about subject matter because in grade 2 I wrote a story about a slave girl learning how to read for a contest and some story called "Mr. Fantastic Burp Man" won. Hardly any of the students even read mine. :(

I would be curious to see what she has written. I often find rather unorthodox fiction brilliant. Ghostie is rather a hyper critical girl when it come to writing. It's kind of hilarious given my general laziness.

TO clarify - the way pepper has explained it is how I meant it.

It's the same way when a character talks about the home they live in, they aren't going to stand in a room and observe the room, if the room is always like that and there's nothing out of the norm about the room. Maybe if they walked into the room and it had been burglarized they would have taken the time to explain how it's in disarray.

You pretty much have to do five things at once and make the description seem embedded in the action. That it's necessary for Paul to mention a light bulb is out in the living room and suddenly the house takes on a gloomier feel - and Paul might notice the books which he normally pays no never mind to because they're his girlfriend Nancy's.

But had the room just been the room it always was, Paul wouldn't pay any attention to these details.

If you see a woman in a burka everyday, you're not going to strike this as unusual from a first person narrator, especially if this person wears one herself. If you pray five times a day, it's not going to strike you as unusual unless you end up praying in an unusual location suddenly, some place you'd never thought you'd have to observe from - like praying on the Eiffel tower while on vacation.

I'm not saying all cultural references won't need some explanation, but unless this first person narrator is talking to someone - telling someone else their story - they're probably not going to stop and take cultural notes for their own story and explain things that are common knowledge for them.