I've long admired your criticism and excellent taste but you have never been more wrong, The Dog Story is work of staggering genius. I'm going to tell it to my 4-year-old tonight and I predict she'll be obsessed. Also, congratulations on The Default World; I just ordered it!
I totally forgot I owed you a follow up on this--M loved it obsessively (asked for it every night) for a week and a half, then moved on to other stories, which is her usual MO for any story of the mouth (aka a story I tell her without a picture book for reference). I downloaded it to my phone and read your exact words the first time, but the beats were easy enough to memorize I retold it from memory after that first time.
When a kid uses their imagination in a story you just know it's going to be good. I thoroughly enjoyed the dog story, and I'm not even a kid. I'll read it to my brother (who is a kid) and see what he thinks. Thank you for sharing.
I love The Wings of the Dove and most of the novels of Henry James, and I love reading what you write about him! As for telling stories to children, it is a rare collaborative effort..perhaps the story is where your unconscious mind can meet someone else’s— and I think it is a good reminder that not everything has to be a book. Or, maybe someday you will write a children’s book with your daughter!
Drat! (if people still use that term) I was just going to suggest as a scientifically controlled experiment that you distribute the Dog Story to some friends and see what happens. I hate being second!
But it does give me the chance to change the topic completely (by the way, James is one of my favorite authors. But I love Ulysses and Infinite Jest too so there's that). So my question, do you send your draft books to friends to gauge their reaction and ask for criticism? A friend of mine, (but not close friend) has just handed me a manuscript and purports to really want my comments/reaction. And I think really highly of her and was sort of looking forward to the assignment. But it stinks. And it's a non-fiction book (which surprised me) so it's not a matter of taste. It's just objectively terrible. If there were a few notes to suggest I'd have no problem doing that. But my suggestions would require a massive rewrite to just get the thing into order. Right now it jumps all over the place, is 90% just quotes from other people stitched together badly, and I don't even know what the objective of the book is. So with that as my opinion, I don't think it's helpful to say something like that, and obviously it's personally very awkward. But telling her it's great seems not very helpful either. So to get to the point, when you ask for comments on a work in progress, do you honestly want them, or are you more interested in self validation/overcoming of doubt to allow you to power on? Thanks
I send drafts to friends, and now, twenty years into my writing career, I do want their honest feedback--I'm tired of having to parse and translate peoples' comments to figure out what they REALLY think. Just give it to me straight. But that being said, if I feel hurt after I get their comments, I might not send them anything more (I'm only human after all!) Also sometimes peoples real opinion doesn't really help you artistically in terms of revising the project or figuring out what to do next--that's not their fault, but it means maybe they're not the best beta reader. That being said, early in my career, I definitely mostly wanted validation =]
Thanks very much. My strategy was sort of along those lines; to denigrate myself as the ideal reader for this and just talk about how I'm not a good fit with the book. And if the book were truly a work in progress I might approach it differently. But there's no real benefit to critiquing a book that's ready to go. By the way I loved the Dog Story, and that's not just validation!
I've long admired your criticism and excellent taste but you have never been more wrong, The Dog Story is work of staggering genius. I'm going to tell it to my 4-year-old tonight and I predict she'll be obsessed. Also, congratulations on The Default World; I just ordered it!
Oh that would be really good if you could do that. Because I've wondered if dog story would appeal to other kids other than my own
I totally forgot I owed you a follow up on this--M loved it obsessively (asked for it every night) for a week and a half, then moved on to other stories, which is her usual MO for any story of the mouth (aka a story I tell her without a picture book for reference). I downloaded it to my phone and read your exact words the first time, but the beats were easy enough to memorize I retold it from memory after that first time.
OMG. Wow!!!
When a kid uses their imagination in a story you just know it's going to be good. I thoroughly enjoyed the dog story, and I'm not even a kid. I'll read it to my brother (who is a kid) and see what he thinks. Thank you for sharing.
So many people telling me my boring story is good! Maybe there's a lesson for me here somewhere =]
wait, the dog story is really good! lmk when you need someone to translate it into Spanish!
I love The Wings of the Dove and most of the novels of Henry James, and I love reading what you write about him! As for telling stories to children, it is a rare collaborative effort..perhaps the story is where your unconscious mind can meet someone else’s— and I think it is a good reminder that not everything has to be a book. Or, maybe someday you will write a children’s book with your daughter!
Drat! (if people still use that term) I was just going to suggest as a scientifically controlled experiment that you distribute the Dog Story to some friends and see what happens. I hate being second!
But it does give me the chance to change the topic completely (by the way, James is one of my favorite authors. But I love Ulysses and Infinite Jest too so there's that). So my question, do you send your draft books to friends to gauge their reaction and ask for criticism? A friend of mine, (but not close friend) has just handed me a manuscript and purports to really want my comments/reaction. And I think really highly of her and was sort of looking forward to the assignment. But it stinks. And it's a non-fiction book (which surprised me) so it's not a matter of taste. It's just objectively terrible. If there were a few notes to suggest I'd have no problem doing that. But my suggestions would require a massive rewrite to just get the thing into order. Right now it jumps all over the place, is 90% just quotes from other people stitched together badly, and I don't even know what the objective of the book is. So with that as my opinion, I don't think it's helpful to say something like that, and obviously it's personally very awkward. But telling her it's great seems not very helpful either. So to get to the point, when you ask for comments on a work in progress, do you honestly want them, or are you more interested in self validation/overcoming of doubt to allow you to power on? Thanks
I send drafts to friends, and now, twenty years into my writing career, I do want their honest feedback--I'm tired of having to parse and translate peoples' comments to figure out what they REALLY think. Just give it to me straight. But that being said, if I feel hurt after I get their comments, I might not send them anything more (I'm only human after all!) Also sometimes peoples real opinion doesn't really help you artistically in terms of revising the project or figuring out what to do next--that's not their fault, but it means maybe they're not the best beta reader. That being said, early in my career, I definitely mostly wanted validation =]
Thanks very much. My strategy was sort of along those lines; to denigrate myself as the ideal reader for this and just talk about how I'm not a good fit with the book. And if the book were truly a work in progress I might approach it differently. But there's no real benefit to critiquing a book that's ready to go. By the way I loved the Dog Story, and that's not just validation!