A Case of the Nasties

I am always telling my students that the most important part of the writing process is revision, and, unlike most of the things I tell my students, this I actually believe. For those of us on the creative side of the biz, we have these nifty things called workshops where we get together with a bunch of other writers and have them tell us what is wrong with the story (or poem) that we have spent days, weeks, months agonizing over. Imagine sitting in a room with your grandmothers and all of your aunts and having them give you relationship advice. You laugh, you cry, you contemplate running from the room, screaming and crying and saying, "I promise never, ever to offend the world with my tripe again."

Okay. I jest. Workshops are really not that bad. In fact, some members of a workshop group will tell you that, no matter what crap you stick on a page, you are a "great writer." After having your story reviewed by one of these people, you'll feel like Raymond Carver and Alice Munro's love child. You will leave smiling, happy, and absolutely in love with yourself.

You also won't revise a word of your story and will, thus, have just wasted the past two hours.

Even more destructive to revision, though, are the folks on the opposite end of the spectrum. I've dubbed these people the "Nasties." You feminists out there will no doubt be thinking to yourself, "I bet she's talking about rich, white men! They're always trying to silence unique voices for fear of losing their hegemony." You silly ladies will be wrong, though. Nasties are just as often women.

While you can't spot them in a crowd, it's also hard to figure out what makes Nasties tick. Some of them are self-proclaimed geniuses who think they have all of the answers about modern art and that there is no point in anyone else writing because they are the Voice of the Modern Age. Just as often, though, the Nasties will be closet cutters who hate themselves, hate their work, and can only deal with their self-loathing by putting other people down.

No matter their motivation, Nasties are condescending, mean, and will have absolutely nothing positive to say about your story. Ever. Their criticisms generally go something like this: "Mr. Fitzgerald, I have to say you have a lot of work to do on this first chapter. I found myself nodding off on the first page. Nick Carraway is a snob, and it doesn't help that he says he's a snob - I still don't like him. Plus - who's that self-aware anyway? I mean, good grief 'In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores'? Who talks like that? And let's move on to this obsession he has with this Gatsby character. Is Nick gay? He must be. He says of Gatsby, 'there was something gorgeous about him.' You know gay lit doesn't generally do well here in America. I don't know, Scott. I'd rework this whole thing. You have a snobbish character who reads like a cliche to me - rich, but moral, Midwest boy moves East and is shocked and appalled by the behavior of the people he meets? I've read this story a million times before. I don't know about you, but in the first creative writing class I took, the great Professor Smith told me to think of unique voices and tell their stories. I don't like to bring up my own work, but this is what I'm trying to do in my novel Herman Melville Loved Whales. I mean I modernized the epic Moby Dick and narrated from the perspective of a nine-year-old paraplegic Siamese boy...."

And you must sit there, quietly,nod and listen to every word that comes out of their mouths because in a writer's workshop, the author can't speak, can't defend, because it skews the opinion of the reviewers. You can only sit there and hope and pray that the next person will have something positive to say.

If the next person has nodded off and the Nasty is the last person who you heard speak, you will leave the workshop ready to burn everything you've ever written. Because, while logically you will understand that you should give little import to what the Nasties say because they're mad, it will be the only thing you will be able to think about for the next few days. You won't sleep, you won't eat, you'll just sit there and reread your work and think, "That metaphor is terrible, this character is stupid, and the setting... Christ! What right do I have to be writing?" You won't actually be able to revise anything because you've lost all hope that you can string words together to create a sentence that makes any bit of sense at all.

In my experience, the Nasties are, thankfully, few and far between, and workshopping has improved my writing more than anything else. When they do come, all you can do is grin through the pain and drink a big cocktail. For a few days, you'll think of all the nasty things you'll say when their story comes up, but, of course, you will not stoop to their level. Because, unlike them, your momma raised you right!