# Memorable feedback



## TakeWalker (Mar 30, 2009)

I'm going to start with the thing that made me want to make this thread before I explain what it's about. We'll see how that goes.

The time was in my undergrad, during my first poetry class. I believe it was an early "you'll get peer feedback on this piece" assignment, not the first necessarily, but fairly close to it. The comment I got was thus,

"Don't use archaic language."

That floored me. No one had ever said this to me before, and I'd been (pretentiously) using archaic language in my writing for years. I mean after all, they make us read lots of literature -- Shakespeare and Chaucer, just to name two -- made up entirely of archaic language. Why would they do that if they didn't want us to imitate it? Weren't these things somehow "good", wasn't that why they were being taught?

Needless to say, I did actually tone down the usage. But I didn't discard it outright. What I realized was, all the rules are arbitrary, especially when it comes to poetry, and if you want to express yourself through words, you can't take every criticism or limitation to heart.

So, now to the point. What's a writing moment, no doubt a piece of feedback, that has stuck with you? And I'm not just talking the barbs that stung, but the words that caused you to really rethink your approach to writing. kgo


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## foozzzball (Mar 31, 2009)

To paraphrase, 'That girl stripper protagonist of yours would be great as a herm! :3'

That's stuck with me. But not for the same kind of reason.


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## archival (Mar 31, 2009)

"stop using such long words"
ill say things like supercallafragialistickecspialidoscious if i damn well feel like it bitch!


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## Gavrill (Mar 31, 2009)

foozzzball said:


> To paraphrase, 'That girl stripper protagonist of yours would be great as a herm! :3'
> 
> That's stuck with me. But not for the same kind of reason.


Okay, I laughed way too much at that.

"Emotional writing is good...the direction doesn't matter." (Paraphrased)
I don't know why...it just stuck. I tend to write my poetry somewhat logically, so hearing that made me cut myself some slack.


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## ScottyDM (Mar 31, 2009)

Heeeh!

I'll have to formulate an answer for some recent _good_ advice I was given only last Wednesday on how to fix a particular problem. Good advice is always memorable.


In my story _Beach Tour_ (some here have read it) a furson by the name of Oscar, who was a rat, suggested that my 6-foot 2-inch white lab rat Cherie should take Tyler back to her lab and experiment on him. He latched on to the fact that her field of study was ecotoxicology. Oscar suggested that Cherie create a serum to control humans so rats could take over the world.

You had to read Oscar's stories to understand why he'd say such a thing. What was interesting is that in his stories that contained humans, they were neutral. However: rats were always good and noble; aardvarks were always the spawn of Satan.  

Scotty


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## Chronic (Mar 31, 2009)

Back when I actually wrote something for no real reason, I got this gem:

"Why would anyone want to read about _rats?_"

Needless to say, it was memorable for a reason other than being helpful...


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 31, 2009)

One person once told me that my dialogue is 'boring'.  It stuck with me because it's such a blunt and useless statement... and it came in the middle of a lot of really useful stuff.  And everybody else who read the story said the dialogue was good.  So it was one of those, "Wha?  Really?" moments.  Unfortunately, after a lot of thought on the matter, I came to the conclusion that the way I do dialogue is just fine, thank you very much.
As for something that made me rethink my writing style....  Well, the one useful comment I ever got from a fellow student in an English class was "A semi-colon is not a period."  I've since tapered off my use of semi-colons, because really, I did use them a hell of a lot.
And this isn't a comment per se, but the professor of the one creative writing class I took had a habit of asking us all questions about specific details, wanting to know how such and such is possible, why such and such might be true, how exactly he does he do such and such, etc.  It caused me to realize that you can't be hand-wavy about anything in a piece of writing, or people will notice.  So I've started trying to make sure every detail I put in there is logical, well-fleshed out, and has a reason to be there.  It makes for very slow output, but I tend to prefer the result.



			
				Takewalker said:
			
		

> Chaucer


So when you read your poetry out loud, did it sound like this?  Hur hur hur.
Actually, that'd be pretty cool.


			
				Placebo said:
			
		

> "Emotional writing is good...the direction doesn't matter."


Well that doesn't sound like very good advice to me.  Generally you want a purpose for a piece of writing....  Especially emotional writing.  Otherwise you're just making a diary.


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## TakeWalker (Mar 31, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> So when you read your poetry out loud, did it sound like this?  Hur hur hur.
> Actually, that'd be pretty cool.



...Now I know how the women in that one early English lit class I took felt when Dr. McCloud (6'5", enormous hands, smooth Scottish accent) read Beowulf. o.o;

And ffffffI wish. :| It was mostly just overuse of "thee" and "'tis".


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## Xipoid (Mar 31, 2009)

Sadly, I cannot remember any particular ones that have stood out. I'm still waiting for that odd, offhand comment.


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