A Movie Script Ending

With your hand on my shoulders, a meaningless movement... a moviescript ending

I figure I would do my weekly post today, as tomorrow my brother arrives and will be visiting for most of this week and weekend.

I just received the most obnoxious critique ever. I wasn't expecting any crits this week since I didn't manage to get a chapter in for this slot somehow, so when I logged into CC today to do my daily crits I was surprised to see that I had received one.

Not only had I received one, it was on the very first chapter of Rain and only my second submission to CC. I had left my old chapters up on the site just so that people could look back if they had questions, I never once expected anyone to go back and crit one of them since you receive fewer credits for stories not currently in queue.

My first chapter was a mess when it was originally submitted. My eye was untrained and I was unaware of a few writing rules that I have since learned. Looking back on that chapter all I see is red, all the things that should be removed, re-ordered and reworded. I have learned so incredibly much since then, hell the book has been cut down 20,000 words just from what I have learned.

That is likely the most obnoxious thing about this crit is the fact that the critter spent time pointing out issues and errors that have long been fixed. Ok maybe that wasn't the worst part.

I think the worst part was how he/she opened the crit by criticizing me (with poor spelling and grammar). I have never been talked down to in a crit before. I couldn't help but blink and stare to make sure that what I was reading was really right there in my face.

The critter submitted maybe 5 lines of actual story crit and the rest of the nearly 500 word crit was about me as a person. Something about me being narcissistic and that I should be more humble. A lot of the meaning was lost in a jumble of words and spelling mistakes.

Then the critter goes on to tell me that I should be doing better, that CC is below me, and then somehow throws a compliment in there. I don't even know what it is I have read here and now I am vastly confused.

I don't think I have ever exclaimed that my writing is the end-all be-all and that it's oh so amazing. If anything I am incredibly humble, the only thing I have to be proud about is that I actually completed a manuscript and the sheer length of it. There are plot holes and wrinkles that I am currently working hard to mend and smooth.

I have a knack to create pretty strings of words at times but that is not enough. The book can never be good enough and CC has helped so much. I have a small group of critters that come back each week and are ever so helpful. Even if by some ungodly miracle my technical ability were the bees-knees I would still go to CC. The value of foreign eyes is priceless, and considering that trying to get someone I know to read my manuscript is like pulling teeth (with a few exceptions) I need all the eyes I can possibly get.

I suppose I could continue to rant, but what's the point? I am not sure what this critter was setting out to do, but if it was to ruffle my feathers, I am miffed. But alas back to work.

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Drive

But lately I'm beginning to find that I Should be the one behind the wheel

Wow, the second time in one day this most be a world record.

Or I am pissed, one or the other, and well lots be honest, I am pissed.

How to say this without giving too much away? How about I hate the stereotypical unpublished writer.

I have never had any delusional thoughts of grandeur about my work, I am completely aware of the stretch it will take to get me to some point of publishing (yes there are writers that have been published that I think are worse than me but I expect better of myself). I have never claimed that my story is going to be the next hot thing and I have spent an incredible amount of time reading agency and publisher blogs about the worst and most common mistakes that new authors make.

I like to laugh and think that anyone that has half a brain really couldn't be that bad. Like who sends a query letter talking about who they want to play them in the movie rendition of their boring biography? Who really does that? I guess people must, or there wouldn't be so many strained pleas against this sort of behavior.

Critique Circle has quite possibly been the best thing that has happened to me in writing. I have met some wondrous people, people that have been published, people with literary degrees that have had the patience to look at my work.

I always assumed my stuff was bad, I had no gauge because not many have ever read it that weren't the standard "I love everything you do!" fair of folk. I had a feeling I knew where my weaknesses were but that was all blown away when I actually began to receive critiques. I mean this only in the best way.

I was right about my weaknesses, but there was so much more i didn't see because I had been staring at it for so long and even more that I had been completely blind to. It's so easy to not see these things, of course I see them everywhere now.

Even if my technical ability were absolutely flawless I would still go to critique circle. Fresh eyes are the best thing that any manuscript can have and the more the better. It's so easy to create story fragments while editing and rewriting.

Then you meet people that have completed their manuscript and the only person that has ever read it is a close friend or relative. I suggest Critique Circle to every writer I meet, and thusly have recruited many and we happily crit back and forth and everything is merry. It's such a fantastic service for evolving story lines and friendly advice, the critting service and tools are amazing. It makes it so easy to crit inline without disrupting the entire manuscript, I absolutely refuse to crit anything outside of CC anymore just because it is such a pain.

Anyways loving tirade aside, I always recommend CC and well I did so to another new author the other day. Their response was something along the lines of not needing 'amateur critiques'. They did say they were planning on hiring a professional editor, ok that I can understand that, that's not the part that gets me.

The part that gets me is that said person feels that they are above all the wonders of CC, that they, and their unpublished self shant dare grace the CC crowd with their presence. The part that might also bother me as well is that in a way that they implied they are better than me because I do choose to use the service, even though we are all sitting the unpublished boat.

Now they did say they didn't have time to crit other people's work just post their stuff, essentially they just want to progress their own needs, screw everyone else. I guess this bugs me as well since I did read part of this persons manuscript and there never was an offer to return the favor.

You can see I am getting less vague on the details, probably because I am now realizing that this person that I thought was a literary buddy will likely never read this, since they are far too busy being important.

This is a rant I suppose, an angry rant and to what ends I am hoping to achieve I am unsure. I just had to get it out of me.

Critting other people's work is just as valuable as editing your own, if not more. You can't write without being a reader (Well you can, but you probably wouldn't be that good) and there really is nothing comparable to critiquing someone else's work as it trains your eye to look for issues. I could keep going on about how useful CC is to any budding writer, but I won't.

I have a new quest.

I will get published and I will do it before this person.


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