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Ring Psychology

by Aaron Hall

“Intermission Special Edition” Well, as you can see you’re not actually reading part two of my series on characters. There’s a good host of reasons for that, the main one being that part two isn’t quite done yet. But instead of being late with part two and leaving you with nothing this week, I figured why not just write a good ol’ regular Ring Psychology article. So, for those of you who may’ve missed my random musings on writing, rejoice! For they are back at least for this one week. So let’s get to it shall we? Have you ever known that guy that asks a girl for her phone number, gets turned down, and then is totally and fully crushed afterwards? Are you that guy? There’s something charming about people who “wear their feelings on their sleeves” but that’s also not really a good thing to do in life. It leads to a very roller coaster existence, most times making you fully dependent on other people for your happiness. A lot of writers are this way when it comes to taking criticisms on their work. Even when they ask for it to be edited or looked over by someone, they’re still not able to accept it when someone comes back with some criticisms. How can we avoid being this guy? Well, for one, we can look at what it means to let someone edit your work. Let’s face it, most everyone who reads your work becomes an editor. Like it or not, even the most unqualified of readers is most times going to offer up some sort of opinion or critique of your work. The trick to dealing with this is two-fold. Number one, don’t take it personally. Let’s say someone reads something I’ve written, then looks me in the eye and says “That is the worst thing ever written by a human being over the course of all history.” The fact is I’m not going to be too happy about that. We never want to hear something like that. But I’m not going to take it personally. Obviously this person felt very strongly that my writing wasn’t of a very good quality. I’d ask for specifics as to why they felt so strongly against my writing. Which leads us directly into point number two. Know who to take seriously and who to just smile at. If a professional editor with twenty-six years in the business reads your work and tells you your dialogue is weak, maybe you should listen to them. However, if your 27-year-old slacker cousin who lives at home and plays World Of Warcraft 100 hours a week tells you your dialogue is weak, maybe don’t so much take that to heart. A good way to tell the two types of people apart is to ask yourself a simple question. Does this person care to make my work better? An editor is critiquing you to help you. They want you to strengthen your dialogue so as to make your writing better overall. Your 27-year-old cousin on the other hand, probably just didn’t like what he read. Which, granted, is something that you may want to take into consideration. However, ultimately, the person who you know has your best interest at heart is the type of person you should really rely on to critique you. If they’ve got some notes, don’t get upset about it. They’re only trying to help you out. And if some random Jonny Joe reads your work and has some notes, just thank him, smile, and move on. There’s no reason to get upset. Look at the notes you get from people, be objective about your own work, examine it and see if these problems truly exist. Sometimes you’ll realize that yeah, maybe the dialogue could use some more work. Sometimes you’ll realize that whoever passed you the notes was a moron who probably can’t read all of the big words in “Green Eggs and Ham”. Every person who reads your work is going to critique it in one way or another. If you’re not able to handle that fact, you have two choices. Either find a way to avoid every human being who ever reads your work, therefore making it impossible to get feedback from them, or stop writing. Writing is one of those things that every person believes they could do if they tried, so everyone believes themselves a qualified critic. And that’s okay, as long as you’re prepared for it. Know which critics to trust. And always be polite to the other ones. Even if their suggestions are absurd, just smile and thank them for the suggestion. It goes a long way in securing someone as a fan. If you were to make a rude comment and tell them to “screw off”, they’re probably not going to be supporting any of your future endeavors. But if you smile and just stay polite, you’re much more likely to keep them as a reader. And we all need as many readers as we can get. So that’s it, case closed. My four part character article should be back on track by this time next week. It was fun re-visiting the in’s and out’s of writing with you all, I hope you had at least a modicum of fun. I know I did, mostly because I got to use the word modicum in a sentence. So until next time, this is the new nominee for Supreme Court and the man who knows what card you’re thinking of, Aaron Hall, signing off.