Struggles with the Craft III – Self-Criticism

I’ve been wrestling with my first completed novel (Loss of Innocence) for a while now. Kate and I had initally said that we were going to podcast it in its entirety throughout the year until we were finished, but as I dug in to seriously edit the manuscript, I realized how far I had come since completing it and beginning work on Alchemist. (And yes, there are two more sections ready for Kate to podcast. They delay between episodes is due to me whining about how bad I am and not Kate’s procrastination.)

There are two forces at work here. The first is that when I have a new idea or a cool concept, I generally take it and run with it as quickly as I can. In my excitement, I can’t see the holes that are obvious to everyone else. The second is that I am an intensely (and notoriously) critical person. I have to fight this every instant of my life, whether its at work, in my personal relationships, etc. Most of the time I succed in suppressing it. Most of the time.

My critical persona is especially brutal when it is self-directed. Given a bulk of my own work, I am never satisfied. I’m not talking about the little errors that always creep up in a manuscript. I’m talking about the “meta” errors, such as story arc, setting choices, and characterization. I’ll re-write dialogue two or three times until I get the sound or the tone of the conversation just right, then read it later and want to gouge my eyes out at my sheer ham-handedness with the English language.

Back to my first novel: I’ve heard several authors talk about that first novel they wrote, which is so uniformly bad that they hope it never sees the light of day. I’m having that struggle again as I wrestle with the text of Loss of Innocence. Vast sections need a complete overhaul, while occasionally I’m reading things that make me pause and wonder where I got a particular idea or turn of phrase from. I’m momentarily stunned that I find those jewels of text within the work. I feel as though I need to elevate my writing to that standard all of the time, and not just in those rare flashes of brilliance.

However, if I keep making tiny edits and changes until I have something perfect (perfect, at least, on that day), then I never drive to finish. Even the greatest novels have their dull points. Rather than trying to rid myself of them entirely, I need to force myself to drive the story to the point where a professional can step in and tell me how to make it better. Otherwise, I’m like a bag full of starving, feral cats.

When is the harsh self-criticism apprpriate?

I find that when I limit myself to the harsh self-criticism on first drafts, I get the most use out of this aspect of my personality. If I take it beyond the first draft, then I start causing damage to the fabric of the story I’m trying to tell. I’ll begin to think tangentially rather than linearly, which muddies the plot, blurs my characterization, and leads to inconsistencies.