Sine ira et studio
In our collaboration we have a very formal internal review process for getting out results. We need to document everything in advance of two presentations to the appropriate physics analysis meeting. The first presentation is called a “pre-blessing” and is where the real knives come out. The presenter is peppered with deep, probing questions about every aspect of the analysis, usually for an hour or more. Though it can seem like a blood sport at times, this is an absolutely essential part of the scientific process: if we aren’t our own worst skeptics then someone else will do it for us.
He’s talking about the hunt for the Higgs boson (that’s part 2 of his story; part 1 is here). But I think it’s something all of us doing work that will eventually be set before critical eyes could stand to bear in mind, lest we go the way of Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton, only without the money. (Props to Scalzi for the entertaining summaries there.) Shorn of the bluster, this is what Ellison’s “goddamn it, a boot camp for writers” riff on Clarion is about.
Actually I think most of us here are pretty good about being on the receiving end of the “pre-blessing”. What I’ve been wondering, for a while now (and maybe coming to the wrong conclusions about) is: what do those of us holding the knives owe the sacrificial lamb?
January 29th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Train tickets from Cordoba to Madrid?
January 29th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I suppose it’s a start.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Honesty.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
But what kind of honesty?
January 29th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Honesty that distinguishes one’s subjectivity from proven canons of What Works? This makes it eassier to understand WHY one’s judge didn’t like whatever.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
From the Higgs-Boson article: “I was on one of the four big experiments there, called ALEPH (a mythical monster with eyes in all directions).” Borges is everywhere… can Tlon be put off much longer?
January 29th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
So *this* is where sci-fi writers get those authentic sounding science researcher names from! Behold: “I’ve been working with these guys, Amit Lath and Anton Anastassov…The team also included two more junior talented guys: Dongwook Jang, formerly a grad student at Rutgers and now at Notre Dame as a postdoc, and Cristobal Cuenca, my student from Valencia.” SMOKIN’!!!! Hell, you could pass Dongwook Jang off as the Ambassador from Arcturus V!
January 29th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Yeah, if I didn’t have Korean friends…
January 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Part 2 begins: “Was it real? I stared up at the atrium of Building 40, two things becoming apparent.” This suggests to me that our Mr. Moles knows this guy not from his frequent tours on the particle accelerator lecture circuit but from Mr. Conway’s possible violin d’Ingres: the writing of fiction? (Lest I sound insufficiently pretentious, I rename it *oboe d’Conway*.) Until we meet again…
January 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Sorry. Can’t resist. One more quote (CAPS mine): “When I had opened the box, I had expected that we’d see no sign of a Higgs signal, and then proceed to rule out certain regions of supersymmetric parameter space where, IF NATURE HAD CHOSEN TO LIVE THERE, we would have seen a Higgs signal.” Speaks hyper-volumes, don’t it?
January 29th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
“Yeah, if I didn’t have Korean friends…” But are they *really* from Korea??? I used to wait tables at a Thai restaurant. In the back, the typically babbled in… I guess they speak ‘Thai’. Anyway, it was typically cryptic Asianese to my ears: rubber-band dipthongs stretched and snapped between guttural filips and epiglottal stops. ne day, I made my point: “Y’all are just making this shit up to foll me, right? I mean, you don’t really understand a word you’re saying, do ye?”
January 29th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I’ve always liked being the sacrificial lamb. I know it’s polite for the critiquer to thank the writer for letting them see the story, but I’ve never understood that. When I get a story critiqued, the critiquer is doing me a favor.
What the critiquer owes the writer varies by the writer, I think. I want my work ripped to shreds, maybe some suggestions. What I don’t want is the critiquer to go out of their way to find something positive to say. If the characterization was good, say so and move on. Don’t try to give equal weight to the good and bad because the bad is far more helpful to me.
But that’s just me.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Don’t try to give equal weight to the good and bad because the bad is far more helpful to me. But that’s just me.
That’s more or less the exact opposite of what I’ve heard: especially when critiquing a story that TOTALLY doesn’t work for me at any level, I’ve been told it’s best to search around for what works, rather than threshing through the mess of what doesn’t. The logic being that positive feedback will encourage the writer to develop the story and/or future stories around those strong points, while negative reinforcement–the absence of commentary, rather than punishment in the form of crapping over the whole darn thing–will encourage to the writer to shift their attention away from their bad habits. Most bad habits tend to fade off in the absence of attention.
[PARAGRAPH] Which is not to say I think there aren’t some persistent bad habits that need targeting, or that you shouldn’t tell someone when something in a story is just plain doesn’t work… but I think there’s a lot of unappreciated merit in the rewarding of that which does.
[PARAGRAPH] (Somewhere in there when I wasn’t looking, I think I started channeling my dog trainer in addition to Will Shetterly…)
January 29th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I’m probably thinking of the Least Reinforcing Syndrome technique espoused in that NYT Shamu article. Just, you know, substituting “writer” for “husband.”
January 29th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Jackie, that’s why I say it depends on who the lamb is. I do tailor my critiques depending on who wrote the story. I know different writers are looking for different things in their critiques.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I think that one risk of giving critiques in a group setting is the temptation to play to the crowd, to phrase your comments in a way intended to be entertaining to those listening, which may not necessarily be helpful to the writer. Some people use the same approach even in private critique, perhaps because humor, cleverness, overstatement, etc. are major elements of their rhetorical style. It’s not deliberate cruelty that motivates this, but the simple fact that humor and cleverness are powerful rhetorical devices. Unfortunately, this approach can make criticisms more stinging than they need to be. I think what those of us holding the knives owe to the sacrificial lamb is to try to avoid this temptation.
January 29th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Ted, I could not agree more. That is probably my biggest problem with critiques. I think some critiquers are (possibly subconsicously) more concerned with making themselves look clever than with helping the story.
I agree with Gwenda that honesty should be the rule; it’s the delivery that often makes me cringe. I want professional honesty. It shouldn’t be brutal, it shouldn’t be apologetic, it shouldn’t be condescending or overly personal (crit the story, not the author!). It should be given as a peer to a peer, with respect and a sincere desire to help make the story better.
Scott also makes a good point: People often want different things from a critique. I try to give them what they ask for, be it a detailed line-by-line commentary, or a general “It’s working well, keep going.”
January 30th, 2007 at 6:09 am
I find it interesting that we expect critiquers to follow a certain discipline or protocol but readers either read or don’t. I believe I cannot keep m,y ego from a critique any more than from a story opr from my reading of a book. (And, oh, how vrutal I am reading a book: either I love the author and hate me or hate the author and love me.)
January 30th, 2007 at 9:06 am
When I’m the one holding the knife, the thing I try to do–not that I always succeed–is center my critique around what I think the story wants to be. Not what I want it to be, maybe not even what the writer wants it to be, want is not the point–the story I see inside the draft, trying to come out. And then it’s a matter of pointing out where that story shines through (stuff that works) and where it gets obscured (stuff that doesn’t work).
When I’m the lamb, I try to remember to breathe and keep my mouth shut and take good notes on what everyone is saying. And resist the temptation to editorialize in those notes. Remind myself that everyone is coming from a place of having read the story and so even the least helpful critique is still helpful in that it is a response to a reading.
I’m no saint on either end; these are what I hope to do, and maybe next time I’ll be better at doing ‘em.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
I agree with both Ted and Jenn’s comments — the trick is being honest and still finding the best way to communicate what you’re trying to say to the writer, keeping in mind the ultimate goal is to help them write the best story they can. (Sounds trite, but it’s true.)
Scott, I’m mostly with you on the positive stuff. In my experience, though, critique groups can also tilt too far the other way. So that the bad is weighted more than the good when it shouldn’t necessarily be. The thing is: When we’re pointing out the weaknesses in a story, we do so with the assumption that the writer needs help seeing them and (possibly even) figuring out how to fix them, so why assume that the same writer already knows what they are doing well or what’s working? It’s not about overpraising at all, imo.
I actually dig being the sacrificial lamb too (though there is nothing more painfully than being the lamb in a roomful of people you don’t trust the opinions of), maybe too much. Getting good feedback is a huge part of my process. Even if I have to scrap everything and do a page one rewrite, I come out of a good workshop session feeling energized. Seeing with greater clarity. That is what I try to get out of workshops, and so it’s also what I try to give. Something that will help the writer go back to the page, rather than kill their desire to do so. Honestly.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Um, imagine paragraph breaks in that big long mess.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
“Um, imagine paragraph breaks in that big long mess.” Wow! It works! IPB: Imaginary Paragraph Breaks. Who’da thunk? Brilliant.
Coming soon: the Virtual Comma. After all, we already have semi-colons.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
“…the story I see inside the draft, trying to come out.” Perfect definition, say moi, of subjective objectivity.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
But are they really from Korea???
Yes, they are, actually, I’ve been there and I’ve seen it and I even know a few words of the language. Plus I speak pretty good Japanese and some very basic Mandarin. So I’m fairly sure that Asia and Asian people and Asian languages and cultures actually exist. I have it on good authority that there are also people in Africa and South America.
January 31st, 2007 at 1:12 am
“So I’m fairly sure that Asia and Asian people and Asian languages and cultures actually exist. I have it on good authority that there are also people in Africa and South America.”[IPB] Thank god. What with Mars and Venus proving lifeless, we need teeming jungles and indigenous peoples to absorb our romantic yearnings.
[IPB] Why, just last month someone told me Tarzan wasn’t really real, just a character in a book. As IF!!!
[IPB} How faithless have these times become? THIS faithless: I oogled ‘Willis Lives!’ and… well, see for yourself. It’s a desert out there.
{IPB}It just occurred to me I DO have a blog/site/fixed-internet-locale/what-have-you. So now my name should read in blue light like you other established hunker-downers.
January 31st, 2007 at 3:18 am
Dave: Fix the paragraph breaks! People are mean!
January 31st, 2007 at 5:08 am
Sorry, Gwenda. Soon!
Mr. Livermaile, in four years I’ve only ever banned one person from commenting on this blog. Perhaps our irony meters are simply not tuned finely enough, but you’re coming awfully close to making yourself no. 2.
January 31st, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Mr. Mole: Aye, I’ve misjudged the calibrations on the local irony meter. I can’t say for sure but I think some folks ahve imferred meanness in my intent. No meanness at all is intended on my part. Speaking of irony, it is interesting that this issue arises in comments discussing critique in terms like ‘long knives’ and ’sacrifical lambs’ (and no, I am not associating myself with sacrificial lambiness but merely imply the… oh never mind). Carry on…
January 31st, 2007 at 6:45 pm
It doesn’t have anything to do with meanness, as far as I can tell. It’s that you keep saying these things that you clearly think are supposed to be funny, when in reality they’re just kind of ignorant and borderline offensive.
January 31st, 2007 at 7:37 pm
“when in reality they’re just kind of ignorant and borderline offensive.”[IPB] Ah, the eye of the beholder. Not to mention reality. [IPB] Well, then, I’ll not trouble yez anymore with my ignorance and borderline offensiveness, and leave with the opportunity to ponder the polarity of borderlines and the possibility of multiple perspective…
January 31st, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Does anyone else feel like they’re in a Lewis Carroll novel?
January 31st, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Oh, I’m sure that there’s a reality out there in which it’s totally funny (and not even borderline offensive) to talk about Those Wacky Orientals, with their goofy names and their indistinguishable sing-song-y excuse for language. It’s just not the reality that most of David’s weblog audience inhabits.
February 1st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Actually, those wacky Orientals were nice folks who treated me well and vice-versa, although there is a decided work-culture barrier (in my experience) between émigré Asians and Americans, that is, in Mom&Pop small business environments, especially the back-of-restaurant kind.[IPB] (Please note here that I LIKE IPBs, especially when they’re not imaginary but symbolically invoked. No sarcasm implied. They serve their ad hack purpose.) As a youngster, I lived in what was at the time a modest virtual suburb of Chicago’s Chinatown. Why, (culture-mock alert) some of my best friends were Asians. [IPB]Sadly, the part of my brain that remembers names is kaput, and when I try to remember my 2nd-grade friend (who had the greatest wind-up tin Godzilla that actually walked and roared via some gear-grater setup), I can only recall the name of another classmate of that year, a rather nerdy sissy-boy named Owen Wang. Sounds Chinese, yes? Such are the tricks of memory, for Owen was totally Teutonic, no trace of Asian in him whatsoever but his name…[IPB]To someone who’s never left the Lower Forty except to spend time in a Canadian jail and barely escape similar fate in Mexico, who is decidedly monolingual and insufficiently cosmopolitan, Sino-speak typically sounds to me like “rubber-band dipthongs stretched and snapped between guttural filips and epiglottal stops” (which I thought was a lovely bit pf purple prose myself).[IPB]Even after working two years with a Viet Namese man named…named…Tuong! I remember! who barely spoke English and used me both as a walking lexicon and enunciation tutor (those wacky English with their honky-talk sounds), while teaching me snatches of his language in kind, the sound of spoken Viet Namese was unintelligble to me in a way that so surpassed French or even German in resembling gibberish that I absolutely gave up on learning how to say Good Morning tiếng Việt much less recite Proust in Annamese, as the French used to say. Even without the caricature of rambdacisms.[IPB]Tuong gave me the ultimate model for famine that ever I’ve heard. To me, it surpasses even cannibalism. He and I worked in a city garden park. One day, turning the soil, he pointed at all the centipedes and crickets and similar crawlies that fled our turning forks, and said, “In my country, not many bugs. Very few.” Really? I asked. Why? “We very hungry when I live there.” I’m sure massive defoliation of bugs’ food supply was involved, too, but still. [IPB] Yes, I can write endless sentences when unrestrained. Yes, I have a lot to say when I have anything to say and that includes when I’m here on Mr. Moles’ nifty blog, whose title seems like one of those words William Gibson treasures and keeps in his steampunk trope-trunk.[IPB]Susan, do you really think that native Asian tongues are “excuses for language” or are you inferring words into my statement? I think they’re pretty cool myself. (Asian languages, that is.) They just sound funny to my provincially American ears. Hell, most of my relatives (Appalachians) sound funny, too. Dipthong stretchers without all the epiglotics.[IPB]But this isn’t fair of us to turn Mr. Moles’ conviviance into a mutual spanking session. Perhaps we should get a room, as young Americans say.[IPB]I’m sure I’d really like some of you if I got to know you, but I’ve concluded that either y’all are too prissy for me or I’m too crude for yez… anyway, it feels mutually exclusive, y’know? Either way, strike me from your ledger an it please ye, David, and I’ll drive fast fast fast on your Auto-ban away from here.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I think it would be fair to say, as Patrick O’Brian would put it, that you’ve missed the tone, sir.