Having workshopped both of my essays for this class, I find that I am oddly unsatisfied with most of the "how should I improve this draft" feedback that I have been receiving. While I do receive numerous compliments, which I greatly appreciate, the constructive criticism that follows usually seems to weight the most on my mind, and I feel that, instead of consisting of suggestions for how I could improve my essay, it is attacking my personal style of writing as a whole.
My responses tell me that I am too wordy of a writer, that I over complicate the situation with my language. Some even went as far as to say I am too dramatic. (A little drama can't hurt though, right?)
I have always thought of myself as a skilled writer. I would certainly not presume to call myself the best, as there are writers with significantly more talent than me, but to say that my writing is sub-par, I feel, would be a lie. I like to think that I have a unique voice, combining creative and academic writing styles to create a highly poetic and sophisticated essay, with bits of wit and cleverness thrown in for comedic effect. As a result, I am very proud of the way I write, and perhaps this is my problem. Maybe I am too biased towards my own writing--too in love with it to see its flaws. Does this make me a narcissistic writer? Is that even a thing?
Furthermore, because I work in the writing center, I am fully familiar with the process of "improving the writer, not the writing," so why am I so put off by the comments I am receiving during our workshops? Perhaps it is because I don't appreciate my style of writing being viewed as a flaw in need of improvement, which, again, relates back to the idea of writerly narcissism. I have never encountered feedback that has addressed my style of writing like this, so how do I get past my ego? How can I become more open to this conversation of revision?
I think I'm guilty of raising the questions about your prose style, and it comes from my own bias about the virtues of simplicity in writing. I'm really sorry if it feels discouraging, which violates my own principle about feedback: it should make the writer want to write again.
ReplyDeleteTypically, I'm reluctant to talk about another writer's stylistic choices, and I think it has little to do with the writer's narcissism but the way in which voice feels so deeply implicated in who we are. A critique feels a little like a personal attack. I wonder if part of what we need to understand to make us more "open" to criticism about voice and style is a recognition that they are both constructions of an "I-character" that is and isn't us, and that this persona changes depending on our emotional relationship to the work.
Thanks for your honesty about how this is feeling.