I started my last semester of college this past Monday. God-willing, I will finish in May. Graduation is May 17, 2015 at 9:00a.m. I am eager to finish, and have begun to think of life in terms of before and after college. As in next Christmas should be less stressful because I won't have finals two days before Christmas Eve and I can get my baking, shopping, and decorating done like other normal people. I won't have to be in summer school this year and maybe, just maybe, I can work in my yard more and make it look much better. And, maybe, just maybe, I can get the garage cleaned out, too. Yeah, we'll see about that.
I'm taking two classes this semester, Eng 444 Technical Editing and Eng 415 Fiction Writing Workshop. I need Eng 444 for my last credits for my major and Eng 415 is my last elective. I decided in a fit of fancy to take a fiction writing class because it was so different from tech writing and because I thought it was going to be fun. I really should have thought about that because there are few classes in college that are fun. We meet once a week, on Thursdays, so this last Thursday was our first class.
I don't know anyone in this grouping because I'm not in that track for the English major. A few kids knew each other, just the same as I know quite a few in my technical/professional writing (TPW) circle. We travel in packs at this point. I am the only TPW in this class, and I should have realized that. Anyway... Most of the kids, and yes, they are kids, are about half-way through to thier varying degrees in fiction writing, poetry, and literature studies. They are clearly of a different mind-set than I am, but that can be fine. I've had these types before. What I didn't expect, was the level of snobbery and narcissism from a few of them.
As I mentioned, Thursday was our first class. After all the perfunctory stuff, the teacher had us read a sample of a student's writing and he wanted our feedback. He chose me first to give that feedback. I've been taught from day one of TPW to give good feedback before constructive criticism. So I did. I explained what I liked about the piece, and I did like the piece, and then a few suggestions for improvement. I wanted to know more in-depth details about the characters, a more detailed plot line, and less "bogginess" in some of the more adjective heavy descriptions. Nothing that I felt was horrible or mean-spirited. After I had finished, the hipster-doofus emo kid told me I was completely wrong, he didn't agree with me at all, and that I was "lacking in understanding of what good fiction is." Oooookaaaayyyyy. I didn't reply to him because I didn't trust what would have come out of my mouth. Despite his youth and rudness, he is entitled to his opinion. I felt he was extremely rude and uncivil, but he had the right to state what he did. But then, some of the other younglings started to trash the piece (thankfully, not me) and just like sharks who smell blood, they pounced on this poor story and ripped it to shreds.
I was bothered by how vehemently they tore the piece apart. As I sat there thinking I had made a huge mistake, I got the thought that the teacher had written this story. He kept saying that they were being a little too harsh, that the writer wanted nothing more than to entertain them, and that he was a human being with feelings, too. It was at that point I fully realized what he was doing. This is a workshop class meaning all of us will submit work for class discussion. There is a right way and a wrong way to give criticism, and he was teaching us a lesson. Half the class didn't even say anything. After the blood-bath abated, he turned to me and asked if I wanted to change my opinion. I said no, I stand by what I said, and that I didn't feel it was as bad as what the others were saying it was. With some small revisions, it would be a good story. That's all fiction should ever really be.
He took a deep breath and told them that what had happened would never happen again. This was an early piece he had written when he was in college (he's probably in his late 50's or early 60's) and that everyone should take notice of how I gave my criticism in that it was the correct way to give feedback. You could have heard a pin drop from several floors below. All these kids who were flaming on the piece were in shock. I'm not sure why they didn't think of him as the author to begin with, but I blame the internet for what they did. Let me explain.
On any forum, discussion group, or other sites, people feel they can trash-talk, flame, yell, saying incredibly mean things and other bad behavior because they are not face-to-face with the person they are criticizing. They are so used to just saying, "it sucks" with no reasoning, that is how they give feedback. Now they are in a class setting and just like any forum, one right after another, ganged up and fed off of hipster doofus' rant against me. No civility, no recognition of the writer as a human being with human feelings, and no realization that they too will be under the microscope in the context of this class. No golden rule here. They just trashed with the arrogance that their writing is going to be prefect. It never occurred to them that some one will be doing the exact same thing to them. I'm not sure why they haven't learned to give appropriate feedback at this point in college, but I'm guessing it's because they haven't finished their upper level classes yet where they will be judged on their work.
I'm not so sure I want to take this class now. I thought it would be a good compliment to my technical editing, but I think I prefer the world of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. We are at least a little more civil to each other. Maybe this is why writers are so very often loners.
