I was all excited about getting some honest critiquing on my story in my creative writing class today. Unfortunately, the more excited you are, the more disappointed you can be.
A lot of the feedback was great, and I really appreciated it. Especially when I was reading the line-edits later, there were a lot of things people liked. However, what was frustrating to me was that people didn’t understand that it wasn’t specific to a time period (which was my fault since I included what looked like the date “1946″ in the title), that some people were unhappy about the ambiguity of what crime exactly was committed by the brother to lead to his death, and at the timing –the brother was killed and the boyfriend asked the sister to marry him on the same day.
I didn’t really feel like I could justify myself much in class. I sort of feel like if you have to justify your work –there’s your problem. However, I was glad some people picked up on the fact that I intentionally left out what crime the brother had committed. His death is referred to in the story as a suicide, a murder, and a justice killing. I want the reader to decide for themself if he has really done guity or innocent –or if it even matters. In my mind, the reason he was killed is completely irrelevent; it’s not about his death, it’s about him being dead. As for the boyfriend asking the girl to marry him, I made it seem, apparently, like that was the first time he had pressed her for it. The truth is that it’s just the first time she agrees to marry him, so I’ll make that more clear in rewrites, and that her brother’s death is what has changed her mind about going.
I was asked a few times why the father took his seven-year-old to the lynching. Maybe they were there on purpose so the father could try to save his son at the last moment, and the youngest son happened to be tagging along. Maybe they were passing by. Maybe they just happened to be out on the streets at the same time. Or maybe it was like in the old days when entire families would attend lynchings as a pasttime. Of course, in this instance, it wouldn’t be for enjoyment. No one ever mentioned the fact that those at home already knew what had happened. This means the lynching probably took place a while ago, early in the morning perhaps, and the father took the little boy to visit the body.
My teacher didn’t like that the brother was buried in the backyard. I did, because I liked that it makes you uncomfortable. It’s not right to bury a body in the backyard. Well, no, but what else do you do with a body when the church won’t let you bury him there? Why not bury him at home?
I think part of the problem with the line-edits was that people wrote them as they were going along. The story is gradually revealed, though, and their comments reflect the confusion I intentionally wrote in. One person did go back and write “after reading the entire story, this is GREAT foreshadowing”).
Several people also were turned off by the fact that the story starts out as a description and then “jumps” into first person, as they put it. Well, no, it doesn’t. You just don’t realize that it’s a narrator telling you the story until the third chapter. I intentionally wanted that sort of shock value, though. The entire story was meant to be sort of surreal and absurd.
It was interesting to me, at least, what people got caught up on. It tells me a lot of about how we influence the stories we read. The time period, for instance, was a big one; once people have a time period in mind (even if it’s not the correct one), they set certain expectations. The age of the characters. The city (everyone thought it was Southern, but it was actually set in Illinois).
It really disturbed people that the narrator was at times struck with emotion concerning the death of her brother and at other times didn’t seem to care at all. It was never that the children didn’t care that the oldest was dead, only that thinks were too crappy for them to break down quite like their mother. The narrator was ready to get out of there, and I had thought her breakdown at the funeral was an apropos response. The fact that the two sisters and the boyfriend relax while making dinner together felt surreal to me, which is what I meant, but apparently was not well received.
Overall, despite the criticism, I feel like the story was at least partially a success. Almost every line-edit ended with “What did Ricky do? Why did he get killed? Did he really do anything?” While it seemed to bother people, not knowing, that was what I MEANT for it to do. I wanted it to be disturbing. I received lots of compliments about specific details or phrasing or lines or scenes. I was amused by the sheer contradiction from one review to the other, which tells me that most of the criticism was subjective and not worth too much worry over. For every thing I was told was wrong, someone else told me it was right. My teacher wrote at the end “length of scenes is excellent; there is a depth to the mood you establish based on the specific details; the story (as it stands now) strans for creditibility with the reader because of the timing and manner of Rick’s death and the burial; 1846 maybe.” I had another person write the story was “nearly perfect,” and another said “I think this is the best we’ve read” (which, granted, mine was only the sixth out of eighteen…).
Bottom line: I was frustrated that the surreality and absurdity of the story was mistaken for historical and phsycological errors. I am proud, however, that I got the exact reaction to the ambiguity of Ricky’s death that I wanted.
Nonetheless, this has still come close to ruining my day. 
I have an interview with Starbucks again tomorrow, that’s good. American Idol is tonight, that’s good. I got a Pajama-Gram from the family with some super cute pajamas, that’s good. I got maybe three hours of sleep, that’s bad. I’m embarrassed to set foot in my writing class again, that’s bad. I really don’t want to go work out because this has put me in such a self-pitying mood, that’s bad. I could devour a cake right now, that’s bad. I think I’ll nap for fifteen minutes and then go sweat it out at the gym, that’s good.
