How To Talk About Writing

A Fundamental Shift in Perspective

Barbara Turner-Vesselago, Nicola-Jane le Breton

• Publisher: Vivid Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781925952179
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Authorship
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

With insight and clarity, Barbara Turner-Vesselago distils the essentials of 'How To Talk About Writing' into six revolutionary discoveries. This book provides invaluable advice for all who long to respond constructively to writers who seek their input, but who don't know how or where to begin.Seasoned writing mentors and editors will be inspired to abandon old paradigms of editorial criticism. Those new to giving feedback will find straightforward tips—easy to comprehend and instantly rewarding to apply.Barbara Turner-Vesselago is the author of two successful writing books and a mentor to hundreds of published authors worldwide. Informative and user-friendly, this is a vital guide for writers' groups, university seminars, and even for frank and informal one-on-one discussions between friends.

The Six Discoveries

1. 1. Silence Is Not Golden

I came into writing from academia and arts journalism (including book reviewing), so I was already pretty confident when it came to giving feedback about writing (even though there were many things I had to unlearn, to make that feedback useful to writers). But I’ve come to understand that for many people, the confidence to respond to a piece of writing is harder to come by. In most of the groups I’ve led, one or two people sit stony-faced throughout the discussion and say nothing at all. “Why don’t they say something?” I used to wonder “Why are they being so withholding?”

I now know, from probing further, that the problem is not that they don’t respond internally to the writing, or that they think it’s beneath their notice. They may, in fact, think it’s wonderful. But they don’t know what to say. They may think other people in the group are making articulate, insightful comments, and wonder what they could say that would measure up. Or they may believe there’s one right way to approach this piece of writing, but they don’t yet know what that is. If they wait a little longer, their thinking goes, it will all become clear.

Alas, I don’t know of a single writer who doesn’t interpret silence in response to their writing as negative. Perhaps all writers are by definition insecure. Writing comes from a place so far beyond the everyday, conscious control of the ego that it can be difficult to reel it back in again. This means that the relationship between the writing and the ego is shaky at best. Most writers need some reassurance.

I don’t know of a single writer who doesn’t interpret silence in response to their writing as negative.

It doesn’t take much to satisfy the part that needs reassurance. “I really enjoyed this,” works fine. Or, “I felt very moved by this piece of writing.” I knew one novelist who had programmed her husband, when she showed him what she’d written each day, to say, “I love that. Keep going.” And even though she’d set up this response in advance, it seemed to be enough to do the trick.

You can go on to be more specific about what in the writing made you feel that way, and even to talk about what you think could be improved (when the time is right to do this—a consideration I’ll expand on later). But even if you’re not sure what worked for you, a simple statement about how you’re feeling now that you’ve read (or heard) the piece will lift the writer’s suspicion that you hated it. Silence is not golden. Just say something, please.

2. Give Energy to What’s Working

Over time I’ve learned that what I don’t pay attention to in people’s writing—especially when that writing is in its earliest stages—falls away in due course, whereas what I do pay attention to, increases. It’s a discovery I recognize from numerous spiritual teachings: “That to which you give energy grows in your life.” So I put my attention on articulating what works well for me in a piece of writing, and on conveying this to the writer. I purposely don’t focus on whatever isn’t working for me (although if a problem persists, I will find a way to address it at a later stage in the development of the piece).

It seems to be easier for most of us to identify what we don’t like in someone’s writing than to perceive and talk about what we do like. My guess is that this has to do with how we—and our parents—have been educated. Even when writing is in its earliest stages, its faults can seem to leap out from the page. “Surely I get to talk about this,” goes the inner monologue, “Surely they need to know this.” When these messages are the loudest ones you hear, it’s worth asking yourself, “What kind of atmosphere would I like to write in? How would I like to feel, in order to write at all?”

Me, I like to feel encouraged, and as if I have something to offer. So why would I not want to foster that feeling in another writer?

Me, I like to feel encouraged, and as if I have something to offer. So why would I not want to foster that feeling in another writer? Why would I not try to identify what they, uniquely, bring to the table? What do I like about this piece of writing?

As simple as it looks now, getting to this point required a huge shift in my way of responding. I was hell-bent, in my early teaching days, on pointing out whatever I thought was amiss with students’ writing. I honestly thought that was what I was there for. I can pinpoint the day—in fact, the moment—when this changed, although I still don’t know exactly why it happened.

To support myself while I wrote my doctoral thesis, I taught various courses in the English department of a large technical college. And I hated it. No-one, of course, signs on at a ‘tech’ to improve their writing and language skills. English courses were mandatory, and the students were grudging and unresponsive. There was a lot about the way they wrote to criticize, so I did. I worked hard at highlighting what they were doing wrong and explaining what they should do about it.

When the mid-term results came out, one of my students marched up to me after class, scowling. He was a big man, and I shrank back against the blackboard as he stood over me, shouting. “I am excelling in all my other courses! But you are failing me in English!” he boomed. “Everything else! A-plus!” His fist pounded the blackboard. I stood there, listening to him pound and shout, and then something in me shifted. “I know,” I found myself saying. “And that’s why it’s so exciting.”

His fist froze in mid-air. “It IS?” I felt almost as astonished as he did, but I kept on going. “Yes, I think you’re right on the edge of a breakthrough!” “I AM?” He looked absolutely stunned. I nodded. “That’s right. Any day now, it’s going to happen.”

Before my eyes, he straightened up and seemed to settle down several sizes. He stared at me a little longer, and then he nodded once and turned away. From then on, he worked hard, and before long he had the breakthrough I was talking about.

Meanwhile, my approach to teaching changed completely. I began to focus on what people were doing right, rather than on what they were doing wrong, and the classes became fun for a change. At the start of the next semester, a group of students I had failed the previous year returned, and one of them said to me, “Your teaching style is unrecognizable. You’re like a completely different person.” I felt surprised and pleased, but a quiet voice inside me said, “I know.” Wherever the knowledge had come from in me, I had finally learned the value of encouragement.2

But what about the problems I see in a piece of writing? Is it fair to the writer to ignore them while I talk about what I do like? Am I not short-changing someone who has specifically asked me for feedback?

The answer to that question depends entirely on the stage the writer has reached with that piece of writing. Is it their first pass? Have they revised it? How often? Different kinds of feedback become appropriate at different stages of the writing (see Discovery 3, below).

These days, with writing in its earliest stages, I hardly notice the problems, because I’m so focused on what for me is going well. If I do see some central problem with the piece, something with which I think the writer will continue to struggle, I might make a practical suggestion to fast-forward the process. But I do so more or less in passing, on the principle of “those who have ears, let them hear”. I might say, for example,...