Responding to Writers
Adapted from
Writing Without Teachers
Peter Elbow, 1973, London: Oxford University Press
All
writers experience trepidation when they contemplate
showing their writing to someone else! That’s
a by-product of what happened to your writing in school—your
teachers told you what they thought were the weak
and strong points and suggested things you should
change.
However, to improve your writing you DON’T need
advice about what changes to make. You DON’T need
theories of what is good and bad writing. What you need
to know is what sense your readers have made, what questions
they have, where they got confused, what digressions
they took off on when they read your words. You need
what Peter Elbow calls “movies of people’s
minds”.
Here are some suggestions for giving movies
of your mind when reading for another writer. This is the
same feedback you’ll find helpful from your
readers, as well.
- Start by simply pointing to the words
and phrases which stood out for you, either because
they seemed particularly
apt or because they were jarring for some reason.
- Summarize the writing:
- Tell quickly what you thought were the
main points, the center of gravity of the
piece
- See if you can summarize the whole thing
in a single sentence
- Don’t plan or think too much about it; the point
is to help the writer see what stood out in your head—it’s
not a test to see if you got the meaning “right”!
- Tell the writer everything that happened
to you when you read the writing—it’s
useful to tell it as a story: “I felt confused
about …,
but then I saw a connection…. I especially
liked… I
found myself going back after …”
The important thing in telling is not to get
too far away from talking about the actual writing;
remember
the writer is interested in how his or her writing
worked.
- When you read something you have perceptions
and reactions that you’re not fully aware
of and therefore can’t “tell” about.
However, you may be able to SHOW them:
- Talk about the writing as if you were
describing voices: it lectured, it droned,
it ran…
- Talk about the writing as if you were
talking about weather: it was foggy, clear,
crisp…
- Talk about the writing as if you were
talking about motion: it marched, strolled…
- Describe what you think the writer’s
intentions were
- Writing is like a lump of clay—tell what you’d
do with that clay
- Paint the picture the writing conjured
up for you
- Try writing a quick synopsis and share
it with the writer
Telling is like looking inside yourself to
see what you can report; showing is like installing
a window
in the top of your head so the writer can see
for him or herself.
Some General Advice to Readers
- Make sure you’ve had enough time to read the piece through twice,
taking a bit of time between each reading to let the words and ideas
sink in. Don’t let yourself be hurried
- Remember no kind of reaction is wrong, insufficient, perhaps,
but not wrong. So don’t struggle with your reactions—just
let them happen
- Try to avoid giving advice; on the other hand, if the interaction
between you and the words produces some suggestions, don’t
hold back
- Like advice, evaluation in itself has no value; it doesn’t
provide insight into your experience as a reader
- Your job as reader is to offer the writer your immediate impressions;
you’re not trying to fix the writing but to help the writer
understand your experience of it.
Some General Advice To Writers
- Be quite and listen!
- After you have a reader’s reactions you can explain what you
intended or what you think you’ve put into the writing
- Don’t reject what readers tell you—listen to what
they say as if it were all true. You can consider their responses
later
- Listen openly and take it in, but don’t be paralyzed by
what they tell you
- You’re not looking for readers to tell you HOW to write;
you need them to tell you what thought processes your writing
evoked
- Remember, it’s their job to give you their experience; it’s
your job to decide what to do with that information—you don’t
have to act on any response, you just have to consider what
it tells you about your writing
Make sure your readers know what you want from
them—SPELL IT
OUT. If there’s some particular kind of feedback you would
find helpful, ask for it. |
