Thrilled for Merciless Critiques to Put Out Our Best for a Passion
When someone is thrilled after failing at something and focuses on how to improve it appreciating different voices from other people, that must be their life passion.
I once hired a professional editor on Fiverr to critique my short story (around 1,500 words). Two days later, I received my revised work along with an apology letter.
The main point of the letter was that the editor felt sorry for pointing out so many illogical, nonsensical, or confusing parts of the story. She emphasized, ‘You’re a great writer, so you don’t have to change anything I commented on. There’s no right or wrong way of telling a story.’
It was beyond me that an editor spent time writing, ‘I just sincerely expressed my idea. You could keep the work the same without changing.’ to a writer. It made me wonder if nowadays editors need to compliment the writer right after a critique.
I recall once taking an online writing class, and I made a fatal mistake by typing the character’s name wrong (I didn’t re-read before submitting). The instructor, who has 20+ years of editing experience, commented, “Is this a new character? If so, you probably want to make a cliffhanger, and I look forward to the following development.”
Well, I don’t look forward to paying a cheerleader for making more mistakes and becoming oblivious to learning and pursuing a writing journey.
In the case of the first editor, I considered all her points, combined her advice with the story plots, and followed her ideas to enrich the content. She put two question marks on both comedy gigs and added, “Is it a philosophy, I don’t get it. None of them make me laugh…”
Therefore, I came up with two different comedy recitals. One was purely about cultural differences, the other one was to judge a plain fact in a different light. I moved my old jokes into a new scene where the character was bizarrely explaining the laughing point to the appalling audience in a silent bar, and the host was in the corner looking like attending a funeral.
I added more paragraphs to make the story flow instead of leaving gaps that I thought the readers could leap over in excitement. As I rewrote the whole story, I got more inspiration; the potential of some lame sentences became influential in brevity.
What I wanted to deliver was displayed in a refreshing, lively style that I could never discover by myself.
In the end, I returned to her and added, “Let me know if I missed anything.” She replied, “No! You are the first writer I met who revised every detail I suggested. It’s amazing, and that’s the reason I want to be an editor.”
It’s a luxurious experience to have my work analyzed, and I felt fairly anticipated to ‘correct’ all my sentences marked in red notes while I was line-to-line revising the story.
I wanted to see my blindside, my too quirky and subjective presumptions and tried to use other ways to craft my thoughts.
I guess it somehow proves that I am feeling alive for writing, although it may not be my strong suit, and the expenses of hiring a human editor are too huge to keep me writing.
But I learned that when someone is thrilled after failing at something and focuses on how to improve it with different voices from other people, that must be the life passion that they must keep doing for the rest of their life.
