Bart "J.B." Hopkins's Blog, page 25

Learning to Accept Criticism as a Writer

A big welcome to guest poster, Nikolas Baron, of Grammarly…

Leave Your Attitude in Your Office

Nobody wants to work with a writer who thinks their work is the best ever, error-free, and never needs improvement. The best writers to ever live had editors and publishers and PR representatives for a reason. Guaranteed your work needs work, especially if you’re a first time writer. Even veterans should remain humble, honest, and happy about accepting less-than-ideal feedback.

Attitudes make it difficult for the people helping you to do their jobs. It causes resentment and anger. They’re trying to help you achieve your goals, why the hostility? Some writers feel that their creative genius shouldn’t be touched and that nobody understands their work like they do. That’s preposterous. How will you get a reader to read your book if only you can understand it? The editors are mainly trying to help you, and them, create sales and make the material more reader-friendly. Not accepting criticism is a sign of immaturity, lack of growth, and lack of understanding. If you can’t see why people are saying what they’re saying, you should ask politely rather than claim your work is sensational the way it is.

Why Accepting Criticism Shows Growth and Understanding

Accepting criticism shows that you appreciate and respect the opinions around you. You understand that you are not error-free and amazing on the first shot and like anything, you need to hone your skills to make it through an editor’s read without burning up every red pen in the box.

Criticism helps you grow as a writer. It shows you what your weaknesses are and where you need improvement. It shows you that you can get better and it’s not an attack on your character. I feel that many writers take criticism as they are bad writers and should never write again. This is not the case. Criticism points out your errors and as a writer, you should be understanding and gracious that this is part of the process of getting better.

As a writer it’s also important to understand your errors. If you can’t understand what you did wrong, how will you improve? Look back through your manuscript and see that, oh, yeah, you did misuse a word, and that oh, no, you used a semicolon improperly on page 395. Criticism pushes you to fix these errors in the future and helps you edit better. If someone doesn’t like the theme of your story, think about whether that is their own personal issue, they never did like romance novels, or if that’s a bigger issue that will affect your target audience. When you take on criticism, you show that you understand your mistakes, are willing to fix them, and are willing to break out of your comfort zone and grow as a writer.

How Criticism Makes You a Better Writer

Criticism has pushed me on every occasion to prove those who doubted me wrong. It builds a fire under me that keeps me striving for a better manuscript, better character descriptions, or better proofreading. As the writer, you should feel it’s your duty to improve for your readers. You want to give them the best experience possible and without criticism, you wouldn’t be able to.

There are also tools that “criticize” for you. Proofreading tools like Grammarly are friendly helpers that identify errors in your work and help you figure out how to avoid them. They give you the tools to grow while also improving your current work. If you can’t work with an online tool’s criticism, I suggest you shouldn’t work with actual people. Grammarly can be a small taste into what it’s like to see an editor’s criticism, but always remember that this is going to be part of the writing process for as long as you write.

Permission Granted

As you accept more criticism and learn from it, you can easily see your writing improve. You’ll learn that most people don’t like certain character traits and that you, if you want to be successful, have to write for most people. Accepting the bad with the good shows maturity and willingness to change; traits that editors look for in great writers. Think of the remarks as energy to propel you to shed their doubts and produce a great manuscript. Criticism isn’t going anywhere, so as a writer, learning to understand why readers said what they did, or why your editor wants you to rewrite a section, is key to your success.

 

By Nikolas Baron

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Bio:

Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown children’s novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet startups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, traveling, and reading.

The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

I remember reading The Secret History and enjoying it, back in 2004. And even though it took 10 years for her to push out another novel, at least it was a really good one, worthy of the Pulitzer it took home in 2013.

One of my favorite qualities in a book is nice prose, and Tartt knows how to manipulate words and bend them to her will. Excellent descriptive writing, too. Of course, just as I enjoyed this, other people might want things left a little leaner. Meh. To each their own, but I really liked it.

The plot was original, if quirky, and some of the content would be a bit dicey for those that lean toward conservative subject matter. But I enjoyed it’s uniqueness and I really liked the core event in the book… I thought it was fantastic.

The writing and content was intelligent, modern, urban, hip…in touch. Really cool.

An easy 5 of 5 stars from this guy (pointing at myself).

A couple of my favorite quotes…

“…like tracer rounds going off in the jungle, lurid flares of highly detailed and emotionally complex material.”

“I think this goes more to the idea of ‘relentless irony’ than ‘divine providence.’”

Publishers Weekly Review: Texas Jack

Hey World,

As part of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, I received a review from Publishers Weekly for Texas Jack.  I was excited to see it come out today, and like a proud parent, thought I would share…

ABNA Publishers Weekly Reviewer

“…touching, well-written novel about a modern-day Texas man coming to terms with his father’s alcoholism…. In a series of intelligently interspersed flashbacks, we see how Jack Leonard and his sister, Katie, have coped with and mostly accepted their father Billy’s alcoholism from a very young age. Jack has his own drinking problems, overcome with the help of his wife Samantha. As the entire Leonard family, including Jack and Samantha’s 10-year-old son, Jake, reunites at the family home for a vacation, a tragic accident leads Jack to confront his father’s drinking and his own lifelong enabling of it. Effectively portrayed secondary characters include Billy’s long-suffering wife, Lainey, and Jack’s best friend, Scott, and the way the family’s well-intentioned tolerance eventually leads to calamity is both convincing and painful…. competently told with substantial emotional impact…”

Latest Interview

I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by Susan from the Between The Pages & Beyond book blog.

Head on over and check it out… BY CLICKING RIGHT HERE.

OR HERE.

Otherwise, Happy Sunday!

Bart

Lucky #10: Smart Cars Have Rights Too

Hello!

The 14th issue of TrueBlue Magazine is yours for the taking today, packed with quirky stories to love and hold and cuddle with…

While you’re browsing the virtual pages, check out my 10th TrueBlue article, which discusses a Smart car phenomena that is just out of control:

CLICK HERE CLICK HERE CLICK HERE CLICK HERE CLICK HERE

Yep.  It’s true… scary, but true.

Have a good day.  Or night.

B.H.

The Bear And The Bart

I shared this story recently, and I found myself thinking about it again last night.  Because it freaks me out.

One time, when I was a kid, my mom and I were staying up late watching a movie.  I was maybe five years old.  The lights were dim and the sound was down on the television because my dad was asleep.

We heard a strange scratching sound at the window in our living room.  My mom turned on the light and spoke loudly, hoping to deter what she thought might be an intruder.  There was a clatter outside, then the sound of retreating footsteps.  We rallied the troops and our courage and inspected our front porch.

There was a glass-cutting device on the ground; a semi-circle was carved on the window.  We’d gotten lucky and thwarted a break-in.

After that night, I had this recurring dream (nightmare) that would pop up every month or two for the next several years.  The frequency of the dream eventually tapered off, but it’s visited me a few times in adulthood, too.

I’m back in that childhood apartment, alone, and I hear scratching at the living room window.  In typical horror movie fashion, against logic or rational judgment, Dream Bart pulls the cord and opens the curtains wide.  Standing just outside is a bear, big and muscular, on his hind feet. He walks and moves like a large man—not a bear.  He opens his mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and smiles at me … taps his index finger claw on the window.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Dream Bart runs, through the apartment, to the dining room.  There are no curtains on the window. There should be, but there are not.  I stare for a moment through the glass, scared…

And—out pops the bear.

I continue running through the house and reach my bedroom.  I shut the door and lock it.  There is the sound of breaking glass in the house, and then silence.  I look around and the first thing I notice is that there are no curtains on this window either.  Dream Bart’s blood runs cold as he waits for the bear to show his face.

But he doesn’t.

I run to the closet and hide there.  Shrink into the corner.  Try to make myself invisible—part of the wall—and wait.

Silence.  Silence.  Silence.

And then awful laughter erupts from just on the other side of the closet door.  It builds to a deafening volume, and the door opens…

That’s when I wake up—shaky—glad it’s over.

And, you’re thinking, what’s the point of this story?  I don’t know. Maybe that it scared the hell out of me for years. In some twisted way, perhaps it even led to the pleasure I find in horror and thriller stories. Which, maybe, just maybe, eventually led to this short story I wrote called Donations.

But, that’s another story.

*This story was originally told in a guest blog on the Writer of Wrongs blog.*

May the Fourth be with you

So, my wife teaches Spanish, and tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo.

We were reviewing some videos today that her classes will be watching and singing along with tomorrow.  This was my favorite: WHERE ARE YOU FROM? (DE DONDE ERES TU?)

Okay, stop reading and watch the video once, and make a mental note of which part sticks with you… just digs its claws right into your brain and plays itself over and over again.

Got it?  Was it Soy de Guatemala?

Yep.  I definitely will never forget how to say that I am from Guatemala.  Which I’m not.

Okay.  That’s it.  May the Fourth be with you today & Happy Cinco de Mayo.

~Bart

A peek at Sign Journeys

Sign Journeys is the sequel to Sign Changes.

Double Threat! Not only is it is a fun story on the surface, it’s also full of deeper meaning when you stop and ponder the topics. The evolution of symbolism and communication and language are prevalent themes that are explored throughout the book. It’s woven together and interconnected in a truly wonderful way.

It’s got a little something for a variety of readers… while primarily historical fiction and science fiction, it has some prehistoric and dystopian flavor, too.

Bravo to another great novel!

Clowns, Barbie, and Spring

Hey World,

My kids spotted this the other day.  I guess Barbie is way preggers, and in a way that offers a unique perspective for a doll.

You can read more about it if you CLICK HERE.

We saw this poster today in Landstuhl…

Pretty creepy.  I can’t begin to guess what goes into a Horror Circus.

And, finally, we visited the Japanese gardens to kick off the chilly & slowly burgeoning “spring” we’re having.

Peace. – Bart

Random Thoughts

I’ve got some random things on my mind today…

1) Bacon Lettuce and Tomato (BLT) sandwiches are delicious.

2) I wish that the workweek was 2 days, and weekends were 5 days.

3) I need to file my taxes.

4) Why does a loaf of bread have two butts?  Why not one face and one butt?

5) My dad’s next book, Sign Journeys, has a completely awesome cover:

6) My youngest daughter used to think that it was the Act of Nutrition instead of the Act of Contrition.

8) We’ve had meat in the crock pot all day, getting ready for shredded beef tacos tonight.  This is wonderful.

9) I think about eating all throughout the day.  Always planning the next meal.  Borderline obsession.

10) Why did the hipster burn his mouth on his coffee?  He drank it before it was cool. (I love that joke.)

Ciao, world!

Bart