Re: Opening


"Alma Hromic Deckert" <anghara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7kt7f39v79s0rm69vr1beu1r2thj6f4vh2@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:08:28 +0100, spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:


Patricia has pointed out (in the past) that you can't fix something
unless you can see and understand the problem. If you see and understand
the problem, then rewriting something makes sense.

Sound Wrede advice.

However...
But just changing something because several people say "I think you
need to add X, or delete Y, or change Z" doesn't work.

No, it doesn't work - not in the way you're putting it - but the key
word in what you wrote above there is *SEVERAL* people. If one person
tells you there's something that person doesn't like, you're free to
throw it out as one person's opinion. If several people pick up a
problem, then it's a problem that other potential readers will pick up
too, people you don't know, will never meet, will never have a chance
to "explain" things to. This is a case where you need to pay
attention, because there obviously IS something wrong. And in cases
like this saying "well too bad I am not interested in changing this
whatever people say" is kind of shooting yourself in the foot.

But that's not what Jonathan was suggesting at all, much less what he's
actually been doing. He's not claiming there's *no* problem, or that
everybody should see things the way he does; he's just saying over and over
that it *does* work for him, and he can't change it until he sees what
doesn't work. And I agree fully with him.

Even if *everybody* who reads something says there's a problem, all that
tells you is that there is a problem. It doesn't tell you the right fix for
it. Not even if all of the everybodys agree on a specific solution. And if
*you* can't see it -- which is different from saying "it's not there at
all" -- then you're more than likely to mess up the fix. And that's what I
take Jonathan to be saying -- that he can tell that a lot of people have a
problem, but until *he* can see it, he can't fix it. It's not saying "there
is no problem;" it's saying "I can't fix this because it's in my blind
spot."

In that case it's best to treat it as fourth category (or lump it in
with the "Hel freezes over") because it's probably best to leave it as
is (but excepting minor, type (a), "obvious" improvements).

Sometimes you can be too close to a story. Blindly insisting something
works, because it works for you, is counterproductive in the face of
several readers saying that it doesn't work.

But he hasn't been doing that. He's saying that because it works for him,
he can't figure out what the problem is so that he can fix it. It's being
given as the reason why the fix isn't happening, not as a reason why the fix
isn't needed.

And the thing is, when something like that happens, it's not about ability
to take critique or anything else. It's about looking at the words on the
page and not being able to tell what would make them work any better than
they already do, even though one is intellectually convinced that there is
*something* amiss. BT,DT, and in my experience, leaving it alone is the
preferred choice in this situation. Possibly in a year or three or ten, one
can come back to the ms. with whatever chops one has learned in the interim,
and what was once a totally invisible problem will positively leap to the
eye. Possibly the thing will just have to stay flawed. But trying to fix
the cut of the gem when one can't spot the flaw one knows is there is a
recipe for ending up with worthless fragments.

Patricia C. Wrede

Patricia C. Wrede


.

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