Independent Toolmaker
Email: julianne@acm.org Web site: http://www.juliannechatelain.com/
Key features: Notes; References; Author Details
Once upon a time, the community of English-speaking science fiction readers and writers had an uncanny resemblance tothe present community of people engaged in working with and on hypertext fiction. In both communities:
- Almost everyone who read the stuff also wrote the stuff.
- Most community members were "friends" and as such were unwilling to write anything publicly critical of other members' work.
Damon Knight "was the first reviewer to subject science fiction to the standards of ambitious mainstream fiction; his collection of essays and reviews, In Search of Wonder (Knight 1956), is the founding document of modern SF criticism." (From Knight's obituary, written by editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden)
As Ken MacLeod recalls, in the 1960s:
I remember the wonderful reviews you used to get in New Worlds Quarterly by John Clute and M. John Harrison - often very scathing about traditional SF and often very wittily written too. They said very clearly: 'We're not going to take rubbish anymore, we're not part of a happy band of brothers who are going to stand shoulder to shoulder and praise each other to the skies.' That's what Clute, much later, called 'the protocol of excessive candour'. And that protocol has served SF very well in the last few decades. (MacLeod 1998)I agree with MacLeod about the importance of Clute and his determination to speak his critical truth without fear or fawning. Here's the key rant in which Clute sets out his protocol:
Reviewers who will not tell the truth are like cholesterol. They are lumps of fat. They starve the heart. I have myself certainly clogged a few arteries, have sometimes kept my mouth shut out of 'friendship' which is nothing in the end but self-interest. So perhaps it is time to call a halt. Perhaps we should establish a Protocol of Excessive Candour, a convention within the community that excesses of intramural harshness are less damaging than the hypocrisies of stroke therapy, that telling the truth is a way of expressing love; self-love; love of others; love for the genre, which claims to tell the truth about things that count; love for the inhabitants of the planet; love for the future. Because the truth is all we've got. And if we don't talk to ourselves, and if we don't use every tool at our command in our time on Earth to tell the truth, nobody else will. (Clute 1995)In the days since Clute's pronouncement, science fiction criticism has become much more effective. My current favorite organ of science fiction criticism is the New York Review of Science Fiction. Its writers' guidelines use the (invented) subgenre of samurai vampire fiction to explain how adding context makes a review better:
"The difference between a quickie review ('thumbs up!') and genuine criticism is often a sense of context. Take the latest samurai vampire novel, for instance. A good NYRSF review should do more than simply report the reviewer's gut reaction to this particular book. It should place it in the context of the author's other work, and of the work of others today, and in the past in this esteemed and popular category. Indeed it should place this individual novel within the larger context of vampire samurai fiction as a whole. Where does this book fit in the grand history of the samurai vampire novel? How does it compare against the great samurai vampire novels of the past. What are the essential virtues, expectations, and/or limitations of the entire samurai vampire genre? And does this novel imply whither goest the samurai vampire novel? This sort of context can make a good review all the more informative and illuminating." (NYRSF: Guidelines)
To sum up, the protocol of excessive candour transformed the field of science fiction [1], and it's likely that a similar protocol would invigorate hypertext criticism. I was cheered to hear Rob Wittig say (in at an ELO conference, April 2002) that he was no longer going to praise work that was merely 'promising'. I believe that if more of us spoke plainly about what 'promising' works need, in order to deliver on their promises, the field would undoubtedly benefit.
Notes
[1] Some of us who believe that science fiction can meet or exceed the highest literary standards throw a party every summer, and you're invited: http://www.readercon.org/.References
Clute, J. (1995) "Look at the Evidence". Liverpool University Press, Serconia Press http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/reviews_pages/r71.htmHayden, P. N. (2002) "Damon Knight, 1922-2002". Science Fiction Writers of America Web site
Knight, D. (1956) "In Search Of Wonder". (Chicago: Advent) http://www.sfwa.org/news/knight.htm
MacLeod, K. (1998) Interview at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~houghtong/macleod.htm
New York Review of Science Fiction. Home page and guidelines [typos in original]
Learn to take criticism well by choosing your critics well
Do you ever search 43 Things? I love going through it to see what goals people have for themselves. I like seeing where my own goals and accomplishments fit in with everyone else's.
On 43 Things, 21 people want to learn to take criticism but 77,000 people want toget a promotion. You know what's wrong with this? The way to get a promotion is to take criticism well, but most people don't know they don't do it well.
Everyone knows they are supposed to get a mentor. And in fact, getting a mentor is one of the best ways to get a promotion. But few people understand that the best way to get a mentor on your side is to take criticism well. This means not only hearing it, but acting on it immediately, and reporting back to the mentor that you have done that.
Which means that a key to finding people you can learn from is finding people you can take criticism from. There's a great discussion on the blog Vineograph about how hard it is to find critics to trust. This is as true for wine recommendation as it is for career recommendations. The conclusion on this discussion is that you have to know a bunch about the person before you can decide if you trust their criticism. But before you trust someone, you have to start listening.
So I listen to tons of people, always looking for new, competent critics who I might be able to turn into mentors. People always ask me how I deal with so many negative comments on my Yahoo column. The answer is, I read them looking for good critics because you never know where you'll find them.
Do not choose your critics because they are the best at constructive criticism. Your best critics may be totally undiplomatic; you need to find the people who best understand your best attributes. If they understand your strengths, then they understand when you're not using them.
For this reason, I listen to Michael Kemelman who blogs at Recruiting Animal. He ripson me all the time in his blog. And he rips on people I publish, like Ryan Healy. But Michael is smart (and funny) and I have always known that he understands me even as he makes fun of me.
Last week he confirmed this. He sent me a list of four of his favorite posts, and the list means so much to me because they are posts that are only at the very edge of career advice, and they are my favorite kind to write.
So, here's the list of favorite posts from one of the harshest critics I listen to:
The Fine Line Between Boasting on a Resume and Lying
Choosing Between a Kid and a Career
Forces gather against Labour on adult learning
Minister promises consultation with critics over loss of publicly funded informal education places
A tirade was not on the cards. John Denham is too civilised and practised a politician to display annoyance about the forces gathering against the government's adult education policies. But the admiration for the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (Call) that is uttered by the innovation, universities and skills secretary is totally unexpected.
Whether or not there is alarm within his department at the joining together of more than 50 organisations - including the Church of England, the National Federation of Women's Institutes and the Muslim Council of Britain - demanding the restoration of 1.4m publicly funded adult education places as a minimum, Denham is not showing any of it. "I think that the support of such a wide range of organisations is very impressive," he says, as if referring to a group of fans rather than people expressing unease about the unintended consequences of Labour's monetary commitment to vocational qualifications.
"What we're going to do is to write to every single organisation that has sponsored Call and offer people the chance to come in and talk with ministers or senior officials about what we've got in mind," Denham continues. "Because we'd like to speak to the organisations directly, and I hope to reassure people that we are planning to address as many of these issues as possible when we produce the policy document."
The document that the skills secretary is referring to will be the result of the consultation into "informal adult learning" that he launched in January this year. Before the closing date in June, about 5,500 individuals and organisations had responded, a massive reaction compared with the responses such government consultations usually attract.
"I know there's a debate about the title you use - some people don't like it being called 'informal adult learning' - but I've always meant learning that you do largely for its intrinsic value [where] you get a qualification or accreditation that's incidental to the reason you wanted to do it in the first place," Denham says.
Call response
His first reaction to the consultation response is delight at the support for informal learning that comes from the respondents. Regardless of the points they're trying to make, people value learning for its own sake. "There is clearly huge enthusiasm," he says.
"Secondly, coming through very strongly is that people do want to learn in lots of different ways. Alongside traditional models of adult education, they want to include other ways of learning, whether that's self-organised education groups or the learning that can take place around museums or libraries."
True though this is, there has also been a strong expression of concern regarding what the Learning and Skills Council has stated will be a reduction of 1.4m publicly funded adult education places.
"When I launched the consultation I acknowledged the concern about informal learning - it was one of the reasons for having the consultation and one of the reasons for saying that we value learning," Denham says. However, he contests the 1.4m figure adopted by Call, saying that it fails to tell the whole story. "They take one particular set of Learning and Skills Council figures. They don't look at the areas of - for example - learning at work, which have grown through Train to Gain."
The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills has no precise figure for the loss of publicly funded adult education places. However, if the growth in numbers doing work-based learning or taking part in the Train to Gain programme is factored in, according to Denham, the net figure is lower than 1.4m.
"We've justified and will justify a shift in priorities in our overall budget towards vocational qualifications, because we know that increases people's chances of learning more, and of continuing to learn in the future," he says. "So I don't think the campaign helps by overstating the nature of the change."
How would the secretary of state respond to those people who say that they've paid tax all their working lives and have looked forward to having time in retirement to study, only to find that their local college or adult education institution no longer runs the courses they want?
"I can understand, obviously, the disappointment that people feel, but again that's the reason for opening up the whole debate," he says. "It's also the case that across the country the pattern is actually quite mixed."
Some colleges have reported that they moved to charging full fees for courses and continued to attract the same students as before, he says.
"And whilst everybody always prefers to have things as cheaply as possible - that's quite understandable - it actually turned out that there is a real interest in supporting these activities. I know that there are union learning centres that are doing informal education at full cost, so we have probably lost some provision that could have been there. The message seemed to go out that government no longer valued this activity, and that's disappointing. We're trying to recover that ground now."
What about college principals who say that it was the combination of rising fees and the government's diversion of money towards vocational courses that convinced them that they had to pull the plug on courses?
"I wouldn't pretend that we could switch all of the money we have in to vocational qualifications and it would then have had no effect on provision," he says. "Obviously there are going to be courses that would have been run that are no longer viable.
"If you look across the country, it's also true that there are colleges that close courses because they assume they couldn't run on a full-cost basis. There are other colleges that say 'we'll give it a try', and have been surprised at how many people turn up - these are very much the same students they were getting previously." Denham says that he has been heartened by the numbers of respondents to the consultation who were pursuing other avenues of learning than evening classes, who wanted government to reflect this diversity.
Is all the talk about the numbers of people learning by watching television, or surfing on their computers, or going to galleries and museums, or researching their family trees really an effort to divert attention from what had happened to evening classes? Surely the government has no business including the numbers watching YouTube or trawling Wikipedia in its policy-making.
"I disagree with those people who say that the only role of government is to provide subsidies for taught courses - I think government has a much wider responsibility," he argues. "Whether that's in terms of supporting community learning champions, promoting new learning opportunities in deprived areas, talking to other government departments about space in public buildings free to people who want to organise their own educational activities, making museums free to entry - those are all legitimate areas of government.
"I don't think government can turn its back on taught subsidised courses, but we certainly shouldn't say that's the sum total of adult education."
Failure to deliver
When Labour came to power back in 1997, it raised the hopes of many in the adult education world. The learning age green paper in 1998 held out the promise of an unprecedented level of government support for lifelong learning, but now - over 11 years later - many of those people initially heartened have been left somewhat disillusioned.
Denham acknowledges that there was a fundamental shift in Labour's policy sometime between the launch of the LSC and the report by Lord Leitch on the nation's skills needs.
"Sadly, that approach did not succeed in delivering the results we wanted for people who needed the sorts of skills and qualifications that enable them to succeed at work," he says. "And so we are right to have focused attention on vocational qualifications.
"On the other hand, some of that spirit which was valuing learning for its own sake and saying that we want to provide opportunities to learn - even if people are doing it simply because they want to stretch their horizons ... that was a good spirit, and what I hope we're trying to do is rekindle it and to do it in a way that's appropriate for the 21st century."
Learning to Deal With Criticism
It Can be Tough, But Those With the Thickest Skin Win
Possibly the most difficult part of working in the entertainment industry is learning to deal with critics. It's hard to hear someone express a negative opinion on something you've put your heart and soul in to create. But the key thing to remember is -- it's just their opinion.Criticism has been around as long as there has been art of any form. There was a great scene in Mel Brooks' comedy, History of The World: Part I where shortly after the first artist came the first critic who expressed his opinion by lifting up his fur covering and...well, you should see the movie.
The Hard Part:
The hardest part of getting criticism is listening to it first hand. You have just dedicated yourself to your project whether it's writing it, directing it, acting in it, or what have you. To hear someone berate your work is simply never easy to take. That said, it's an opinion that you can either let affect you or you can ignore.
Unfortunately, the rule with anything you do is the rule of thirds: one-third of the people will love you; one-third will hate you (no matter what you do); and the last third won't really care either way -- they might like or dislike you depending on the project. So, if you can't sway 100% of the people 100% of the time, your new rule should be -- don't try to.
If you focus exclusively on creating the best project you can and you pour your passion and every into everything you do, then your chances for success improve dramatically. If you stick to your convictions, you will eventually find that one-third of the people who love your work. And as for the rest -- you need to develop the attitude of, "who cares what they think?"
Don't Let Fear Stop You
One of the biggest obstacles keeping people from succeeding in the entertainment industry is the fear of failure. The fear of being humiliated and feeling like a loser. There isn't a single big name actor or director who hasn't had some failure in their lives. The difference is that they kept going even when the overwhelming opinion of their work was negative. Imagine had Dustin Hoffman simply given up after Ishtar, or Steven Spielberg after the critics panned 1941. Failures teach you more than success ever will -- as long as you're willing to learn from them.
If you feel that fear of failure or being humiliated is keeping you from living your dreams than do whatever you can to break its grip. You have to get over these fears and realize that they are doing nothing but holding you back from everything you want in life. Let it go and don't be afraid to fail.
Constructive Criticism:
Now this piece is not meant to imply that all criticism is useless. There is actually some value in quite a bit of criticism. Take the important lessons that are being offered up within the context of someone's opinion -- ONLY IF YOU AGREE WITH THEM. Remember, just because someone feels a certain way doesn't mean that their way is better than yours, unless you happen to agree.
Learn which battles to fight and be careful not to stick to your convictions simply because you want to prove the other person wrong. If you see that their comments might dramatically improve whatever it is that you're working on, well it might be something to consider integrating into your final product.
Don't let the fear of receiving criticism keep you from going after a career in entertainment. Those who have succeeded in this industry (including me) will tell you first hand, that once they realized that they no longer had to worry about having to have everyone like who they are and what they did, it opened up their abilities to become successful. Never let fear of failure rule who you can become. There will always be those who dislike you and what you do -- let them and remember to tell yourself -- it's their loss.
Criticism has been around as long as there has been art of any form. There was a great scene in Mel Brooks' comedy, History of The World: Part I where shortly after the first artist came the first critic who expressed his opinion by lifting up his fur covering and...well, you should see the movie.
The Hard Part:
The hardest part of getting criticism is listening to it first hand. You have just dedicated yourself to your project whether it's writing it, directing it, acting in it, or what have you. To hear someone berate your work is simply never easy to take. That said, it's an opinion that you can either let affect you or you can ignore.
Unfortunately, the rule with anything you do is the rule of thirds: one-third of the people will love you; one-third will hate you (no matter what you do); and the last third won't really care either way -- they might like or dislike you depending on the project. So, if you can't sway 100% of the people 100% of the time, your new rule should be -- don't try to.
If you focus exclusively on creating the best project you can and you pour your passion and every into everything you do, then your chances for success improve dramatically. If you stick to your convictions, you will eventually find that one-third of the people who love your work. And as for the rest -- you need to develop the attitude of, "who cares what they think?"
Don't Let Fear Stop You
One of the biggest obstacles keeping people from succeeding in the entertainment industry is the fear of failure. The fear of being humiliated and feeling like a loser. There isn't a single big name actor or director who hasn't had some failure in their lives. The difference is that they kept going even when the overwhelming opinion of their work was negative. Imagine had Dustin Hoffman simply given up after Ishtar, or Steven Spielberg after the critics panned 1941. Failures teach you more than success ever will -- as long as you're willing to learn from them.
If you feel that fear of failure or being humiliated is keeping you from living your dreams than do whatever you can to break its grip. You have to get over these fears and realize that they are doing nothing but holding you back from everything you want in life. Let it go and don't be afraid to fail.
Constructive Criticism:
Now this piece is not meant to imply that all criticism is useless. There is actually some value in quite a bit of criticism. Take the important lessons that are being offered up within the context of someone's opinion -- ONLY IF YOU AGREE WITH THEM. Remember, just because someone feels a certain way doesn't mean that their way is better than yours, unless you happen to agree.
Learn which battles to fight and be careful not to stick to your convictions simply because you want to prove the other person wrong. If you see that their comments might dramatically improve whatever it is that you're working on, well it might be something to consider integrating into your final product.
Don't let the fear of receiving criticism keep you from going after a career in entertainment. Those who have succeeded in this industry (including me) will tell you first hand, that once they realized that they no longer had to worry about having to have everyone like who they are and what they did, it opened up their abilities to become successful. Never let fear of failure rule who you can become. There will always be those who dislike you and what you do -- let them and remember to tell yourself -- it's their loss.
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