I clicked on the "friend them" line and so hopefully that will fix things in future? BTW I'm curious as to the significance of your nom de plume (it may be nothing more complicated than you like that month. I'm very fond of autumn myself.)
I think listening to critique is a learned skill.
YES, exactly so. Most of us don't grow up receiving "constructive criticism" from our parents. "Do this - because I said so." "Because it's the way it's always been done." "I told you not to hit your sister - now hold still while I spank you with my belt." I remember in school I put too much focus on being right, on getting answers right, on good grades because that's where the focus was. Being "wrong" was something to be avoided; getting a C was unthinkable. (And media doesn't help - commercials communicate to us that our lives will be better IF ONLY we'd use the right detergent and so forth. They are purposely designed to appeal to our sense of inferiority.)
The irony being, the only thing it proved is that I was good in school. Being good in life has been another story altogether. (But, enough about me....)
And sometimes leaving things out is for some sort of literary effect, or something, but that usually doesn't work for me...
If I'm saying "huh? What? Huh?" and the missing piece isn't filled in by the end of the story, then you've thrown me out. Again, sometimes the creator wants to do that. Baz Luhrmann claimed that was his intention with Moulin Rouge, make it difficult to get into, ask the audience member "Are you with us or not?" and do some of the work. It does work to a degree; I loved the movie for a while, irrationally (love is never rational) but there were still chunks of "Huh"? that never worked the way they were supposed to. Ex: the rational for Harold Zidler's motivations (that he was an egotist) never made sense; in the deleted version on the DVD, his motivation was that he was deeply in debt. EVERY MR fanfiction writer I know of (myself included) made the deleted version their headcanon, not the actual canon version.
Or there was a time in the '90's I watched an interview with Don Henley of the Eagles about a new album and he explained/interpreted the meaning of his new song and video in great detail and I thought "It's a pop song. If you have to explain it that much because I won't understand it otherwise, there's a problem." It gets back to "Who is your audience for this?" It just comes off as incredibly self-indulgent unless the person in question respect the intelligence of their audience.
that's a very personal decision, and it can be hard when a reader doesn't get it, or doesn't like it.
Hence the need to pick one's betas carefully. It really helps if your beta is someone who would probably be part of your intended audience, I think. I would not be a good beta for a "bodice ripper" type of story, for instance. I don't know the conventions and I don't read or generally like those sorts of things. OTOH not knowing too much about the conventions of a genre can also be a good thing, I would think? It allows some objectivity and, does the story work for someone who wants to dip their toes in for the first time.
I actually took an acting class recently, for fun,
I'm glad you enjoyed it! For some reason I am terribly shy on a face to face level, in personal interactions, but put me on a stage, be it a literal one or public speaking, or doing demonstrations with a roomful of folks in front of me, and I'm in my element, it's such a joy to me. Even hosting a tv show a few times, there was no one there but the camera person and a guest but in my head? There was an audience out there. Maybe one person, but an audience and I was performing for them. So acting has all sorts of real-world applications, IMO.
no subject
I think listening to critique is a learned skill.
YES, exactly so. Most of us don't grow up receiving "constructive criticism" from our parents. "Do this - because I said so." "Because it's the way it's always been done." "I told you not to hit your sister - now hold still while I spank you with my belt." I remember in school I put too much focus on being right, on getting answers right, on good grades because that's where the focus was. Being "wrong" was something to be avoided; getting a C was unthinkable. (And media doesn't help - commercials communicate to us that our lives will be better IF ONLY we'd use the right detergent and so forth. They are purposely designed to appeal to our sense of inferiority.)
The irony being, the only thing it proved is that I was good in school. Being good in life has been another story altogether. (But, enough about me....)
And sometimes leaving things out is for some sort of literary effect, or something, but that usually doesn't work for me...
If I'm saying "huh? What? Huh?" and the missing piece isn't filled in by the end of the story, then you've thrown me out. Again, sometimes the creator wants to do that. Baz Luhrmann claimed that was his intention with Moulin Rouge, make it difficult to get into, ask the audience member "Are you with us or not?" and do some of the work. It does work to a degree; I loved the movie for a while, irrationally (love is never rational) but there were still chunks of "Huh"? that never worked the way they were supposed to. Ex: the rational for Harold Zidler's motivations (that he was an egotist) never made sense; in the deleted version on the DVD, his motivation was that he was deeply in debt. EVERY MR fanfiction writer I know of (myself included) made the deleted version their headcanon, not the actual canon version.
Or there was a time in the '90's I watched an interview with Don Henley of the Eagles about a new album and he explained/interpreted the meaning of his new song and video in great detail and I thought "It's a pop song. If you have to explain it that much because I won't understand it otherwise, there's a problem." It gets back to "Who is your audience for this?" It just comes off as incredibly self-indulgent unless the person in question respect the intelligence of their audience.
that's a very personal decision, and it can be hard when a reader doesn't get it, or doesn't like it.
Hence the need to pick one's betas carefully. It really helps if your beta is someone who would probably be part of your intended audience, I think. I would not be a good beta for a "bodice ripper" type of story, for instance. I don't know the conventions and I don't read or generally like those sorts of things. OTOH not knowing too much about the conventions of a genre can also be a good thing, I would think? It allows some objectivity and, does the story work for someone who wants to dip their toes in for the first time.
I actually took an acting class recently, for fun,
I'm glad you enjoyed it! For some reason I am terribly shy on a face to face level, in personal interactions, but put me on a stage, be it a literal one or public speaking, or doing demonstrations with a roomful of folks in front of me, and I'm in my element, it's such a joy to me. Even hosting a tv show a few times, there was no one there but the camera person and a guest but in my head? There was an audience out there. Maybe one person, but an audience and I was performing for them. So acting has all sorts of real-world applications, IMO.