As I have posted in this space before, I am from time to time asked to read something a friend or colleague has written and to give "honest feedback".
I am always wary on these occasions because, all too often, the written piece is awful and the writer is lying when she/he says she wants me to be honest. On more than one occasion, I've read through truly abysmal writing, only to find myself being forced by the person's wide, fearful, hopeful, frightened eyes to say "It shows real promise", "there's a lot to like here", "but for a couple of minor tweaks here and there, I think you've got a real winner".
And I hate doing that. Both the reading and the lying.
So, when a work colleague approached me the other day with a similar request, I hesitated for quite a long time. Did I really want to risk ruining what is a good, enjoyable friendship for this? Did I really want to spend my time reading what could, quite probably, be an awful piece of fiction?
But he is a good guy and a very good colleague and I felt he was at least psychologically prepared to hear something in the neighbourhood of the truth, good or bad.
So I read his work.
Despite his promises to the contrary, he actually seemed quite anxious about what I would say. He texted me several times and, when I agreed to meet with him to chat, he booked a meeting room for the purpose.
Fortunately, his writing was quite interesting. Sure, there were issues but, as I read it, I got the strong feeling that I was reading something that was not too far from really good.
The only challenge was: his writing is about as far away in approach and style from my writing as you could get and still be working in narrative fiction.
I really worried that, in providing constructive feedback from my own set of expectations and preconceptions, I might actually damage his work.
His story was told from an extremely limited third person position and his protagonist was a down-and-out young man going through an extremely troubling period in his life. The narrative was almost stream-of-consciousness in approach, with long sentences, detailed descriptions and often creative metaphors. It meandered from subject to subject in a way that was, for me, disconcertingly real for the character.
In other words, exactly the opposite of my own style: third person omniscient, with a young, female protagonist, fairly easy on the exposition with lots of dialogue and lots happening.
And I really felt like there was something magic in his work, something really really good that any constructive criticism a writer like me could give might just ruin.
Now that was an interesting conversation!
I very carefully explained to him what I've just written here: that, although I think there are ways to improve the piece, he should take anything I had to say with a grain of salt.
He was great about it, however. I think he was just delighted that I was so positive about his work that he was willing to listen to my blather.
A technical guy by nature (he's some kind of an engineer), he approaches writing as if he is building something. He told me, for example, that his research into writing the kind of piece he wanted to create indicated that his sentences should be between 70 and 140 words in length!
He also told me that he came up with the plot by writing a paragraph, then starting what I pictured as a flow chart of information derived from that first para. "OK, he's wearing a t-shirt, so he's young. He's upset. Why? Maybe because he's lost his job. And he's got a son. But where's his wife? They broke up. She broke up with him... no, he broke up with her and he regrets it. And he needs money. He's lost his job. He's upset because he's lost his job, he's lost his wife, he has a son to raise and he needs money. How does he get money? He has to pawn something. OK, he has to pawn..."
And, once the flow chart was completed in his mind, he began to write the rest of the story.
Again, that's about as different from my approach as you can get. And yet, it worked for him.
I learned a lot from him in this conversation. Probably more than he did from me!
For one thing, I learned to be more optimistic when a friend asks me to read his writing.
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