Getting Criticism

Accept criticism. Seek it out, in fact. I have, over the years, formed trusting relationships with several high school teachers, and now, college professors. I debate whether or not to confess to them that I write (as if I were suddenly ashamed of the thing I am proudest of). When I do, they always seem interested, and I always present them with some of my work. I do this expecting and hoping for criticism. And I receive it. Whereas my friends and readers of my work online may have nothing but praise for a piece, someone with a critical eye can look at it unbiased and tell me exactly what needs improvement. Sometimes it is more than I noticed. Sometimes I hang my head in shame, realizing that a work I thought fantastic was simplistic and childish. Often I learn that my work could become even more fantastic through changes.
It’s not easy to open yourself up to criticism. Many people avoid it. There are some artists out there who, upon receiving honest opinions claim “artistic license” and shut themselves off to all helpful advice.
The first mark of becoming a great artist is admitting and acknowledging that you are not one. If you want to be an artist, it is absolutely necessary to learn to not only respond well, but to desire earnest critiques of your work. If everyone praises you, and you are not truly deserving of that praise, you will inevitably have a rude awakening.
If you do seek out advice, criticism, and earnest commentary, you will find yourself all the better for it

Genre Limitless

The soundest advice I can ever give an artist is don’t limit yourself. When you limit yourself, your art also becomes limited. If you feel that you can only write science fiction or only paint unicorns, then by all means don’t stop writing science fiction and painting unicorns, but never limit yourself by thinking that you cannot also write great realism or paint landscapes. It is true, everyone has a niche or a particular talent, but shoehorning oneself is no way to be an artist. Too few artists, seem to realize that art is, after all, about expanding, not folding in on oneself.
Take, for example, a writer like Edgar Allan Poe. He is now mostly famous for Gothic horror tales and dark poetry, which he did extremely well. But just because he did that one thing well did not mean he limited himself to that. Poe wrote everything. He wrote romantic ballads, he wrote biting criticism, he wrote science fiction, he wrote hilarious parody. Poe did not pen a single horror story and then think, “This is the only thing I am good at, I will end it here.” Arguably, it is because of his work and study of other genres that his horror is so very good. He understood what went into writing and what went into horror in particular that made it work because he could compare them to other genres. And Poe certainly was not the only one. Many filmmakers who have a particular style, say, J.J. Abrams or Tim Burton, will surprise their audience by their work in a completely different film that seems completely out of line with their style. Art, as I said, is an exploration outwards. The world is vast and complex, and so should your art be.

The Changing Frontier

The world is changing. The way people read is changing, the future of the publishing industry and other artistic markets, if you will, have all shifted dramatically just in the last few years. But is this something to be afraid of, or to embrace?
In the new artistic frontier, we are given even more opportunities. Publication is easier than ever! Even I have released a Kindle book of short stories that would simply never see the light of day otherwise.
But the new frontier also means that other mediums have arisen for real and earnest artistic expression.
When you think of video games you likely think of say, Pac-Man or Super Mario Brothers. You likely think of video games, as well, games; challenges to be completed. But just recently the court ruled that video games were a valid art form. It may be hard to tell if you are slogged down in a world of MMOs, but artistic expression has taken off in the video game world dramatically in the last few years. Last spring I played a game that shook me and caused me to question what I really regarded as art. It was a game called The Path developed by Tale of Tales, a forerunner of what is commonly called the “artgames” genre and what they prefer to think of as the “notgames” initiative. The idea is to use the video game technology to cause a real emotional and psychological experience. The Path is just that. There are no goals, no rules, no ticking clock. The game recasts “Little Red Riding Hood” with seven sisters who are given the same instructions, “Go to Grandmother’s House. Stay on the Path.” You can follow these instructions, and the game ends, calling you a failure, despite seemingly achieving your goals. If you do not follow these instructions, and you stray from the titular path, you run the risk of being lost in the woods forever, stumbling across objects that unlock different aspects of each sister’s personality. And then of course, you may run into a wolf, which will end the game as a success. There are no goals, simply exploration into the psyche of each sister as you try and understand her view of the world, what brings her to the woods, and what the wolf means to her. It is a chilling, haunting piece, and certainly, while it is a video game, not like any game I have played before. It is a thought-provoking art piece.

While they have existed since newspapers themselves began, comics have taken a great leap in the digital frontier, with Dark Horse, the largest indie publisher in existence, being a forerunner in the digital world. As any glance at the world of webcomics will show you, comics have done nothing but thrive in the new frontier. While there still exists a cultural stigma that shrugs off this artistic medium as capes and nothing but, they are missing the big picture. Since the 80s, comics have developed into a medium as profound as any. Works like Maus, a dramatic retelling of the Holocaust experience through the comic book medium, won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. And the genre has only expanded. Writers like Neil Gaiman known for his work in genre-bending literature like American Gods have contributed mightily to comic books, working with a number of titles and applying the same genre bending to this medium as he does in literature. His work with The Sandman graphic novels was heavily acclaimed, winning a number of awards, and widely considered a “masterpiece” of the new wave of comic books. And let’s not discredit capes either. Over the years, as 2008 film The Dark Knight should have been an indication, superhero stories themselves have become a valid artistic medium, as in Batman pieces such as Year One, The Long Halloween or the anthology collections, Black and White which has featured some of the most thought-provoking story telling and provocative art I have seen. Any writer in the field should be honored to work in the comic book medium, which is only soaring as the digital world levels the playing field further and makes it easier for more fresh voices to filter into the art field.

The bottom line is, the world is changing for artists and writers and the things we once considered childish can be works of exquisite beauty. Are your talents up to the task?

Art That Goes Nowhere

If there’s one I notice in upstart artists above all others, it is an attempt to be increasingly obscure.
All too often, I will wander into the art gallery at my school to see work of such a kind that I can tell the artist was simply trying too hard to be deep or unique, forsaking true depth in the process. I viewed an extremely disconcerting piece last year that consisted of a deer skin stretched out on a plank, with a video of someone repeatedly drilling holes into a deer carcass playing above it.
Unsettling, to be sure, but I also instantly felt that there was little more to the piece than that, regardless of how much effort may have been put into it. In the modern world of art, it seems that people starting out have a “free for all” mentality that can be extremely stunting to true artistic talent. And this is by no means limited to visual arts, I see this in writing as well.
The bottom line to me is, art should be made for a reason greater than “being art”, unless you happen to be a member of the Dadaist movement. The Dadaist movement is something to look up on your own, if you are not familiar with it, but a ten cent definition is that their intent is more or less to make fun of ill-defined art by creating parodies of ill-defined art, which in turn, has confused the art world more, by causing people to create “serious” Dadaist art, an homage of a parody.
You can instantly see the problem. When you have no idea what art is to you, art becomes meaningless, a parody within a parody. There is no point to creating something like this, not even to yourself.
As I said, this is not limited to visual art. I have read experimental writings that read like blogs on speed, filled with words on everything- but no thought. They are empty, meaningless words, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, but completely devoid of thought. This is artless art that is trying so hard to be art, it actually manages to fail, and fail badly, without a hint of Dadaist irony.
It is one thing to throw yourself into your art with passion, it is another thing not to let your passion go anywhere. In frustration, you can draw spirals endlessly, or you can take that frustration, observe it, and try to recapture it in a form that explores your thoughts, a sort of exercise not only of learning to analyze your own emotions (for all art comes from a distinctly emotional point of view), but also to make yourself a better artist, in whatever medium you work with.
I am not saying you must always have a deeper meaning for your art- one of my favorite books is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which has gleefully avoided deeper analysis for over a hundred years because it exists simply as a work of nonsense. But all of the same, this nonsense (which is in fact a genre form), does have some thought behind it. All throughout Alice’s ridiculous journey are subtle jabs at Victorian social order, capital punishment, and the school system, along with some math and a fair amount of wordplay. Alice may not be a “deep” work, in the way we are used to thinking of “deep”, but it is still a highly sophisticated and intelligent work.
While Lewis Carroll was not writing with a clear-cut motive, the intelligence inherent in his work also shows he was not simply throwing his art up against the wall and hoping it stuck. Aspiring artists in every medium seem to misconstrue the ideas. If you are to set out to create- create something worth creating, put some real thought and effort into it. Do not simply throw something against the artistic wall and try to ascribe a deeper meaning to it. Meaning you attach in hindsight does not create a meaningful work, regardless of the amount of time you may have spent on it. Rather, create with a sense of meaning, and even if you do not ascribe some kind of deep philosophy to your piece, and your effort will show through, making your work have true merit.

Study of the Masters

If you have been an artist of any sort (be it writing, music, painting, photography etc.) for any amount of time, you will have probably noticed that as much as you draw inspiration from the real world- and certainly you should, inspiration also takes the form, very often, of imitation. The trouble is what to imitate, and knowing the limitations of that imitation.
Looking back on my early work I see, quite shamelessly, everything that I love in my writings from my teenage years, from creatures in Star Wars to dialogue from Spirited Away.
What can I say? My early pieces are unpolished, and sometimes downright theft occurred.
Imitation is healthy in all art forms. Studying the works of people who are your betters- and certainly many people will be- is a natural part of learning to become an artist.
A wise artist never stops studying, and I will never believe I have arrived at a place where I will regard myself as a great writer. I will continue to study my betters. And no matter how good my writing could one day become, I will never believe I am above those writers who I regard as the masters.
So what is the difference between shameless imitation and the study of a master? Discernment.
One of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis, who was a master of many genres of writing include children’s fiction, science-fiction, poetry, philosophical essays and dramatic historical fiction, to name a few. I regard the man as a master writer, as a sculptor may regard Michaelangelo or a painter Van Gogh. I read Lewis for pleasure, but I also study his form, his use of language, and the way he combines his ideas in the particular style unique to himself. I try to glean what I can from the way he writes, and bring it into my own writing. There is just one problem. Just as you, are not Michaelangelo or Van Gogh, I am not C.S. Lewis. Nor am I any other writer except myself. Much as I admire Lewis, I am a completely different writing, fed off of different writers from Lewis himself. My style evolved in a different way, as did my use of words and imaginative input.
When I first started writing in a serious way, I’d find that if I had read the works of Lewis or some other writer I greatly admire with a distinctive style (there are many) my work afterwards would take on that style. I was attempting to mimic their voice, their use of words, imagery, or even sometimes, their very story structuring, and make it work for me. It did not.
The first part of learning to properly study a master- and there always is a master in your field- is accepting your own work, and moreover, accepting you will never be Van Gogh or Michaelangelo. You are you, dear artist. You are not another. Your own history, both creatively and personally, affects the way you see the world in a way that is distinct from everyone else- including the masters. That is what you have to bring to the table. That is what makes your work worth sharing. Your own uniqueness, is why you must create in the first place. Yours. Your own.
When you accept that, you can channel what you have gleaned from the master in your own way.
And of course, once you have accepted yourself, there is nothing wrong with some allusion after all, an offering to the gods of your genre.

Just Listen

One of the most under-discussed aspects of being a writer is the need to listen. In fact, this goes for artists in any medium. Writing, like any art, is the attempt to reflect life. If you do not engage with life, then your art will be lifeless, and if you do not listen to human beings, who your work is about and aimed towards, then you, quite simply, have no business holding a pen.

Of course, there is a problem with listening, many people are less enlightened than an aspiring writer believes himself or herself to be. People are not always going to grasp your work, even if you are writing about common things. Naturally not everyone is going to get it when you are writing about European politics using psychedelic cannibal monkeys as allegory. My mother, bless her, reads my poetry with a look of confusion, and questions me endlessly about what the fantasy aspects in my short stories mean. I have overheard her saying to people, “My daughter is a writer,” but then following it apologetically by saying, “she writes fantasy.” Listening to something like this can be discouraging, especially if you are starting out, but it is necessary and healthy. If you write work so obscure and vague that everyone raises their eyebrows in the first stanza or paragraph, it is time to rethink a strategy. As I said, art reflects life, and if the reflection is too blurred to understand, there may be more of a problem with the writer than with the audience.

This is not to say, however, that you must give up your wild imagination and only write realist two-character dramas set in highly described and mundane settings. I still write fantasy, despite my mother’s lack of enthusiasm. But I did take a note from my mother’s book and attempting to focus the fantasy, so that I could expand past the genre label. I want to be able for any reader to look at my work and simply enjoy it, and not have to apologize for the genre or imagery. That is key. If you are too caught up in self-appeal, you may be missing the point. I’ll never forget the time my friend described a story of mine enthusiastically to her family as being “a fantasy, but not like you think. It’s dark and it’s really about this man.” Whereas the genre, alone could be a turn-off to those who it doesn’t appeal to, the depth that stretched the genre was appealing to her family. Hearing my friend describe my work in such terms also changed the way I viewed my own work. I, knowing my genre limitations, used to never consider myself capable of literary writing. But the more I listened to readers, their criticisms and their compliments, I saw that I was heading down a literary path, obscure imagery and genre labeling be damned. This does not, of course, mean I have arrived, but it means that I am off to a good start by learning, not to give up on my passions, but to constantly challenge myself to listen to readers, the people who writing, after all, is for.