Gertrude.
-
Posts
18 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Gertrude.
-
-
22 minutes ago, koechophe said:
I'll take this as genuine; my offer was likewise.
I think, in a lot of ways, this is fundamentally misunderstanding the English language. Everything in text adds some form of tone, connotation, and intention. To say that any bit of text is objectively wrong, particularly when dealing with word choice, is failing to fully identify a rhetorical situation.
For example, you cite "foundational" as being objectively unnecessary and fluff oriented; however, this still pulls on various connotations. We generally associate the word "foundation" with being sturdy and being a necessary base for things to actually function. From a Christian standpoint, this word draws connections to the scriptures where Christ discusses either building His church "upon this rock" or the ones where He claims that if you are built upon His "rock", the winds and waves will not prevail against you.
And this is where you have to be careful as a critic. There is almost nothing you can refer to as "objectively" being bad in writing. Certainly, you can help to streamline someone's prose, but much of your criticism seems based largely on your own personal reactions rather than any sort of established basis for critique.
Essentially, every word we use creates a specific feeling/image for specific audiences. To truly criticize the quality of a writer's work, one must first identify what feelings they are creating and then show how they are inconsistent, inappropriate, or unnecessary to their audience.
Essentially: When you begin to treat things as "universally wrong," you ignore much of the complexity that goes into crafting language effectively. I've never encountered a rule in writing without an exception which is both necessary and brilliant to the text.
We also run into an error of mindset for you as a critic: you "attacked" the errors. Criticism is not a cudgel used to beat others over the head. When we attack literature, in any way, shape, or form, we lose our objectivity. In this sense, a rhetorical critic must be able to look at how the words are actually functioning and, if they identify problems, point out said problems based on function, not feeling.
In its purest form, criticism is, by nature, both deconstructive and reconstructive; it shows not only how things may be pulled apart, but also how they may be put back together again in a way that is more consistent with the goals of the text.
Read the sentence without the word foundational: “not acknowledging my faith is like not breathing for me; it gets pretty suffocating after awhile. It's a huge foundational part of my existence, and it's kind of hard to keep silent about the Guy who gave me my heart back when I was on the brink five or six years ago.” I assure you most creative writing professors would strike the word foundational. Whatever the word connotes is connoted elsewhere enough.
From a semantic perspective the word adds nothing. We already know breathing is foundational. Do we need to emphasize it again? No. The error is about as objective as you will get in writing.
Your basic premise is that there is no objective right and wrong, or better and worse. It would make MFA applications a ridiculous exercise. It would make Nobel Prizes in Writing ridiculous. Some words in some instances add more verbiage than anything else.
Some things are best characterized by a reader as an objective error, and some things are best characterized as subjectively declared an error.
When I say fluff, I mean the verbiage overwhelms any advantage, any extra information.
Foundational also breaches another guideline: to be concrete.
-
59 minutes ago, koechophe said:
I'd be happy to offer some advice; this is sorely lacking in several key areas.
I would love some.
Now, I'm no expert on Flannery O'Connor. I was citing her for Christian themes without sounding preachy. EternalWhiteNight usually has a preachiness to her, like she is calling herself to testify for what Jesus did for her and has an agenda, that is getting you to join the fold.
Yeah, I was wrong about "heart." It should go.
LaPlante at page 121 says there are two stages of metaphors. Cliché (raved like a lunatic) and Dead Metaphor (ran for office.) The metaphor starts as a cliché, and with enough use become a regular part of English, that is a Dead Metaphor. I call "long haul" still a cliché (not allowed). You argue it has already reached the dead metaphor stage, so is allowed. I guess that's a judgment call.
"You treat words as isolated entities." I did so because I attacked objective errors that added no "tones, connotations, and intentions." Can you cite one of my edits and advise what "tones, connotations, and intentions" I missed.
-
7 minutes ago, eternalwhitenights said:
And, tbh, not acknowledging my faith is like not breathing for me; it gets pretty suffocating after awhile. It's a huge foundational part of my existence, and it's kind of hard to keep silent about the Guy who gave me my heart back when I was on the brink five or six years ago. The whole "saving my life and sanity" thing, to me, at least, means I'd say we're in it for the long haul at this point. ?
This is generally good. "Breathing" is concrete. "Foundational" is unnecessary fluff. "Silent" is concrete. "the Guy" is kinda spunky. "Heart" is concrete. "Brink five or six years ago": be careful about the redemption story; it's a trope. "Long haul" is cliché. Consider "in it so long as I still breath." Read Flannery O'Connor. Every theme of hers was Christian, but her stories don't preach and have many bad guys.
-
Your best work yet. I'm going to suggest a few edits below mostly for concreteness. Take a story you wrote and play around with making similar edits.
43 minutes ago, eternalwhitenights said:Au contraire, my friend. You forget that Jesus healed the sick and also equally wasn't afraid to overturn [SIMPLY "AND OVERTURNED"] the moneychangers' tables in the Temple when they desecrated His Father's house [END SENTENCE HERE] with their greed. Being fully human means accepting and navigating the light with the dark [SIMPLY "I ACCEPT THE LIGHT WITH THE DARK"], the good with the bad, and, if anything, writing about "Jesus stuff" allows me to access the full spectrum of emotions in my heart and spirit to my deepest depths, and craft those emotions and experiences on to the page as such [MORE VISCERAL. SIMPLY "AND IF ANYTHING, WRITING "JESUS STUFF" FLOODS THE PAGE WITH MY RAGE."] . God has a funny way of (if you let Him) transforming your heart, expanding your capacity for love and vulnerability, and helping you step into living as your fullest, most vulnerable self, so I would argue that it's in writing the "Jesus stuff" that opens up the necessary emotional gateways for me to write the "human stuff" the best way I know how. [OMIT THE LAST SENTENCE. TOO CONCEPTUAL AND DISCOUNTS THE SENTENCE BEFORE ABOUT BEING CAPABLE OF RAGE. STORIES MUST BE SUBTLE WITH PREACHING. CONSIDER READING FLANNERY O'CONNOR.]
And, yes, I do have it in me to defend my friends. I've never really liked bullies, and I'm not afraid to stand up to them should they try that sh*t on my watch. [REPLACE WITH "I'LL DUEL FOR MY FRIENDS TILL I'M OUT OF BREATH, EVEN WITH AN INSECURE BULLY." : THE STANDARD TACTIC OF ADDRESSING A BULLY IS TO ATTRIBUTE THE STEREOTYPE OF INSECURITY. SOCIOLOGIST'S DATA ACTUALLY SAY THEY AREN'T INSECURE, BUT ON SMALL ISSUES LIKE THIS MAKE USE OF THE PLAUSIBLE STEREOTYPE. So, there you are.
-
On 3/5/2021 at 6:05 PM, mrvisser said:
You best quote me on it. Can't wait for next season, bud.
So remember your words. I can quote you. These are your quotes about whether you will go to Iowa or Michener:
On 12/29/2020 at 10:24 AM, mrvisser said:I have a tough time deciding this myself. Iowa has the name and prestige and all that, but, as you said, less money while also having teaching duties. Also, Austin is an awesome city with excellent weather, and I'd much rather live there than in Iowa City. I'm sure the instruction a student receives in Michener is very comparable to that of the IWW. That being said, I want to teach after MFA, and I think Iowa might look a bit better on a resume when applying to jobs, but who knows? I noticed from some of the department's video interviews that it seems like students are kept on at Iowa in some capacity after they graduate, so maybe there's some employment stability there.
On 1/11/2021 at 3:04 PM, mrvisser said:I could really compete for a spot at Iowa or Michener
On 1/16/2021 at 11:14 AM, mrvisser said:I think Michener has replaced Iowa as my number-one.
-
2 hours ago, eternalwhitenights said:
Jesus is REALLY teaching me patience.
If Jesus taught me anything this year, it was to give up early because every school said no. A straight flush.
1 hour ago, mrvisser said:I think we've got this next year!
I might quote you on this one year from now. See y'all next year. It's been a pleasure.
-
6 minutes ago, Ydrl said:
Whoops, my bad. I’ve been calling you he, they, and she this whole time.
No, no. Strive for the point where you don’t care what they call you. Let them call you a troll or Lucifer or retarded or mediocre or dull or rejected. It should never matter. Reach the level where you must strive to remember the silly time when it did matter.
-
7 minutes ago, eternalwhitenights said:
And, as much as it'd be nice to say I did it all myself, Jesus has truly been with me every single step of the way. I couldn't, and wouldn't, be here without Him.
I use a different opiate. Marijuana.
-
12 minutes ago, eternalwhitenights said:
I'm sorry to hear that. I still believe in you, for what it's worth.
?
But there is nothing to be sorry for. I’ve said it before. The more the early rejection, the greater the share of honor. Feel sorry for readers who may be deprived of my words. Feel sorry for those contorting rejections as the best outcome for practical purposes. It is they who merit your sympathy. As far as practicalities go, no, rejection was not for the best. Fortunately I am a woman who never cared much for practicalities.
-
-
13 minutes ago, eternalwhitenights said:
I didn't get in to ND, unfortunately. ?However, this past week, I have discovered within myself more resilience than I knew I had, and I'm actually grateful to know that there is so much work I can do to really improve my craft over this next year, and then reapply
I’m not surprised that you don’t think all hope is lost. With me, all hope was lost a long time ago.
-
4 minutes ago, mrvisser said:
Poets and Writers used to do a comprehensive ranking, but they haven't done it since 2012 because they realized there's no good method to objectively rank schools.
I don’t believe that is why they stopped. They stopped because poets complained about ranking art and people. There is no precise way to rank anything, but I don’t need a magazine to know Columbia is no longer one of the top five pickiest.
-
Just now, Boomer not Ok said:
I agree prestige is correlated with percentage of acceptance but my point is Columbia is still "competitive" but maybe not prestigious. They seem to reject many more than they accept.
That is temporary. A few years ago, no school was fully funded, and Columbia was top five. Then the top 60 schools started to be fully funded, but the New York schools didn't. Columbia is no longer top five or top 60. It is just a matter of time before it basically accepts everyone. Or it will start funding.
No mass numbers will pay out of their ass for Ivy that is open admission. Harvard Extension School and Columbia College of General Studies are open admission Ivy, but only alum's like Jessica Silfa calls them Ivy League.
- Yellow62 and frosty.dog
-
2
-
5 minutes ago, mrvisser said:
You underestimate the rich and connected.
It is not a matter of rich. The prestige depends upon how hard the program is to get into, not just on who teaches. Have you seen a single person posting an intimation of choosing Columbia over a funded program? The article from the Atlantic is two years old. A lot has happened in two years. A lot more schools became fully funded. Who is Gustav?
-
12 minutes ago, Boomer not Ok said:
It seems Columbia MFA is very competitive despite the funding. I'm not sure of the "hard" numbers of fiction acceptances, but I think it's around 60-70 a cohort.
How do you know it is still competitive? I doubt there is a single person who will turn down ANY fully funded program in order to pay for Columbia. That means Columbia is now the 61st most competitive program. It is almost certainly behind Brooklyn College which charges $8,000 per year. There are posts about Brooklyn, but I haven't see any about Columbia except to complain about tuition.
-
11 minutes ago, Starbuck420 said:
it's true, but I don't think they care, tbh. this is how all of their masters programs work. they don't give aid, make everyone pay sticker, and they get away with it because they're Columbia lol. Pretty messed up, but I think it's working exactly as they intend
I disagree. Columbia has a lot of open admission, money making programs including undergrad College of General Studies. Most of its masters programs are like that, but the MFA in writing is a prestige program. They don’t want it to be known as open admission.
2021 Applicants Forum
in Literary
Posted · Edited by Gertrude.
Every phrasing is a simplification, including “objective.”
I had one teacher with the attitude that there is no objective better. You could give anything a third grader wrote, and he would think it isn’t necessarily any worse than Shakespeare. He would want to weigh pros and cons. If he taught Directed Writing, he would give no edits. He is in the minority. There is no point to school if he is right.
Objective error in writing doesn’t mean someone claimed 1 + 1 = 3, which is literally the only objective error possible. Objective error in writing mean 9 / 10 good readers or writing professors will agree one version is preferable. If only 7 / 10 will agree, the error can only be called subjective.
It probably would be better to take out “huge” also. I actually found “foundational” more distracting because it is more an abstraction and pretentious. It gave an aura of a writer trying to impress (or indulge his idea) with a complicated or fancy form, when there was no new substance. I didn't sense the author's appreciation of the need to keep a vigil for simplification.
Repeating things can be a valid tactic. An author might decide that comparing something to breathing wasn’t enough. She might want some elaboration, but that is usually done through an image, not a petty abstraction, like adding the word “foundational.” This is sometimes called "overwriting." It is a rookie instinct that always fades. Hemingway goes aggressively in the other direction.