I'm a Dork

Why do I get so riled up about stupid things? I joined Goodreads not too long ago and I reviewed about five books and one of them, of course, was Self-Editing for Fiction Writers because I believe people should know about the abomination that is this book.

I got a reply. And if the reply had stuck to saying how he/she felt the book was helpful because of X,Y, and Z, it would have been fine and I would have said, "That's cool." But instead, it was a well-worded attack on my character. Basically, the replier told a story about a girl in a writing workshop who wouldn't listen to anyone's criticisms because she felt she was too brilliant to follow the rules. Then the replier went on to explain why real writers can "violate" the rules and why too much mediocre writing comes from people who feel that following the rules is somehow in opposition to being brilliant.

So I replied. With a long-winded explanation of why I hate THIS BOOK SPECIFICALLY. I listed other "on writing" books I admire and why I admire them and why THIS BOOK, in my opinion, is perpetuating mediocre writing. I also told the replier that I didn't appreciate her insinuation that I was a brat who didn't want to learn the rules and who just wanted people to think I'm brilliant. I didn't appreciate her comment being an attack on my character based on a book I didn't like that she did. (I'm assuming here the person was a female; I don't know honestly.) I invited her to try to change my mind about THIS BOOK.

The problem with my original review is that I made the mistake of saying that you can't put a prescription on artistic endeavors. I stood by that in my reply, but I explained that while I understand there must be rules we follow in order to separate good writing from bad writing, that doesn't mean it has to be prescriptive and in fact just shouldn't be. "Rules" can be presented in a subjective manner. What Self-Editing for Fiction Writers does is offer objective prescriptions of rules authors should follow if they want to be published. That has nothing to do with brilliance whatsoever. That has nothing to do with producing original or even good writing. It has everything to do with producing writing where these publishers can check boxes off of a list to make sure the writing they're publishing follows their rules. This leads to a homogenization of writing styles and techniques - and you know I feel I'm already seeing this in anthologies like The Best American Short Stories.

And what really upsets me is they basically say that if books like The Great Gatsby had come across their desks they wouldn't have published it as is. Well, and you would have been fools. Milton wrote a second poem after Paradise Lost. It is called Paradise Regained. It's written perfectly and was critically acclaimed during its day. Guess what? No one remembers that second poem. It is often flaws that elevate art to a higher level. It is often mistakes and experiments that lead to a new genre or style. We need something to debate or what is the purpose of talking about a piece of art for more than a year or two?

I should just freaking stay away from commenting and reviewing and what-have-you. I don't know why I take it all so personally.