On the Art of Suggestion

When I was going through workshops for writing, the most common mistake fellow writers would make during their critiques was to offer no solutions to augment the criticisms they gave. They would vaguely say, "I didn't like the part where the boy died" or "I got confused when you started writing in fragments on page ten." That's nice, and while it helps the author to some extent because he knows he has something to fix (possibly), he may not be able to see why he needs to fix it because he doesn't understand why it was unpleasant or confusing. Generally, fragments are confusing because they are unfinished thoughts, but maybe there were effective fragments and uneffective fragments and being pointed in the general direction of the effective ones would help. Telling him to cut his entire tenth page or to change his ending so the boy doesn't die isn't enough either. What if the boy dying isn't really the problem but some misconception about the events leading to his death? What if the reviewer just can't handle death scenes or just would have liked a different ending and is pouting about not getting what she wanted? What if the author does change that ending and the story suffers because the death wasn't really the problem at all?

I think about this when I read people's critiques of various projects. Take for instance Dan Savage's "The Trevor Project," a series of articles and videos directed at kids who are questioning or declaring their sexuality. Many of the videos in particular are celebrities talking about their own experiences with bullying or violence and how they felt like the pain would never end. The message is that while the world seems too cruel a place for any kind of happiness to be conceivable, there is hope and these people are glad they made it through the pain because their lives are better and they hope in turn to make the world better for kids who are experiencing the same as they did.

Now, look, I understand the common argument against this project. The argument is that the message shouldn't be directed toward the LGBTQ or generally bullied community, but instead the message needs to be directed toward the bullies and those who allow them to continue acts of hateful violence. Too true. But...I think that's very idealized. I would love to see every single school, office, city, state, and country adopt policies completely protecting the rights of every person to live their lives as peacefully and happily as they can imagine. I truly believe in the idea of protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But I also understand that this cannot happen overnight and it can only happen in small steps. That's why I don't understand why anyone would call a project like "The Trevor Project" a failure or critique it for what it's trying to do. One major outcry I hear is that kids don't care about the future because they live in the present and only the present. First of all - NOT true. Kids dream. They imagine their lives ten years down the road. They imagine their weddings and their children and their careers. True - a lot of kids in violent are otherwise harmful situations can't always think about the future because it seems so far away and unreachable, but that does NOT equate to only living in the present. In fact, they are in the very essence of that idea thinking of the future - albeit thinking of it as something they're unsure will ever come. But they dream about it coming, nonetheless. Even the smallest hint of how the future can be better can give their dreams a reality they had never dreamed of before.

Secondly, I hear the message isn't good enough. How can telling them it gets better make their current pain go away? It doesn't. I and the dissenters say the same thing though in different contexts. They say it doesn't go away in a condemnation of slapping a Band-Aid over a ten-inch cut. The kids are still in pain, they are still being bullied, they must still face intolerance every day with nothing but some silly message about how someday they'll wake up and it's all better. Well, yeah. It doesn't go away but that's not the point of the message. The point is to reach out in any way possible to help in any way possible. My question is, how can reaching out possibly be wrong?

Thirdly, I hear it's patronizing and demeaning to the intelligence of these kids. I think that is a slap in the face to the thousands, no, millions of kids who have posted comments about how much hearing someone else share their pain has helped them. I just read a comment about how an adult who had suffered through bullying in her youth would have given ANYTHING to have felt some shred of normality, to have felt like she was not alone. That's what I hear from so many kids I know, these kids who believe their feelings or desires or dreams are wrong because they don't know anyone else who thinks like they do. You know what "The Trevor Project" gives them? Knowledge. Knowledge that other people do think as they think. Others dream as they dream.

All of that said, what I want out of the critics is a solution if they don't think "The Trevor Project" is good enough. I want them to build upon this project - because ultimately a project is something that will be worked on, hypothesized, theorized, rearranged, carried over, torn down, rebuilt, rinse, repeat. Many famous authors say that a story is never finished, not even if it's been published for a hundred years. Make a video pleading for zero-tolerance as a government mandate in all schools. Write an article about how to approach the parents of a bully to get to the root of the problem. Start a campaign to force authority figures (such as principals) to complete some kind of psychology training to prepare them for the violent mentality of those who cannot accept differences. "I'm just talking, folks, ya get it? I'm talking. I'm talking. Talking. You talk to people, you find out about them. Maybe you reveal a little bit about yourself in the process. But the main thing is you get to know them, you go inside their head. You find out what their dreams are, what their hopes are...." (Believe it or not, that quote is from the first episode of Night Court.)

The other day I desperately pulled a teenager I know aside to talk to her in the only five-minute time I knew I had to be alone with her. Her world is turning upside-down right now. You know what I said to her? I told her to talk to me. That's it. I asked her how she was doing. I told her she could tell me anything that was bothering her, worrying her. And she did. She knew we didn't have much time. At first she was reluctant. One reason is another friend of ours made the comment that this girl shouldn't have anything to be depressed about because what do teenagers have to be depressed about? She said that to the teenager. I was horrified. She has everything and nothing and everything to be depressed about. The teenager told me how much she hates high school because the other kids are just assholes who go around making everyone around them miserable. I told her how I felt the same way and how much better college had been for me. In other words, I told her it gets better. I will never, ever forget her smile. I told her she will have so many more options for friends and situations in college. I told her how I thought I would know the people from my high school forever...and how I didn't even recognize a personal bully when I saw her ten years down the road. She had faded from my life like a pressed flower. I asked the teenager if she was getting therapy. She is. She's really stressed out by her mom right now, too. The other day, her mom came and told me and the other friend that the teenager is manipulating people and not to be sucked into her lies. But you know what? Even if that's true, what if it's not? I've never known this child to manipulate me. What if her mother is the reason she's crying out for help? You know what's going to happen when she goes away to college? She'll get away from her mother. And maybe it will get better.

So I watch the videos on "The Trevor Project" where these kids talk into a computer screen and feel like they're talking to someone, anyone. And while they receive messages that are unkind, they also receive an outpouring of support they never dreamed possible. In any way possible. Let's take this idea and build upon it. Let's shape it into something less confusing. I don't like that the boy died. But I do know how we can begin to fix it.