I’d
been living in New York for about a year writing short stories when I randomly
met a woman who was sitting next to me at a play one night. Her name was Loretta. During the intermission we got to talking and
soon learned that we were both aspiring writers.
“Are
you interested in joining a writing group?
I just put one together and we’re looking for one or two more people to
join,” Loretta then said.
“Actually,
I was recently thinking that it’s probably time for me to start getting some
feedback from people other than close friends.”
“Well,
it would be great to have you come out and try it. We meet once a month at BAM-”
“BAM?”
“Oh,
it’s the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The
subway stop is Atlantic Ave- so it’s really easy to get to. There’s a little cafe on the second floor
that’s good for meetings. The group is
myself and two other girls. I can email
you details and the stories for the next meeting if you’re interested.”
“That’d
be great, let’s try it.”
“Oh,
I should tell you that we write genre fiction.
What do you write?”
“Mostly
literary fiction. Salinger - Bukowski type
of stuff.”
“I
don’t think that’ll matter very much-we’re all trying to write stories of merit. I’ll email you the details and you can let me
know.”
“Great,
thanks!”
As
agreed, a few days later I received an email from Loretta. She said that the next meeting was still a
few weeks away and that members could submit a story or chapters of a longer
work up to 5,000 words for each meeting.
She added that she would send me this month’s submissions as she
received them from the others. I said I
would be happy to try it and within a few days sent her one of my short stories. Soon after that I received the submissions of
the others and we were all set. I didn’t
immediately read the stories, as I wanted them to be fresh in my mind at the
meeting.
As
the date approached, I went to work. The
first story I dove into was by Loretta. It
was two versions of an opening chapter to a novel. Loretta said she re-wrote the chapter and was
looking for feedback. She wasn’t going
to tell which chapter was the original and which was the re-write. The title of the novel was The Song One Sings
and it had to do with three boys living in a ghetto in Ireland sometime in the
early 1900s. She used a lot of Irish
diction and slang from that time, which made it hard to understand, but even
so, the chapter went nowhere. Both
versions ended with the exact same sentence, which also wasn’t very good, but
it was clear that she really loved the line.
It was about two of the boys singing an old folksong together and only
when the third boy joined them in the song “they could be heard”. I hated it, but since this was my first
writing group and the first time I’d really meet these people, I made
constructive comments and tried not to be negative.
The
second submission was written by another member named Natalie called The River
of Night. It had to do with a brother
and sister throwing rocks at an old Indian woman who then chased them and only
when the sister arrives home does she realize that her little brother is missing. Like the Song story, it was part of a larger
work and also full of weird slang and dialect that held the story back. I didn’t empathize with any of the
characters- it all felt artificial and stale.
This whole writing group idea was losing it luster fast, but I stayed
focused, provided more constructive feedback and just wrote questions about the
plot or issues that were the most glaring or troublesome for me.
The
third submission was written by the last member, Stefanie, called Spirit Stone. It made the first two pieces read like
Shakespeare. It took place in some
valley in Africa in a vague time and involved an aristocracy. The names of the characters were strange like
Nkho, Chuka, Duaxa, and there were way too many of them. I couldn’t keep track of them all. It too was an early chapter from a novel and the
plot jumped around between characters with vastly different sub-plots with an
overarching theme that an evil plague was affecting the entire country. Toward the end of the chapter, the main
premise of the story (and title) was explained: there was once a male hyena
that was deeply in love with a female hyena, but the female hyena was madly in
love with a human man. Despite everything
that the male hyena said and did for the female hyena, she would not love him
back. So, the male hyena made a deal with
a witch doctor to make the female hyena love him and the price was the human
man’s soul. The male hyena then killed
the man and the witch doctor locked his soul in a stone, that was called the
Spirit Stone, and with this one human’s soul, the witch doctor also locked up
all plagues, droughts and famine from the world. Then the witch doctor put the Spirit Stone
deep inside a cave and under the earth’s surface and the hyena, if he ever
thought that humans were being selfish again, could go and hit this stone and
it would unleash great harm onto mankind.
I had to admit, it was one heck of a plot. I couldn’t get my mind around any of it. How was the man being selfish by having a
female hyena be in love with him? It was
beyond logical to me, but I hunkered down and tried to be constructive by just writing
down questions about the things I didn’t understand.
 |
| The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)- a good place to meet! |
I
went to the meeting at BAM a few days later with trepidation. I was the first to arrive, but Loretta soon
showed up. We talked briefly while
waiting for the others, but not about the writing, just about banal things. After five-to-ten minutes, the other girls
arrived and we got started. Both Natalie
and Stefanie were in their late 20s or early 30s. Natalie was a black girl with short-cropped
hair, a nose ring, the kind a bull has, and some tattoos. Stefanie was a homely looking girl, thin as a
pencil with glasses and oily looking hair in a ponytail.
Loretta
asked me to go first with my comments on Natalie’s story. I had on kid gloves and pointed out things
that I thought worked, a few sentences or metaphors here and there that I liked
and then criticized some of the grammar and syntax. The discussion went around the table.
After
Natalie, we did Loretta’s story and then Stefanie’s. The critiques were pretty bland and all supportive.
On Stefanie’s, I did say that I had an
issue with the Spirit Stone’s premise, as why would all of mankind’s plagues be
locked up because of this one man’s soul?
Her response was that the reason comes out later in the novel and that
she didn’t think it should be so straightforward so early in the story. I let it go and said something like, “The
writing flows well, but some of the grammar and syntax could use some work…”
Then
it was time for my story. Loretta started,
“Before I get into my comments, which I have a lot, I just want to ask you,
what is this story about and who would you say is the main character?”
I
must’ve looked like Hillary when she found out Trump had won. “The main character? It’s the boy, John of course- you know, the
person who the whole story revolves around?
As for what the story is about, well, it’s a coming of age story where
the protagonist realizes the dangers of building things up in one’s mind, but I
leave it to the reader to take from it what they see.”
“Oh,
that’s what I thought,” Loretta quickly confirmed. From there, the discussion went around the
table and all three of the girls were unified in their angst toward the
story. Apparently, they thought it was
as bad, or worse, than what I thought of theirs, but unlike me, they were
willing to say it to my face. The
conversation petered out about fifteen minutes later, we exchanged our
respective notes/manuscripts and the meeting ended.
We
all left together, but once on the street, Natalie and Stefanie went one way,
while Loretta and I walked toward the subway.
“So,
what did you think? Would like to be a
member of our group?” Loretta asked once
we were alone.
“It
was interesting- thanks again for inviting me.
Since this was my first time doing anything like this since college, I
wasn’t as prepared with my comments as I should’ve been,” I said, then added, “The
one thing I’m concerned about is genre fiction versus literary fiction. I wonder if it would be better for me to be
in a group of literary fiction writers, as I’m more familiar with that writing
and might be of more benefit?”
“Oh-
I wouldn’t worry about that. It usually
takes a few meetings to get to understand a writer and I’m sure all of us will
be able to give better feedback to each other after that.” Loretta assured me.
“Ok,
well, I’m willing to give it another try if you’ll have me.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Sound
great. I’ll email you next week with the
submissions, send over yours whenever it’s ready.”
“Will
do, thanks again. Goodnight.”
When
I got home, I went through the group’s written comments. I read Natalie’s first. Everything was pretty worthless, but there
was one line in my story where the protagonist, a 12-year-old boy, walks into a
cluttered office of “a large, overweight black man” which Natalie circled and
made the comment- “This is racist!!!”
Did she want me to say “African-American” whenever writing about a black
person? I went on to see what Stefanie
had to say.
Stefanie’s
notes, all critical, were littered throughout the manuscript, but she wrote a
paragraph at the end that summarized her views.
It started with some advice.
“Your story is hard to understand.
I think you should read more genre fiction and then find an author you
really like and copy his/her style!” I
gave up reading her comments right there.
Loretta’s were also useless, as it was clear that she had no idea who or
what the story was even about.
I
had a sense of dread in my stomach. It
couldn’t be more clear that I wasn’t going to get anything helpful from this
group and I wanted to write Loretta and quit right then, but I didn’t. I’ve always believed you should follow
through on what you say you’re going to do and decided to give the group one
more try despite all my misgivings. The
next morning however, I received an email from Loretta, it read:
Thanks for coming to the
group last night. After chatting with
the others, we think that we’re not the right group for you and your
writing. A writing group is a tough
beast and a lot of factors go into it, so I do hope that you keep looking for a
group that’s right for you and your story.
Thanks again and good luck, Loretta
Ouch. It felt like the hyena hit the Spirit Stone.
And, with that, I lost my first writing group.
###
Speaking
of rejection in NYC, here’s a link to a blog from the archive that deals with
it from a different angle titled "Rudy"- take a look-)
###
