Take This 1 and (Shove) Love It

I read the review. My chin left a bruise on my sternum.

I joined this online critique group, the name lost somewhere in the aging folds of my memory, only a week prior to this literary catastrophe. I don’t know why I chose this site out of the plethora out there, but I did, and this was my first story since joining.

It was a good story. I knew it was good—like the second-coming-of-John-Steinbeck good.

I reread the review.

My pride hissed through the hole in my ego. An empty hologram, I heard the chuckles and catcalls of “You thought?” and “You suck!” echo from the deepest gatherings of my doubts.

She, the reviewer, ripped it from eyebrow to toenail. When I was in grammar school, we called the nun that taught us English “Red” because of the red pen she always carried, her weapon of choice for writing notes and corrections on the stories and essays we offered for sacrifice (or for the poor souls in Purgatory). If Sister Red got ahold of this story, it would’ve looked as though it had been through major surgery, bloodied with sarcasm and strike outs from title to margins, something akin to a white shirt after an all-you-can-eat Knights of Columbus spaghetti dinner at the church hall.

I read it again: “…you split more infinitives than nuclear fission splits atoms!”

Ouch! It’s my first story, for God’s sakes! A one! A sharp stick in my heart. I’m melting.

“Missing commas; open quotes; head hopping like bunnies on uppers, your characters suffered extensive bruising.” Then there were the sarcastic notes like, “Oops! There it is again. Pesky little munchkin.” Had to think about that one. Was that you, Sister Red?

Reading it once more, I cursed under my breath, something that sounded like rich, shut off my computer, and swore never to allow such humiliation again—ever!

It took me a week to return, my pride bandaged, and my ego patched and assuaged. I don’t know why I came back. I almost quit, “I don’t need this crap!”, but I came back. Why? Because something about her review struck me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but as I read it, I saw a pattern to her words. She took aim at my mistakes, not at me. Like Sister Red holding up that hemorrhaging sheet of paper, she told me I needed to pay attention!

I sat back and thought about it for a long while. Why would she do that? She doesn’t know me from Thorndike.

The website was one of those that offer you an incentive to review others’ work. Once you’ve written enough reviews, you receive a reward that allows you to submit a story of your own for review. I’d been on a couple of other sites before this one and remembered why I left. The reviews were worthless. The reviewers wrote a few words, nothing of substance and only to complete enough reviews to submit their own work. They didn’t care about me or what I wrote.

But there was something about her review. I compared her comments to what I’d written, and had to agree with her that the mechanics, not the writing, sucked.

My anger at what I thought to be a shitty review turned into embarrassment, embarrassment for submitting such a childish piece of writing. Another thought occurred to me: I didn’t start writing until very late in life. Much of what Sister Red taught me I had blown off before the next class and what I kept had faded with time. So, I was that child in grammar school, submitting that story to Sister Red’s shredder.

That was a tough pill to swallow. I shook my head and sent my reviewer an email to thank her. First, to thank her for taking the time to read, read my story and second, to thank her for her detailed comments on the errors, omissions, and poor constructions that I had believed to be a boon to the written word. I wrote and rewrote and edited, yes—I edited that email, and sent it off into the electronic netherworld, expecting never to hear another word about such abominable writing.

Wrong, again. Less than twenty-four hours later, a reply appeared in my inbox.

Shit! Now what? I didn’t want to open it. Did she forget something? Maybe she took a break after the last one, to gather her thoughts, and this is volume two. Maybe my writing did suck, and she’d just worn out her fingertips with the first round of comments.

I opened it, and I was wrong, again. In fact, I read it three times. In it she offered the best piece of advice I’ve ever received about my writing when she said, "Get over it!”

She must’ve sensed from my email that her review had wounded me, a common occurrence I suppose for a first review, but was I that obvious?

She told me to wish for and embrace a good review, one where the reviewer takes the time to dig into the guts of your story and illuminate the mistakes in mechanics, plot, timeline, and whatever, holding them up to the light, and shouting, “Pay attention!” She told me when I write a review, write a thorough review, not to humiliate or demean, but with words that enlighten and encourage.

Every writer wants to succeed. Every conscientious reviewer wants every writer they review, like me, to succeed. Why? Because that reviewer had someone take the time to help them toward their success.

That review was fifteen, maybe twenty years ago, but I’ve found her words as true today as they were then. I’ve lived by her advice.

Pay it forward, so to speak. I strive for honest, thoughtful comments designed to help each writer I review because she helped me, and someone helped her, and someone helped them, ad infinitum.

I’m sitting here reading this and smiling, not in smugness, but remembering that first review and how it changed my thinking. I think of her and muse, “Don't look now Mr. Steinbeck, I’m in your rearview mirror.”