When A Perfectionist Writes About a Perfectionist...

It's sort of funny that I decided to write a story about a girl who is a perfectionist for my Fiction Writing class, and then to have it critiqued, thus hurting my sense of perfection (not that I really have one, but you know...). Anyhow, it was an interesting experience, but it's nice to know where I am as a writer. Apparently the two big issues people had with the story I wrote were that everything was too happy and perfect, and that I needed to include a lot more imagery. The imagery thing was not a surprise, I have the hardest time describing anything. The happy thing was a little surprising, not because I'm not that way because I am, but because I have a hard time seeing it as a problem. But I guess it's true I have a hard time writing about conflict and the messy stuff.

It was interesting how my dialogue was both complimented and... well... not complimented. I've always felt dialogue is my strong suit, and I think it may be when I write a conversation between two people. But sometimes I get off on these tangents and have a character make a speech more or less, which is not very natural. So... I've got to work on that. My Scriptwriting teacher has pointed out the exact same thing to me. I can talk for a really long time though, and I know other people who do too, so sometimes it happens. But no one wants to read it or hear it I guess.

My character development was mostly complimented, though everyone wanted more depth to one of my characters, and I agree now that I've had the chance to back away from my story a little.

It was also interesting to see how I wrote a couple of lines in the story about something I barely thought about, and apparently everyone loved the idea and wants to see more of it. It's so interesting to see this sort of feedback.

Anyhow, sorry if this rambling is uninteresting to everyone, I am just musing out loud. For anyone who has an interest in writing, have some people critique sometime. Not like your mom or your close friends, but people who also write or read a lot. It's an interesting experience.