Sometimes a reader can tell us without difficulty or hesitation exactly what was going on in him as he read our words -- either because he was surprised by his reactions or because he was in a particularly meditative, self-reflective mood. But often it is difficult for readers to tell in any detail what was happening to them as they read. Nor is this necessarily a fault. One of the marks of good reading is wholehearted investment in the words and meanings and no attention to the self. If a reader can remember nothing at all about what was happening as he read your words that may be a sign of total success.
The forty-one questions in this chapter are just specific practical ways to ask your reader three broad questions about how your words affected him: | | What was happening to you, moment by moment, as you were reading the piece of writing? | | | Summarize the writing: give your understanding of what it says or what happened in it. | | | make some images for the writing and the transaction it creates with readers. |
But as wifters we need to know what was going on in our readers. It would pay us, if we could, to hook up little cameras in all the corners of readers' innards so we could see all the thoughts, images, feelings, and impulses that occur as they read our writing. I like to call reader-based feedback movies of a reader's mind.Get a reader to answer enough of the following questions and you will get those movies. Being inside his skin as he reads your words is the most valuable experience you can get as a writer. It is valuable for readers, too. They not only discover more than they knew about this particular piece of writing, they also learn to be much more perceptive readers.Remember, however, that these questions -- and I give a formidable number of them -- are nothing but ways to help readers tell you how they experience your writing. Some readers will give you good feedback without your asking them any of these questions at all. You can just sit back and listen.a. What was happening to you, moment by moment, as you were reading the piece of writing?Stop reading after you have read only one or two paragraphs or stanzas. * | 1. | What was happening to you as you read this opening passage? | | 2. | Tell which words or phrases struck you most or stuck out or had resonance. | | 3. | What has this section just said? What do you now expect the whole piece to say? (In the case of a story: what happened and what are the implications? What do you expect in what follows?) | | 4. | What ideas or beliefs or feelings do you bring to this piece that could influence the way you read it? | | 5. | The writer has just, as it were, introduced himself to you. How did he do it? Formally? Casually? Intimately? Jocularly? Did he thrust out his hand for you to shake? Sidle up to you without looking at you? What sense of the writer do you have now -- on the basis of this limited introduction? | | 6. | At this early stage, are you more with the writer or against him? dragging your feet or helping pedal? | | 7. | What do you want, need, wish for now? If you are fighting the writer now, what would it take to get you pedaling? | | 8. | Continue reading. If you have a copy in your hand, make light pencil marks to give a fuller record of how you are reacting to the words: put a straight line next to passages and underneath words and phrases that work or please you; a wiggly line in the same way for parts which don't work or bother you in some way. Stop once again -- half or three-quarters through the piece. * | | | What has been happening to you and what is happening to you now? Tell it in the form of a story: first this happened, then I noticed that, then I felt this, and so on. For example: First I was open and sympathetic to what I thought you were up to. But then without noticing I drifted into resisting what you've been saying. Something made me feel "Wait a minute! There are things that don't fit!" Somehow I became an adversary, you became my enemy. But now that I stop and think about it, basically I agree with you completely. The trouble is you seem so wide-eyed and innocent and naïve -- as though you are always saying "gee, gosh, golly, isn't this idea wonderful and amazing." I want to attack this naïve childish tone. And yet your main assertion is something I agree with. I guess it makes me mad to have my wise sophisticated point of view look silly and naïve. Make sure to tell everything. Even if it seems irrelevant. If you started daydreaming or thinking about your new shoes, that's feedback. The important thing is to tell the writer where you were in his writing when it happened. All feedback is mixed with subjectivity. Let the writer do the sorting. | | 10. | What changes have occurred in you since before? If you | | | were with the writer earlier and now resist or doubt him, where did you start to part company? (Or vice versa.) Why? What would the writer have to do to get you back? | | 11. | Point to the sentences or passages you liked especially. Point to the ones you didn't understand or which made you stumble or resist. | | 12. | What do you expect next? What do you need before it ends? Stop right after you have completed reading it all. | | 13. | What is happening to you now? Changes in reaction or loyalty? What's the most important thing about the piece? | | 14. | How would you instinctively reply or respond if you weren't trying to give feedback? Would you tell the writer something similar that happened to you? Ask him what was going on in his mind when he wrote? Quarrel with him? Ask for clarification on some issue? Ask: "Did that really happen to you?" Ask: "But then what happened after the funeral?" Comment on the meaning of the story? Ask something about technique, such as "What made you decide to start with the shooting instead of the quarrel?" Ask him out for coffee and seek to know him better? * | | 15. | Describe the way the writer ended his piece. Describe it as though he were ending a letter, saying good-bye, ending a telephone conversation: Did he hang up abruptly? Stand around on the doorstep unable to finish his sentence and say good-bye? A sudden gush of warmth? Did he slip out without anyone noticing? | | 16. | Which aspects of you does the piece bring out? Your contemplative side? Your childish curiosity or eagerness? Your motherly or fatherly helpfulness ("Let's see how I can help out this nice young writer")? | | 17. | What kind of person has the writer turned out to be? How did he turn out differently from what you had first suspected? | | 18. | What do you like about the piece at this point? Remain silent and reflective for a few moments. | | 19. | What is happening to you? What delayed reactions or second thoughts do you have? Which parts of the writing seem to have been written in invisible ink and to emerge only slowly as you hold it over a candle? For example, | | It's been obvious to me throughout that I disagree with you entirely. But it's only now dawning on me gradually that I haven't been fighting you very much. Somehow you manage to give me your meanings as wholly yours. You don't make me feel I have to agree or accept them -- or even find them rational. I can be interested and curious from a safe distance. In fact I find my impulse is to come slightly forward toward you -- not retreat or push you away -- because you are giving me a chance to look safely at something I usually fight and push away. It's kind of a relief. Now read the piece of writing again. | |
| 20. Tell the differences between what happens to you on this reading and what happened to you on the first reading. | |
b. Summarize the writing: give your understanding of what it says or what happened. | 21. | Summarize it. If you have difficulty, pretend you only have thirty seconds to tell a friend what this piece is saying. Tell him quickly and informally. You don't have time to get it right or prepare an answer because the train is just getting to his stop. Let the writer hear you fumbling to find the center of gravity. For example, "Well, it's about a trip in the mountains. Or perhaps it's about survival. I guess it's really about the difference between men and women." Then summarize it in a sentence. Then in one word: first a word from the text, then a word not in the text. | | 22. | Summarize what you feel the writer is trying but not quite |
____________________ | * | You may have to push readers to give you summarizing feedback. They often resist it because it feels too simpleminded, too mechanical, too much like they are being given a sixth grade test. It's worth insisting on a summary, however, because without it you may misunderstand everything else you hear. Imagine hearing your reader say "I found your argument irritating and I especially wanted to quarrel with you in the third paragraph and in your conclusion" -- and doing your best to stand inside his shoes and find the irritating quality in your words -- and all the while not realizing he thought you were saying something entirely different from what you thought you were saying. Even if you have a poem or story, it's worth getting readers to summarize it; even to summarize the "moral" of the story or "meaning" of the poem. Many readers who consider themselves artistic will scorn to summarize a poem -- feeling it is a lowbrow thing to do. But you need to know how your writing has settled or sorted itself out or come to a focus in their heads. You have to give them permission to do what feels crude or imprecise -- permission to "do violence" to what you have written. Words won't get into anyone's head without a little twisting. You need to know the nature of the twisting that has occurred. | | | managing to say. Where is the writing trying to go -- perhaps against the writer's will? | | 23. | Summarize what you wish it were saying. | | 24. | Give an exaggerated summary. How would you summarize it if you were making fun of it or making a parody of it. * | | 25. | Negative summary. What is it not about? What is the opposite of what it is saying? What is it almost saying or refraining from saying? | | | |
c. Make up some images for the writing and the transaction it creates with readers. | 26. | What other pieces of writing does it remind you of? What forms of writing does it remind you of: a love letter? a federal interdepartmental memo? a "why-I-want-to-go-to-college" essay on an application form? a late night diary entry? | | 27. | Tell how someone different from you might react. "If my mother read this, she would think it was silly and not very funny." "If John read this, he wouldn't have a clue what you were talking |
____________________ | * | Don't ask for exaggerated summaries if you feel shaky about this piece or generally vulnerable about your writing. They can sting. But they improve the feedback immensely. So many readers beat around the bush and won't come right out and say what they see -- they hem and haw and tiptoe around their reactions and they are so afraid of hurting your feelings that you can't even tell what they are saying. They just fill the air with smoke. But when you tell them to exaggerate or make fun of it, this clears the air and they can just say it, plop it right down on the table. And when you get an exaggerated summary you find out how your words will probably be understood by readers who don't read carefully or sympathetically. I got the following parody summary of my earlier book about writing: "Writing is easy. You never have to try, it's never painful, just sit down and write whatever comes to mind and it will always come out just right." It makes me wince. I want to say, "Wait, wait, you made a mistake in your reading," but it's a perfect picture of how the book was perceived by readers with a strong antipathy to what I was trying to say. It would have been helpful to get that feedback before I finished revising the book. † This sounds odd, but try it on readers and you will sometimes find subtle but important clues about tendencies in your writing and your reader's preconceptions and preoccupations. Sometimes you don't get the benefit of a reader's regular summary (or other feedback) till he gives his version of what your writing is not about or not saying. ‡ Here are some metaphorical questions which will help readers tell you reactions and perceptions they cannot easily express literally, and even some reactions they were not conscious of. Don't push readers too hard to explain or interpret these images. That will hinder them from giving you good ones. Just listen and trust that you will benefit from them even if you cannot understand them or translate them into advice. | | | about, he'd think you were just describing a dream." "If I were a man, I would feel attacked." * | | 28. | Make up an image for the relationship between the writer and reader. Does the writer seem to have his arm draped familiarly over your shoulder? Is the writer shouting from a cliff to a crowd below? Reading to you from a stage? Sending a letter bomb? Speaking as daddy to his family from the head of the dining room table? Shaking his fist at you? | | 29. | What do you feel the writer is trying to do to you? Beat you over the head? Trap you? Trick you? Surprise you? Make you like him? | | 30. | Is the writer giving it? How? On a silver platter? Reverently for your worship -- but only from a distance? Laughingly? Is he holding back? Is be giving it and taking it back -- coyly giving you glimpses and closing the curtain again? Is he slyly trying to keep his meaning a bit hidden so only the right sort of people will get it -- wearing sloppy clothes with hidden signs of taste so that only special people will know that he's special too? | | 31. | Describe the writer's relationship to the reader in terms of distance. Close? At arm's length? Distant? Describe changes in distance that occur. For example, I feel the writer backing off toward the end -- clamming up, becoming a bit distant or formalas though be is suddenly embarrassed or awkward at realizing how much of himself he revealed." | | 32. | Find words or metaphors for the voice or tone in the writing: intimate? shouting? coy? tight-lipped? "I feel the writer being A cheery and jocular but really not letting himself show at all; the joking tone feels like a way of hiding or of not taking his own message seriously. Joe Jokester." Or I can feel the writer's shyness and self-consciousness coming through the words like a cloud of fog. It's as though he is on stage giving a speech and because he is so nervous he makes me feel vicariously nervous, I want to say, 'Forget about us and just concentrate on what you are saying.' " Describe the voice in metaphors of color; of weather (foggy here, sunny there). You can describe voice by comparison, too; for example, like Jack Benny? Kissinger? Edith Bunker? Try not to be | | | |
____________________ | * | This can be very useful feedback taken at face value -- clues to the reactions of different readers. But sometimes an element of make-believe or role-playing permits readers to express some of their own reactions which they weren't aware of or couldn't express. | | | influenced too much by the way he actually read his words out loud. Perhaps he read them shyly, but there is a domineering voice in the writing itself. | | 33. | Look especially for changes in voice. Perhaps it starts out all stiff, but then loosens up. Where do you see that change? Perhaps it takes on another coloration for the conclusion, for saying goodbye. | | 34. | Try conveying the voice or tone by mimicking it -- probably with exaggeration. For example, "Look, buddy, I'm in the know. I've seen it all, I'm a tough guy, you can't fool me." My tone in Writing Without Teachers was mimicked in this way: "I'm really sincere. You can really believe me. I know just how you feel. I'm a good guy. I wouldn't steer you wrong. Only, don't get mad at me if it doesn't work. I'm really trying as hard as I can. Besides, I'm having a hard time with my writing too." | | 35. | Do you feel a difference between the voice created or implied by these words and the actual writer who wrote them? If you know the writer personally you may hear the difference immediately and vividly: "How come you sound so pompous here when you never talk that way?" But even if you don't know the writer at all, you can still sometimes feel a gap of some sort between the voice in the words and the writer behind the words -- as though the writer is playing some kind of game or being slippery or ironic in the voice he uses. If you can feel this kind of difference, describe it in terms of tone of voice, appearance, personality, whatever. For example, "Behind the sweet and reasonable voice in this essay I sense someone who is actually angry." Make up an image or metaphor for how these two people are relating to each other. (In the D. H. Lawrence passage I cite in Chapter 25 on voice, for example, I feel the author smiling in a somewhat sly and sophisticated way at the ranting and raving voice who speaks the essays.) How do they feel about each other? What would they say to each other if they spoke? | | 36. | What images of the writer come to mind? Hunched over a desk? Sprawled on a divan? Sitting on a beach? How does the writer dress? Hold his body? Wear his hair? Let all images just be intuitive, uncalculated. | | 37. | Use camera metaphors for how the writer handles his material. Where does he move in close, where fade back? Where is it | | | sharp or fuzzy? What is foreground and background? Is he using special effects or gimmicks? Do they work for you? | | 38. | Whom does the writing seem to address? Strangers? An old friend? Dumbells? Prissy girls? Tough guys? Is it talking up or down? | | 39. | Describe the punctuation or rhythms (or indeed any tendency in the writing) in terms of a transaction between writer and reader. My wife was once telling me about how I had too many semicolons. I was resisting her advice stoutly, but then she drifted into an image: she felt me trying to keep her, as reader, on a leash, keep her attention on a tight rein, never let her look away from the writing or take a deep breath or relax for a moment -- as though I were insecure and afraid to give readers a full stop for fear they would drift off and not come back and pay attention to me. It made her feel continually tugged at. Suddenly I could feel what she was talking about and I had to stop arguing about the rules for legal semicolons and start listening. | | 40. | Try other media. Made a doodle or a picture or a bunch of sounds or a body improvisation to represent the writing or your reaction to the writing. | | 41. | As an alternative to answering any of these specific questions, try just reading the piece and then doing five or ten minutes of fast nonstop writing. You'll find that what you scribble down usually tells a lot about how you experienced the piece. This is a particularly useful procedure when you have gotten used to giving reader-based feedback. |
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