One thing I simply can’t do for aspiring writers is to critique their work. Very often I receive emails of short stories, autobiographies, poems, plays, drafts of novels, etc. with earnest requests from their authors to read, and then evaluate them—’give your harshest views, I can take them!’

And in all cases, I email back a very apologetic reply, setting out my reason as clearly as I can.

And it is this: I feel, in a general way, that art, whether it be literature or painting or dancing or music, is something so individual, so personal, even idiosyncratic that it is the artist himself who is ultimately the truest judge and critic. The question often is: how can the artist know his work is good if he is still at the preliminary stage of his art, still finding his way around? My answer is: Keep finding your way around. Work at your art, reflect on it, observe what other artists do, read what respected and well-known critics say about art, see how much of all this knowledge you can incorporate in your work.

After all this effort, you may have to start all over again. Take a second, a third look, an nth look at your work in a continuing exercise of self-evaluation. Are you comfortable with it? Do you, at some intuitive level, feel it is still short of certain artistic standards, and is in need of improvement? More importantly, is it an authentic reflection of the real you, with your real concerns, needs and passions, and not of someone else? Is it your authentic voice that is coming through, and not that of someone you wish to imitate?

There is no short cut to the hard work. That old axiom about art/creativity/genius, etc being only ten per cent inspiration and ninety per cent perspiration should be respected at all times!

There is a special danger in the case of an aspiring writer still struggling with the complexities of writing, and looking to an established writer to critique some submitted sample of work. The criticism of the writer-critic, no matter how objective she tries to be, will be coloured by her own experience, preferences and biases, with the result that it may, at the least, cause some perplexity to the aspirant, and at the worst, discourage him from ever writing again.

Many years ago, I was one of the judges in a short story writing competition. One of the entries was a story written in a style that didn’t appeal to me, and probably because of my evaluation, never made it to the top three. Then sometime later, a story by the same writer, with the same distinctive style, was entered for another competition and came out the top winner! I remember reading the judges’ warm, enthusiastic praise of it with its ‘fresh, unique’ approach to story-telling. I was just so pleased—and relieved—that the young writer had not been discouraged by his first failure but had persisted in his own authenticity.

Authenticity—this will be the crux of my advice to all young writers. There is no longer any authenticity if you write about something not because you are passionate about it, but because it happens to be what most people like to read about, such as crime and sex. There is no longer any authenticity if you imitate a favourite writer and let her personality overshadow your own.

Should the authentic aspiring writer realize his dream and become an established writer, his corpus of writing will have aconsistency of tone, theme, mood and vision, and hence will be identifiable to his readers. It will be distinguished from the works of other writers not necessarily because it is better but because it is uniquely his—his genuine voice talking to them.

I once said in a speech that I would rather be a true writer than even a good one, because nothing is so important in art—indeed, in life itself—as keeping faith with oneself.

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...