In Patagonia
We recently returned from a fantastic first trip to Patagonia. Like thousands before us, we packed a copy of Bruce Chatwin’s book In Patagonia - an instant hit when it was first published in 1977 which has remained in print ever since.
A relief, no doubt, to its author, who had spent several years working on his previous book, The Nomadic Alternative, only to have his publisher reject it after reading fifty pages they described as: ‘Terrible.’ ‘Sterile.’ ‘A chore to read and, we imagine, a chore to write.’
Hardly ‘constructive criticism’. At least not if you interpret that term, as seems to be now the fashion, as requiring that anything you say that is actually ‘critical’ be accompanied with at least an equal amount of ‘positivity’.
An approach you might persuade me is appropriate with young children. But with people who call themselves ‘grown-ups’?
Let’s imagine Chatwin’s editor had tried to be more ‘constructive’.
‘I really liked character x and your description of the landscape in y - maybe you could a do a bit more on those and a little less of the stuff about z which occasionally gets slightly repetitive.’
Would that have been constructive?
Well, not if it had encouraged Chatwin to keep working on The Nomadic Alternative, to which he could have devoted years’ more effort and still had a rubbish book rather than the best-selling modern classic he wrote once he had junked it.
I was thinking about this when, after working on a script for several months, I shared it with a friend. Who told me it was one of the worst things he had ever read. Unlike Bruce Chatwin (and perhaps ill-advisedly) I’m not abandoning it, but at least I’m not in much doubt about the scale of the challenge involved in fixing it.
Was his comment hurtful? I’ll survive. But helpful? Absolutely. And a lot more ‘constructive’ than feeding me some guff designed to spare my feelings (and his embarrassment) by telling me ‘there’s a lot to like but maybe one or two scenes that might benefit from a bit more work.’
Leaving me thinking my script needed a few tweaks rather than the wholesale reconstruction on which I’m now working.
