The Critic by Catharine Bramkamp

Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp as she shares with us “The Critic.” Enjoy!

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Encountering the Critic

We have all encountered the Critic.

Of course, good criticism is very beneficial. We need to know how to improve our work and understand if it’s working for the reader.

But it’s too easy for criticism to descend into toxicity.

For the truth is: writers are timid — Critics are confident. Artists are built from doubt — Critics are certain.

Critics love nothing better than to inform you of a typo in your handout or errors in your published book. (In a client’s book set in 1876, a critic pointed out that barbed wire wasn’t invented until 1879.)

The Sensitivity of Creators

Critics can be so righteous and terrifying that sensitive artists will simply stop making anything just to avoid confronting the self-satisfied censor and his negative comments.

We will work over an essay or a painting until holes are worn in the canvas and book chapters lose all color and light because we are so afraid of the Critic, of making a mistake.

That protection comes at a high cost. Our art is at stake, but how can artists cope when the entire internet is crawling with critics? Or Trolls.

My Encounter With the Critic

I was asked to create a class with very little turnaround time. At the class, one of the students arrived and the first thing she announced was she found a typo in the handout, the winner in a contest I didn’t know I had entered.

I thanked her for her effort and asked her to send me a list of the mistakes so I could correct them.

She replied, “Oh, there were just too many to count.”

In other words, she had no intention to help, her goal was to publicly announce that she was right, and I was wrong.

I would like to say that this woman came to some appropriately poetic bad end, but I never saw her after that class.

She was left to her fate, and I to mine.

The Difference Between Doing and Judging

I believe that:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better . . . credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. . .”
[Editor’s note: Quote from Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt]

What I have found is that those who sail, face storms, and risk wrecking their boats on a rocky shore are kinder to their fellow sailors than those who never wiggled their toes in the tide.

When you understand the effort, know what it takes to create, and appreciate how much nerve you need to present your art or speak to a group, you are far more likely to support rather than criticize.

What Kind of Person Do You Want to Be?

And if you are critical just to be right, here is your chance to change.

• Do you want to criticize, or do you want to dare greatly?
• Do you want to find fault or discover marvelous things?
• Do you want to demoralize, or do you want to inspire?
• Do you want to experience “the triumph of high achievement? . .”

And if not triumph, would you rather fail big “while daring greatly?”

Daring to Create

When you write, you are daring greatly.

You are doing, not watching.

You are beginning something that no one else has ever dared begin, let alone see through to the end.

Know that often the Critic is more timid and unempowered than we imagine.

They lash out at us because they aren’t doing anything themselves.

The only sure way to avoid mistakes is to stand still and touch nothing, and they know it.

Question the Critic

My upbringing by cautious, fearful people instilled in me a mindset of “don’t dare,” “don’t overdo,” and “don’t make mistakes.”

The worst messages to burden a creative with.

It took me years to overcome all that discouragement.

But I did.

Most days.

We all make mistakes. 

I routinely abuse my friends by asking them to volunteer as beta readers for my books.

They always confirm that I want them to circle any typos, grammar, or historical errors. (Or cooking, a friend pointed out a cooking error, no surprise.)

I ‌confirm, hell yes, and thank you.

Once those mistakes are discovered, I turn the entire work over to my brilliant copy editor, who finds more mistakes.

We try, we make mistakes. We hire editors.

When faced with a scary critic (and they have learned to be scary, many are bullies as well), question their legitimacy.

• Is the critic a fellow sailor?
• Has this critic done what you’ve done?
• Has he or she written a book?
• Submitted poems?
• Daily bled onto the page?

Because if not, well. . . .

You Have Already Won

If you create, you have already won.

Your daring and effort guarantee that your “place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

When a person is busy finding your mistakes, they don’t leave time to make their own. That is a terribly cold place to live.

The Man in the Arena – delivered by Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt – The Man in the Arena

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach, Chief Storytelling Officer, former co-producer of Newbie Writers Podcast, and author of a dozen books including the Real Estate Diva Mysteries series, and The Future Girls series. She holds two degrees in English and is an adjunct university professor. After fracturing her wrist, she has figured out there is very little she is able to do with one hand tied behind her back. She delights in inspiring her readers.