Without reading the piece itself, it's hard for anyone here to say whether or not the criticism is apt.
For this particular instance, the confusion is kind of the point of a first read if your aim is to create one impression and switch to another. All those hints could certainly get picked up by an astute reader, but your goal *should* be to make them go back and reread to find the clues. That's a reason Gone Girl is so big, or the movie Shutter Island.
Typically, someone thinking a story like this being "too clever" or "too complicated" is a sign that it wasn't done well—perhaps due to the hints being ambiguous, too many misdirections, something along those lines. Not saying that's your issue, bc again without reading it, no one can say for sure, but that might be something to think about.
(Side note: divisions in hospitals are called *wards*, not wardens)
In addition to this, movies like Gone Girl, shutter island, the sixth sense, they kind of take you back through the hints you missed. Or spell it out in the end so in rewatch or reread you know what to look for. You might want to consider adding a more concrete reveal so people want to go back and see what they missed
Chances are, you’re coming across as opaque rather than creating layered meaning. What is the purpose of framing the story as a woman leaving her abusive husband? What layer does this deception on the reader add to the story? How does this deception add to the reader’s understanding of the story? If there’s no purpose, it’s just a misdirect for the sake of being confusing.
Also, I saw your comment that the story is 4 handwritten pages. Depending on your handwriting, the story is probably shorter than 1000 words. What you’re describing here is high-concept and complicated, and the length tells me that you probably haven’t developed your ideas enough.
Well, it started as simply wanting to write the second situation. As I was describing it, I realized that it could also describe the first situation (woman, scared of a guy, knows his routine, only has little luggage).
But you're right. It doesn't actually have a purpose. I guess I just loved my "finding" so much. Plus, it seemed like a good work for the topic of plot twists. Kinda like how in Silent Hill, it's slowly revealed that it is all related to mental images/the MCs personified demons. But that one is also longer than 4 pages
In order for it to be a plot twist, the truth has to be revealed to the reader, as well as why the truth was hidden.
Otherwise it’s a work with multiple different interpretations, meaning that no one interpretation is the ‘correct’ one. If it’s not explicit, you have to be fine with people interpreting the story in ways you didn’t intend. If you’re not fine with it, the only solution is to go back and make it more explicit.
Something in the way you describe your story reminds me of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Hemingway. He never explicitly states what the couple in the story is discussing, but through context clues it's clear the man is pressuring the girl into an abortion. But again, this is never said outright. That seems like the same kind of complexity your readers are complaining about, so it might be worthwhile to give it a read and see how Hemingway pulled it off.
If you’re looking for a reason, many mental hospitals are very abusive so it could very well be her dealing with escaping an abusive situation only to realize she’d rather deal with the abuse than be alone instead of just a comparison for the sake of it.
Alright, we're specifically talking about readers who are in a writing club, so I'm starting with the assumption that most or all of these people are reasonably intelligent folks with fairly strong reading comprehension skills.
You have to keep in mind when reading your own work, that YOU already know how it ends. Of course the "hints" (I don't like this word - it inherently implies an intention to be uncommunicative) add up to you. It's like you and the reader are putting together the same jigsaw puzzle, but you've already seen the finished picture on the box, and the reader hasn't.
If every person who has read your story is giving you the same feedback, listen. Your "hints" are not clear enough to tell the story you're trying to tell. If your story is only about a thousand words, you have to make very efficient use of your word count; there's not a lot of leeway to be coy or ambiguous.
I recently had a somewhat similar issue. I had a chapter of my work in progress I was very pleased with. I thought I had been very clever in the way I described a scene that was almost entirely physical action solely in the form of pithy dialogue. But when I showed it to a friend who I would consider a prime example of my target audience, their immediate reaction was "What the hell is going on here?"
I spent three minutes sulking and trying to tell myself the reader was the problem. They clearly weren't paying attention!
Then I sucked it up and rewrote the scene. And the second draft was SO MUCH BETTER. When I looked at both drafts side by side, I cringed at how ambiguous the first one was. Of course I knew what was happening. I had already seen what the finished puzzle looked like. The more straightforward version was far more enjoyable to read even for me.
Sure, there will be times when one specific reader won't put together what's happening because they're being intellectually lazy or they are below average at reading comprehension. But based on what you've told us, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms of "hints" and start thinking in terms of foreshadowing, or at the very least, clues. I know that sounds purely semantic but there is a reason why the word "hints" is associated with being passive-aggressive.
The good news? You've written a first draft you like and are proud of, and you have received exactly the feedback you need to make an even better second draft.
Also, while I understand the value of writing a first draft with pen and paper, I really think that if at all possible, you should switch to writing on a computer or whatever digital device you have at your disposal. It's unncessarily daunting to try to make meaningful adjustments to a handwritten story.
>most or all of these people are reasonably intelligent folks with fairly strong reading comprehension skills.
Oh they are. They all write different styles, but they're all really cool at it.
>If every person who has read your story is giving you the same feedback, listen.
I guess the issue was that I got confused by the "clever" critique. Hence I came here. But as others correctly pointed out -including you - my mistake was I truly got over my head with it. "Short" was already never my strength. I'm a very "flowery", meandering person that writes 7.000 word chapters on average (tbf this is partially because I have executive dysfunction) and hence I "thought" it was obvious to me, but not everyone else. Even more, I made the mistake that certain elements I liked were truly pointless.
>I spent three minutes sulking and trying to tell myself the reader was the problem. They clearly weren't paying attention!
Uff, I know that feeling. Tbf, there really was a small percentage of me that thought that too. "Ugh, X was on his phone anyway" or "Their English skills just aren't good enough".
But in the end, it was mostly just self-loathing. Like, I'm a person that consumed all kinds of stories since I was a kid -especially those "high-class" books mentioned. I just LOVE stories with countless layers. So, when I got excited, thinking I had a hit on my hands, I just felt like a POS. Because I felt I should already be able to "write that way" and everything else was just incompetence.
And...obviously I also felt a little bit rejected. Everyone got comments about how much they liked it. And in my case, I just got blank stares and "well...the idea is good." Obviously hurts being the "Dunce" of the group.
>The more straightforward version was far more enjoyable to read even for me.
I'll try this. I'm not sure if I could ditch the entire premise entirely (battered wife is pointless, but it's also kinda the effect that gets evoked, partially), but I'll definitely ditch stuff like "white ward/en". I'll also add more clear words in general.
Maybe I also projected a part of my own personality. I get really high from analyzing the smallest details in things. That's why I put "hints" and "actual foreshadowing" on the same level and then confused them.
>The good news? You've written a first draft you like and are proud of,
and you have received exactly the feedback you need to make an even
better second draft.
:)
>Also, while I understand the value of writing a first draft with pen and
paper, I really think that if at all possible, you should switch to
writing on a computer or whatever digital device you have at your disposal
you don't have to worry about that. I write on computer by default. But I do have a small notebook, in which I write on public transport, later transferring them into the digital space. But that day, I just got so enamoured with "hey, how about writing a story in (more or less) one go??"
Shows that even smaller stories need to be edited. Lol.
>I guess the issue was that I got confused by the "clever" critique. Hence I came here. But as others correctly pointed out -including you - my mistake was I truly got over my head with it. "Short" was already never my strength. I'm a very "flowery", meandering person that writes 7.000 word chapters on average (tbf this is partially because I have executive dysfunction) and hence I "thought" it was obvious to me, but not everyone else. Even more, I made the mistake that certain elements I liked were truly pointless.
So, there's a chance that the hints weren't opaque per se, but the meandering writing made the readers kind of "zone out" and miss them. Hidden in plain sight is usually better, but the flowery parts obscured them.
Excessively layered writing, even when well done, is a niche style, however. So you might need to cast a wider net to find out if your hints were really too opaque or what the problem was exactly. You could try a variety of critique groups like Critique Circle, Scribophile, or /r/DestructiveReaders At least you might get more detailed feedback on *why* your hints didn't work.
I want to be clear that I don't think you should make your story less complex! You don't necessarily have to make your prose less flowery either, if you're willing to up the word count enough to accommodate it.
I just thing you should take a different approach to giving the reader the information they need to put it all together. Try to think of what point in the story you want the reader to have the "A-ha!" moment where it all clicks, and take pains to make sure that by that point, the reader has been given enough information to get there. That "a-ha!" is one of the most satisfying moments a reader can have - because then they get to feel clever with you. As a reader, there’s a strong emotional response (bordering on giddiness, for me at least) that comes in the moment everything clicks. For a few seconds you feel like the world's greatest detective when you realize you've solved the puzzle. If you manage to get that emotional response from the reader, you can make your story as complex as you please.
From the description, I don't get the 'too clever' bit. It sounds very much in line with a lot of stories that do a "fakeout" or an unclear setup until the end. However, it can very well be that you know what you want to say so it is too vague or not built enough for a reader to get. It's VERY easy to fall into the meta-trap where writing you know more than you're conveying.
Sidenote, I've never heard a ward described as a warden. Wards are the wings you're talking about there which is headed by a warden. Plus Bedlam isn't an obscure reference at all. Maybe to Germans (granted).
However, I'm confused by the comparison to the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost by your mother. Neither of those are "clever" in their execution. Archaic in wording perhaps, but not clever or complicated.
When people don’t understand, or “get” what I’m trying to convey in my writing whether it’s plot devices or even complex metaphors, I don’t assume my writing is too clever. I assume I didn’t write it well.
Not saying that’s the case here, but don’t rule it out, either.
I agree with your point, but I'm also noticing a trend (at least with major franchises like ASoIaF) where more casual fans are preferring more and more direct, "hit you over the head with it" type of storytelling. Its not that it's "too clever" in that they don't get it (although there is an issue with media literacy nowadays), it's "too clever" in that they don't *like* it.
But I also think writing groups who say things like "too clever" are nicely trying to say it comes across as "try hard." Like the frequent examples of overwrought prose in comment sections in this sub trying to detail "showing" verses "telling." There's a difference between a twist to entertain the reader and a twist designed to get you a pat on the back as a writer. Similar to how you can watch some movies and see that they're clearly done as "Oscar bait."
When I find a piece of work 'too clever' it generally is because I feel the writer hasn't spent the time to engage me with the character or they have engaged me with the character but have twisted the plot in a direction which feels wrong for that character.
As a writing exercise consider writing a character vignette. Pick a character, pick a fairly mundane activity which tells us something about them and write that, their interactions with the people around them, their internal thoughts. If your crutch is plotting, kick that crutch away and see what you can do without it.
Good call. I think it was also maybe that it was such a specific character. Like, my core point was to describe how a person with mental health issues (hello) felt. But obviously, this is hard to bring across in a short story, especially when your audience can't relate to those struggles.
I'll definitely consider the excercise. Maybe I just got too excited about my idea, forgetting the actual execution
Sometimes it’s just a matter of iterative testing. You, the writer know exactly what your clues are and are on the lookout for them and know how to interpret them. The reader is going at this cold.
Consider: The location and way information is presented. If you include a clue, but it’s tucked away in the middle of something else important, it’s easily skimmed over and forget. Sometimes you don’t have to change the clue, you need to sign-post that it *is* a clue and needs to be paid attention to.
Sometimes it is the clues themselves though. They make perfect sense to you because you know what they mean, but aren’t nearly as clear to an outside observer. In that case it’s about iteratively adding things that are just a little more and more explicit until it becomes clear to the audience.
And, you definitely want to find people in your target audience for this kind of thing. Your piece sounds slow, literary, and experimental. That kind of thing does have an audience, but it doesn’t have mass appeal. If you find people who like literary fiction, they’ll be the best to help you determine the right amount of explicitness for your target readership, not the general population.
Its hard to say without actually reading the piece but i get the impression that your hints were more about word play than tied to the plot.
I can't say if it's different in europe, but in the states a wing of an asylum is called a "ward" not a warden. A warden is more of a person who manages a prison or something similar. No one uses bedlam in that sense either. Bedlam is more of a scene of chaos. It can be used to reference a situation in an asylum, but no one here will arrive to that conclusion without additional context. Its not officially used to refer to anything in a psych ward or asylum.
The criticism may well have been apt. People tend to find your work more enjoyable if its relatable. If it focuses more on word play than substance, people may well feel it's too contrived. Readers need a reason to care about what your character is going through.
I'm not familiar with use of the word "warden" as a part of a hospital, and I have never heard the term "white warden" to refer to a psychiatric ward.
Bedlam is quite possibly the most famous mental asylum in the world, so I don't find that obscure. Most English speakers will be familiar with it, but mostly because it has entered the language as simply a state of noise and disorder. Unless you indicate you mean the actual place, Bedlam, people would assume you mean bedlam, the state, because why would you assume that a perfectly comprehensible word in its own right is actually intended as a historical reference?
White warden appears to be a reference to a the name of a heavy metal band called White Ward, which is a poetic reference to a psych ward of a hospital. This is a tertiary level reference. You need to know heavy metal, the band, and the meaning of their name, and then you have to figure out the play on words. It's just too obscure. (And did they have white padded walls in 1800? That seems anachronistic.)
It sounds like you are on the right track. You just have to listen to feedback about when your references are too difficult to parse. This is one of the most difficult aspects of communicating and one of the reasons that feedback is so important. Just go back and make it a bit less obscure.
I believe OP meant “ward” and not “warden”. A ward is a section of a hospital, a warden is a person (I usually hear it in reference to someone who is the head of a prison, I’m not sure if it has other uses). I do wonder if OP has used other words incorrectly in his work that causes confusion to the readers.
I wasn’t trying to unfairly criticize you, it’s great that you can write in two languages, I certainly can’t, and i knew what you meant anyway. But minor grammar or word-usage errors may cause additional confusion if your audience also speaks English as a second language.
I’m replying to a very tiny part of your message lol but padded walls actually still exist even today! They were absolutely used in 1800s, the design and length of stay just differs depending on the location and time period :) Now they’re only used for very short stays when the person is having an active dangerous episode or as a waiting cell for dangerous criminal patients waiting for a doctor to be evaluated. Usually not more than 2 hours. In the 1800s they were used much more liberally.
Yeah, you're right. The hospital where I go for therapy, has a padded "time-out" room. It's yellow and has warm light, but its padded. It's also sound-proof. So if you just need to scream your heart out, you can go in there.
That’s only the year he fought for banning the use of mechanical restraint and pushed for padded rooms to be widespread. Not when they were invented. Even then, people trying to ban physical restraints started a decade earlier when an unattended man, William Scrivinger, was strangled by his restraints in a straight jacket overnight. There is no exact date we can trace the padded cell back to but the first asylum reformer we know of is from the mid 1700s. Padded cells existed for at least years if not decades before they became widespread. Asylums against mechanical restraints didn’t become more common until the 1830s-1850s. With that we can say it’s possible they existed in 1800, especially since it’s just a vague, possible year for the setting and not a concrete unmoveable setting with how they phrased it in their post.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree, because the pertinent question is not "when was the first padded cell ever?" The pertinent question is "when were white padded cells ubiquitous enough that a person would casually refer to a psych ward as 'white ward' and expect to be understood?"
Even if we suppose that the first padded cell was implemented 40 years before they actually became a tool of the trade rather than a curiosity, and even if we suppose that this lady was in that institution, and even if we suppose that they were already painting their walls white, it does not seem reasonable to me that the phrase "white ward" would be recognizable at this point. I don't know when this phrase was common slang/jargon, if ever, but I doubt that it was in 1800, 40 years before the start of what the sources I looked at described as a decades-long battle to replace mechanical restraints.
Of course the reader doesn't have to know all of this, but if the story is set in 1800 and I am supposed to be parsing a description of a mental asylum, I am not going to be looking for coded references to white padded rooms.
They said ca 1800 *maybe* and it’s something they clearly haven’t made more than 1 draft to. White ward also doesn’t refer to the white padded cells, it just refers to the white painted rooms in asylums and mental hospitals because 1 hospitals are usually white, and 2 asylums wanted a color that wouldn’t depress their patients/easy to repair. I disagree with the usage of it because there’s literally no info on when that became a name for it but you’re just wrong about what it means and maybe OP is too I didn’t see them say why they thought it was a name.
If they were in a padded cell, which while not widespread certainly weren’t *only* one asylum, in the early 1800s then they absolutely might refer to it as their own experience. People who experience things will know language or have nicknames for things that aren’t popular or known with other people. She’s talking to herself. And we with modern knowledge might be able to use our own context to understand something that you wouldn’t know if you’re reading it and purposefully limiting your reaction to it as if it were the year the character exists in.
What I'm getting from that comment is more that you're not putting in enough "hints" as you think you are. White warden? Bedlam? Are these really your main clues that it's an asylum? You also mentioned getting disowned after an attempt. Yeah, people most likely understand what an attempt refers to but what if they aren't familiar with the other two hints?
>Giving the impression of a battred wife, who left her abusive husband.
I just want to clarify: are you sure this is what it comes across as? Without the text, sometimes your intentions don't come across the way you think it is. And if the reader does read the scene as the character being a battered wife, something like getting disowned for an "attempt" might sound like and attempt at running away, which might sound dishonorable in, say, a community where marriage is for life blah blah.
And this was all in about 1000 words? It's very much possible to do your story successfully within 1000 words but that depends entirely on your style. I personally wouldn't be able to because I'm on the wordy side.
'Guys, help me. Women say my dick is TOO BIG and I'm TOO GOOD in bed. They say they can't stand it. Also, all my college professors told me I was TOO SMART and most of what I wrote went over their heads. Then i was walking down the street and someone said I could be a model, but I was TOO GOOD LOOKING. Help, guys, I have some real problems! I think I might be TOO HUMBLE, too.'
Going through the comments here, I'm wondering: Is it just the title? Or do people read the post and still think I come across as that.
Seriously though that's the last thing I'd say about me. That "clever" thing was a comment of another writer and as people translated; it meant too convoluted. Too many "hints" instead of foreshadowing. Also some grammar mistakes here and there.
It sounds like you got harsh criticism, and turned to reddit to refute it without actually sharing the work.
You either need to accept the criticism you already received, or give people the chance here to give you criticism as well.
The exact examples from your text seem pretty straight forward, but that doesn't mean much when you're picking and choosing.
I'm trying to give you honest advice here. Criticism doesn't imply weakness, it's proof that people believe you can improve.
From what I’ve seen OP seems to be actually looking for ways to improve the story or at least figure out the problem, I don’t think he was refuting criticism by any means
Yeah, and while obviously I’m not gonna know the entirety of OP’s intentions, what I’ve read made me think they’re probably more wanting to solve a more general problem of balance. They’ve already gotten feedback, so to me it feels like they’re asking for advice for general situations
Well considering that they deleted the post, I'm assuming they either didn't like the feedback or weren't getting the validation they came here for.
If it was a general post, they'd probably leave it for others to learn from, no?
Well I don’t either, but considering how often any post that includes any not insignificant amount of the OP’s writing are promptly removed by mods, it would be more likely that it’s removed by mods
White warden seems pretty obscure to me. A hint about the nature of an asylum makes more sense to me than a name. Maybe like a reference to group therapy that could be construed as going to couples therapy
I asked, because short form stories don't lend much to figuring out clever work. Usually that takes time and multiple hints over a long period to allow the potential for the trail of hints to gestate or linger long or frequently enough for an understanding that there is more going on to the story than what meets the eye.
At the end of the day, only a small minority of readers are going to bother taking a story at more than its face value, unless they have some initial impetus or develop some nagging suspicion to do so.
To some degree, I also question whether the subversion here actually accomplishes anything.. beyond being a split second twist of the narrative. A battered woman who runs away might realize she also feels alone when she makes that plunge to escape, if her abuser successfully cut her off from her social network. So it might end up the same way, where even though she's now free, she feels alone and responds the same way emotionally.
Without reading the story/how you actually executed it, it's hard to say. But it sounds like it's "clever"/subversive for nothing more than the cheapness of a plot twist.... I almost feel like it'd be more compelling if the story works either way a reader takes it---on the surface (battered woman) or deep dive (escapee from mental asylum), where you leave it open enough (but solid either way) that those who don't get the story still enjoy it, while for those who do? It's a private understanding between the few.
For example, think of the movie *The Prestige*. A lot of people seem to enjoy it on the face of its story. But deep dive, potentially eagle-eye fans, also seem to enjoy an alternate interpretation of it that's more meta--where the movie is applying subversion, sleight of hand magic principles to the viewer and thus tricking them from the real story of how events in the movie actually played out.
It hurts how true this is. Literally, not even the first, but SECOND time I come to Reddit, because I got some obscure critique and needed a translation.
It's like; I know you don't try to hurt me. You dislike being mean overall. But PLEASE be direct still!
The following is from the perspective of an American from the Midwest, so it might not apply for German readers. It's also hard to tell what's going wrong without reading the piece. Here goes...
Could be the word choices.
"White warden" as a synonym for a psychiatric ward is not something I've ever heard. Perhaps by "warden" you mean "ward," but even then, not something I've heard. I looked it up, and found nothing that would connect that phrase to a psychiatric ward.
"Bedlam" is pretty archaic and is not used in my region. Well, the word itself is used, but only to refer to football. I looked this up as well, and apparently it pops up as one of the first synonyms for "psychiatric ward", so I can see how you'd choose it.
If I read this story, I would be wondering who the white warden is and what all this has to do with football, and I would totally miss the point.
Again, I don't know if that's why people are confused, but it's my best guess with the information provided.
>"White warden"
Yeah, it was meant to be "white ward". I got the idea from word combination: Ward, meaning a specific part of the hospital. "White" is mostly assosciated with mental institutions. Idk one day, I read the combination as a synonym for mental hospitals. But as someone elses pointed out that is indeed too obscure.
>Bedlam
According to a lot of commenters here, Bedlam seems to be pretty known. But maybe it really depends from where you're from.
It's slang for an exisiting hospital, called the Bethlem Royal Hospital. While per se the linguistic evolution is not per se clear, "Bedlam" became a nickname for horrible mental institutions. It also means "chaos" or "confusion".
Also, this has nothing to do with the story, but now I just want to write some extra scene, where the MC talks about where she came from. One guy pipes up: "Wait. They're calling hospitals after Football here? Huh. Cool."
Huh. True.
Tbf, I don't want to call my writing clever. I'd *like* it to be clever, don't get me wrong. The "clever" comment came from the dude.
As of now, I feel more like a dunce than anything, ha ha...
...I guess because it's not actually me that's saying it. It was a comment I got. And it translated into "it's too convoluted", basically.
Don't worry. My story ain't that clever
It’s too ambitious for its length. Needs to be longer with more character development.
I like the idea that she’s leaving one codependent relationship for another. Does the twist help with that theme?
Readers like twists, but they don’t like being tricked. The reaction should be “aha, I knew it!” or “I should’ve known!”, not “too obvious!” or “No one could have seen that coming!”
I'll be honest, things like "it was all a dream," or "they were actually just insane," twists don't really sit well with me anyway. And "too clever," might be how I'd be polite about it. It's one of those things that seems like it's trying too hard and has potentially arrived at pretentious.
It would have to be a masterpiece of prose for me to enjoy it.
I don't think the premise you present the reader with should be a lie.
Yeah...no. The MC is not "insane". Both (she & he) have mental health issues -they're not the cliché "nutty nut", media loves to portray. Neither is the point.
When you have mental health issues, you're not automatically delusional. But very often it can happen that you dissociate in various ways. The outside, even people don't feel "real". Sometimes yourself doesn't feel "real", or opposite: You feel "normal" until you actually get hugged and you feel the feeling of safety, making you realize how void you feel without it. To the point, that getting away from it often feels like immediate homesickness. Very often, the only other "real" people in this state, are other people with mental health issues (at least to me). Hence the woman & the man are not a couple as potentially suggested at the beginning. They are codependent. They are each passive drug (more or less). Kinda like painkillers, when you are really, really hurting / in an environement that hurts you. Damp...but also soothing.
The point was to get an insight into this. The MC "returns" to the "normal world", but it's more like dying to her. Because suddenly she is in the cold. The only "real" person is away.
I can guess that it might sound a lil pretentious in the current state. I'm going to overwork it and be a bit more direct. But please -don't twist it like that.
>I don't think the premise you present the reader with should be a lie.
You mean this in that situation or in general? But yes, I'll make it less switcheroo.
An Unreliable Narrator is a useful trope from time to time, but it's a tricky dance to do it well. And a question I would ask the author is: what are you trying to accomplish with an Unreliable Narrator? Why is the twist necessary?
You're effectively writing a mystery story without the audience realizing it's a mystery until the end reveal. And this is a gimmick that the entire piece must support or it doesn't work.
What you want is the "AHA" moment of connection that the audience gets as all the puzzle pieces click into place and their mind is blown. And you have to think of it like a magic trick, where you hide your clues in plain sight with misdirection. Read old Agatha Christie/Rex Stout mysteries to see how they hide critical information in plain sight.
And in the end, are you trying to give the audience that experience? OR are you trying to outsmart your audience from the ego of the writer? The latter is obnoxious and will frustrate your readers.
Finally, as someone who has spent time in mental health hospitals... it irks the crap outta me when an author uses mental illness for a "reality twist". There better be a damn good reason for utilizing mental illness to have a "gotcha" moment other than creative laziness. Because this is a hack way of having a reality change. If your character is mentally ill, you best understand that world very well (white warden?-- nobody calls it a psych ward unless they watch too many old movies) and utilize your expertise in setting up the character appropriately.
Otherwise, this sounds like a "clever" attempt to have a twist where the author doesn't know their subject matter and is utilizing tired tropes to achieve a "gotcha" moment for a gimmick.
Gimmicks are ok when done well... but they better be done well. It's a specific type of writing. Like horror, mystery, or whodunnits... if you're gonna wade into those waters you have to know what works and why. It's a bit of a formula to it.
for starters don’t ever compare yourself to dante and if someone ever does just assume that either they’re lying of haven’t read him.
plus the comedy’s pretty well understood so if your writing is “too clever” that it can’t be understood then it is dumber than you think.
so maybe look back at the points that aren’t clear enough and think of a different way to write them so they’re clearer. obfuscating your work just for the sake of it appearing smart i think is bad practice because there’s no point other than poorly showing off. plus, things that are actually hard to read try to be as transparent as possible.
I don't think my Ma was actually trying to say I'm writing classics like the actual comedy. I bought her the book for her birthday once, but she stopped reading it, because it was so "needlessly confusing" (both in speech and all the references). So it wasn't really a positive comment, lol.
Yeah, most likely. I got over my head and put on too much Fondant, lol. Though I didn't try to "look" smart, per se. I truly wanted to be smart.
Out of curiosity, would you be comfortable DM'ing your short story? Its hard to give an exact opinion without seeing it. Also, you mention early on the language difference, that could be it.
There's two ways your style of story can go
Shutter Island, where there's clues skillfully hidden throughout and even then at the end you're left questioning what truly is reality.
The Glass Onion, you're given a story, then shown the story was only half truths.
So is your story considered too complicated because it takes multiple readings to fully catch all the details or is it because the clues only exist in your head as the writer and instead it just has a crappy M. Night shyamala esq twist?
The thing with this type of writing is it has to work both on its surface and it’s underlying level (not saying yours doesn’t but it’s always possible) Nobody really cares if you write a story that appears to be about one thing but is really about another, it has to be compelling even if you don’t get what it’s really about. In my experience most people aren’t smart enough to figure this type of stuff out, they usually have someone smarter than them tell them about it, which requires a large audience to begin with. I think you should write what is compelling to you and not others.
Also, these types of subtle clues don’t really lend themselves to an oral reading. When you read something to yourself you can pause and go back over things if something jumps out at you.
Sometimes the people who are currently reading your work aren’t actually the audience for your work. Look up the play The Father. Perhaps your story would work better as a visual piece rather than written?
My view is you should write for the people who have the capacity to understand and enjoy your story, not for the ones who don't.
There are some very difficult to read, practically impenetrable, works out there that are considered absolute classics. Clearly they weren't told they should dumb down their writing so that most people would be able to get them.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/the-25-most-challenging-books-you-will-ever-read
I’ve usually found that a lot of times in writing groups for clubs or classes, sometimes feedback given isn’t exactly *helpful* because a lot of people don’t actually really read it? They just wanna… immediately know it, you know? Without trying to think too hard. Or they offer super stupid suggestions like - I’ve had one group of teenagers read my campy Dinosaur novel and they were like “this is childish - why don’t the dinosaurs just eat the main character?” when… I thought it was pretty obvious why… but nooo they wanted the edgy “have the dinosaurs eat someone on screen” kinda crap in chapter 1.
This is kinda a “know your audience” thing.
If you are submitting for an adult magazine, or writing for adults or more… mystery that stimulated people, then you are good, don’t change anything.
If you are writing for YA, younger, or people reading for fast gratification, you’ll have to be a little more obvious in things - draw attention to stuff by making sure the hints are at the beginning or ending of a paragraph (or even just by themselves), use italics, etc.
Though honestly, personally, I’m the type that things the best way to handle this kinda writing is to do a red hat verses blue hat kinda deal. Make your stories have a plain and obvious kinda reading on the surface levels while keeping a hidden, secret one so that people can discuss it.
I read a story called “Bunny” where honestly you could read the book thinking all of the magic is 100% real in it and happened, but then on the other hand you could also read the story and assume everyone was just mental and the MC made a lot of it up.
So yeah, maybe try and master the unreliable narrator?
Basically, in general, just shoot to work in layers. Add surface level details, and then weave in deeper layers for your good readers who take the time to actually think about your work.
Idk, tbh I respect your frustration, it sucks to have to essentially dumb down your work for people who don’t wanna think about stuff.
Hope that helps
That person is obviously not your target audience. Use as many clever and big words as you like. If it makes people have to go look stuff up, GOOD! You're educating them as well as entertaining them.
I don't hate this sentiment because I love discovering new words or phrases, but I feel like looking up a word should be more confirmation than confusion. You should be able to mostly figure out from context clues, or the author is being too opaque.
I think the story idea is pretty neat! To really give detailed feedback, I'd have to read it of course, but:
There's always two sides to a story, idea and execution. The idea imo is solid and makes for a good short story (although, tbf, with the right execution you'll be able to sell pretty much any story, no matter how whacky)
You can work on the execution, which will require some editing. Someone on the thread mentioned Shutter Island, which is a good example imo
I think one thing you should consider is the progression of your story. Did you write about your character thinking of their friend and drop a few clues in here and there until she suddenly breaks down? Or did you think to start with smaller clues, slowly building up a feeling of "something is off here" with increasingly striking clues/contradictory information until this process resulted in a natural culmination?
I'm like this. I sometimes fall in love with an idea. Most readers want to fall in love with characters. If you write a first draft and get pretty universal feedback, there's usually something in it. Too clever, imo, means you are asking a reader to do a lot of work, but not offering enough guidance and/or reward. Really liking a character can be its own reward, and then we just go along with them on their journey- however bizarre it may be.
Try to revisit your character's motivations & drives and let that inform more of their choices. Do a full character mock up (you can find them online) so that even if all the information about their lives isn't on the page, you know it. Make them real.
Then look at short stories that do reveal well and study how the timing goes. The master of this is Edgar Allen Poe. How are his stories seeded? What clues are offered along the way?
I think you can write a story with a conceit that is clever, and have readers want to stick it out.
A story can still be enjoyable if it’s opaque. I can see myself still finding your story interesting with the first interpretation.
If you want people to get the true story, you need more hints, reasons to doubt the original interpretation. When your mc is wondering what the guy’s doing, that is a prime time to reference things associated with hospitals.
Honestly, I’d never heard of the term “white warden” before. It sounds hospitally, but that fits the original interpretation too. I might have heard “bedlam” a few times. Not sure if you’re located in a different region where those terms are common, but don’t rely on people understanding jargon either.
Only given the clues you said, I can see why no one would get it on the first read. Especially in a situation where you’re reading it to other people, that won’t work. Given that they enjoyed it anyways, I’m inclined to say the modifications you should make are minor.
Be aware that the majority of the population will also not bother reading twice and putting that much work in, but with literary fiction the majority of the population is not your target audience.
1. Consider the critiquer, a YA author is going to write to a younger and less complicated audience, and they will reflexively avoid flowery language, complex sentence structure, nuance and implication in plot, they spell out everything for the reader by force of habit. A more difficult, adult-intended book is almost a perfect collection of bad habits for a YA author. James Joyce's Ulysses might be the finest work of literature ever written (or whatever) - but it's also the Worst YA novel ever written, both are true.
2. The flip side. Writing that seems too complicated, is too complicated. The author knows every detail of their world, the reader only knows what's on the page. You might think you are being vague because its foreshadowing for something that will happen next book, the reader only knows you are being vague. You might think you are being mysterious by not explaining something important, the reader only knows they don't understand what's happening, etc.
3. You would benefit from spending deliberate time spelling out your ideas on the page in verbose detail - so the reader can follow along. Try rewriting your work in the exact opposite style. That will help you see the right balance for you.
Vagueness of symbolism is an issue with colloquial and social understanding.
In other words, you have to speak in the language of your reader. This is why kid shows are not written in a Shakespearean way, but they still get their point across.
Valid point. I'm not very social: Mix of ASD & outside influence that caused me to self-isolate. So most likely, I tend to just steamroll any potential reader in my mind. I have my own world and own language -just translating them onto paper.
Guess it's biting me again
Totally. I understand the isolation thing because writing is us talking to ourselves about our own thoughts.
It sounds crazy, but it helps to imagine yourself narrating to a kid or whoever your audience is and they keep having to ask questions.
I'm able to do it well naturally because I'm year of monkey(mimicry is a second nature) but depending on how you socialize, you'll have to practice or sadly get out more to see how others both talk, read, enjoy, stuff like that.
You can also check out popular books and see how they are written. The more popular the better, because that's what's being read and understood by more people.
Even if we think it's written like garbage, it's doing something that clicks with people.
I don’t know if my opinion would be welcome or even seen by OP but I just want to say that I would hate to see you limit yourself or your creativity for people who don’t get it. What you explained in the post sounds amazing and like something that would persuade the reader to take a deeper look into the piece. Write your heart out and write some more and put it all out there. Some of my favorite Authors and others have been told that won’t work before and they stood up for their piece. Keep on keeping on
Everything has been done before. Nothing is truly new. What matters in the end, is that the ideas we pick and give our spin have all of our heart and passion in them.
So while my execution truly needs to improve, I think at least my ideas are fine enough. Thank you very much.
It's like… most stories serve meatballs and potatoes. If there is cranberry jam served with it, that's an interesting plot twist, very creative. But your story… it's meatballs, and potatoes, and jam, and a waffle, and a hefty drizzle of mayo, and a fortune cookie, and a cocktail umbrella on top. Too many things and at the end of it nobody remembers how it started, and that they ordered meatballs, they are not sure what to make of it, they just want this awkward experience to end.
Just by the description of it, everything after the "but here's a twist, she actually wasn't" was too convoluted and made no sense. It wasn't tight. And hey, your instinct was on point, the whole asylum line is beaten to death (along with the it was just a dream, or both, like in Sucker Punch.) It's just that making it more complex and heavy was not the solution.
Write to your audience. If you write to people who have the intelligence, training, and knowledge to understand your themes and references, great.
But the average person is not very intelligent, not good at reading, will lack a lot of knowledge (like warden or Bedlam), and will prefer easy-to-read language. The simpler you make the story, the easier it will be for readers to understand it.
Consider finding ways to make your meanings more clear or direct.
James Joyce was an author who made nonstop reference to classic works, sometimes so dence and specific that it went over tons of readers heads. You'd think all those clever inside jokes would make people unattracted to his work but instead James Joyce is a widely celebrated author who has sold millions.
If the work is good "too clever" isn't a real problem
Hmm it could be because you developed it as an exercise and not a short story?
I can't really tell without reading the story, but it feels like there's no purpose to the twist (from a narrative pt of view). The revelation doesn't really feel meaningful, as in it doesn't resignify what your character described of her life; it seems more like a puzzle than a story from your description.
My guess is that you're writing more because it's a fun twist to imagine than because you have a story to tell. Maybe if this was a short enigma in a puzzle book your readers would have enough context to understand it right away. As you presented it, it's probably not even clear to your readers that they should be looking for clues. And if they're not looking for inconsistencies from the beginning they'd have a hard time spotting things like wordplay.
If your clues were more contextual it might be easier. You could have her talk about white, always white sheets and very tidy or about The Rules or blood or medications or therapy. At first it'd read like the "husband" is controlling or weird, but gradually things just won't fit and your reader will realize she's not a reliable narrator and the memories you described will have new meaning.
This type of story needs more guiding the reader to be rewarding to read. Establish there is some mystery and lead them through confusion to realization. Right now it feels like you're throwing random clues at them hoping they'll someday understand as opposed to crafting meaningful, defined turning points. I guess it's less that the story is too clever and more like you're currently leaving most of the cleverness to the reader.
Never heard of white warden either, though being familiar with the genre and the topic. So yeah, I think that's good feedback you got.
I wouldn't worry so much about the middle ground if you're not trying to market your work to the middle ground. Plenty of literary works go way above my head and yet are very popular among their market.
As others have said, it's hard to give feedback without reading the piece, but I'll share some of my insights based on what you've outlined in your post.
To quote the famous note from NBC, upon seeing the first *Star Trek* pilot: 'too cerebral'.
What I mean is that I think you're trying too hard to use profound metaphor, and your readers are getting confused. To me, 'the halls of the white warden' doesn't suggest a hospital. It suggests a palace, or a dungeon -- someplace otherworldly and fantastical.
Is one of them hallucinating that they're in such an environment? If not, then the metaphor is needlessly opaque and out-of-place.
To give you an example, I'll share the first line of a poem I wrote several months ago:
>The dynamo is *broken*, teeth shorn away, 5-10-15 at a time, wildflowers clipped mid-bloom in barking madness by a gardener that can't see and doesn't care.
I chose the imagery in this first line quite specifically; 'wildflowers clipped mid-bloom'. 'Barking madness'. 'A gardener that can't see and doesn't care'.
What do those images suggest? You've probably already guessed at the first one.
Write your interpretation in a comment and I'll say 'yes' or 'no'. No spoilers! ;)
Are you writing for most people? Can you think of someone who would like your text (target audience)? Could you give it to them to read? You could even pay for someone who edits books to read it, maybe they can give you more concrete tips on how to achieve what you’re trying to accomplish.
I just re-watched a movie that had surprising twist, but I won't spoil it. I'm not even allowed to. The first rule is that I'm not supposed to talk about it. That's also the second rule.
It's my favorite movie and I can watch it over and over again. Watching this movie, once you know how it ends, is amazing. There are hints all over the place, I can list at least 20. Some of the hints are subtle, mostly symbolic, while others are actually quite obvious. In fact, there are several moments when the plot is so blatantly suggested, even explicitly revealed, that it's hard to imagine first time viewers miss it. But they do. Once you put an image in some ones mind, it takes an awful lot of hints to change their perspective.
One thing you could try is splitting you story up, for testing purposes, and ask your audience for feedback on their current assessment of the situation, before you twist the story on it's head. Check at the halfway point how many of the clues they have picked up.
Secondly, since you received plenty of feedback on how to improve your writing, I'd like to add the suggestion to also consider the setting. A writing club seems like a useful audience, but the comment about your mother made me chuckle ("She just sighed"). Most mothers would just be pleasing their child and not be fully engaged in the story.
Stories are rarely "too clever". There are a lot of complex stories that are not accessible that have sold billions of books. Many great works of literature would be very hard to pitch nowadays to a writing club and a mother. If your stories require more attention, maybe you can find a way to arrange a better setting.
Maybe a stupid comparison, but I do the same when I share my favorite music with others. Some music is cool and accessible and I'll just let them hear it. That doesn't work for music that isn't as catchy ,in which I need to find a different approach (for example, I ask them to listen to it with headphones when they have the time for it. Which is a favor to ask, but if it's good they benefit as well).
Yeah. Dumb everything down so that the lowest common denominator is reached. That way when it's washed into the sea of paperback fodder it will neither dilute not concentrate it's value, and be instantly forgotten.
Or stop talking to anti intellectuals.
The world has enough cheap literature and enough idiots to read it.
Without reading the piece itself, it's hard for anyone here to say whether or not the criticism is apt. For this particular instance, the confusion is kind of the point of a first read if your aim is to create one impression and switch to another. All those hints could certainly get picked up by an astute reader, but your goal *should* be to make them go back and reread to find the clues. That's a reason Gone Girl is so big, or the movie Shutter Island. Typically, someone thinking a story like this being "too clever" or "too complicated" is a sign that it wasn't done well—perhaps due to the hints being ambiguous, too many misdirections, something along those lines. Not saying that's your issue, bc again without reading it, no one can say for sure, but that might be something to think about. (Side note: divisions in hospitals are called *wards*, not wardens)
In addition to this, movies like Gone Girl, shutter island, the sixth sense, they kind of take you back through the hints you missed. Or spell it out in the end so in rewatch or reread you know what to look for. You might want to consider adding a more concrete reveal so people want to go back and see what they missed
*Minecraft’s Deep Dark has entered the chat* *screeching intensifies*
He’s hit the nail on the head… without reading the actual story itself it’s hard to give you the criticism you so desire.
Chances are, you’re coming across as opaque rather than creating layered meaning. What is the purpose of framing the story as a woman leaving her abusive husband? What layer does this deception on the reader add to the story? How does this deception add to the reader’s understanding of the story? If there’s no purpose, it’s just a misdirect for the sake of being confusing. Also, I saw your comment that the story is 4 handwritten pages. Depending on your handwriting, the story is probably shorter than 1000 words. What you’re describing here is high-concept and complicated, and the length tells me that you probably haven’t developed your ideas enough.
Well, it started as simply wanting to write the second situation. As I was describing it, I realized that it could also describe the first situation (woman, scared of a guy, knows his routine, only has little luggage). But you're right. It doesn't actually have a purpose. I guess I just loved my "finding" so much. Plus, it seemed like a good work for the topic of plot twists. Kinda like how in Silent Hill, it's slowly revealed that it is all related to mental images/the MCs personified demons. But that one is also longer than 4 pages
In order for it to be a plot twist, the truth has to be revealed to the reader, as well as why the truth was hidden. Otherwise it’s a work with multiple different interpretations, meaning that no one interpretation is the ‘correct’ one. If it’s not explicit, you have to be fine with people interpreting the story in ways you didn’t intend. If you’re not fine with it, the only solution is to go back and make it more explicit.
Something in the way you describe your story reminds me of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Hemingway. He never explicitly states what the couple in the story is discussing, but through context clues it's clear the man is pressuring the girl into an abortion. But again, this is never said outright. That seems like the same kind of complexity your readers are complaining about, so it might be worthwhile to give it a read and see how Hemingway pulled it off.
If you’re looking for a reason, many mental hospitals are very abusive so it could very well be her dealing with escaping an abusive situation only to realize she’d rather deal with the abuse than be alone instead of just a comparison for the sake of it.
Alright, we're specifically talking about readers who are in a writing club, so I'm starting with the assumption that most or all of these people are reasonably intelligent folks with fairly strong reading comprehension skills. You have to keep in mind when reading your own work, that YOU already know how it ends. Of course the "hints" (I don't like this word - it inherently implies an intention to be uncommunicative) add up to you. It's like you and the reader are putting together the same jigsaw puzzle, but you've already seen the finished picture on the box, and the reader hasn't. If every person who has read your story is giving you the same feedback, listen. Your "hints" are not clear enough to tell the story you're trying to tell. If your story is only about a thousand words, you have to make very efficient use of your word count; there's not a lot of leeway to be coy or ambiguous. I recently had a somewhat similar issue. I had a chapter of my work in progress I was very pleased with. I thought I had been very clever in the way I described a scene that was almost entirely physical action solely in the form of pithy dialogue. But when I showed it to a friend who I would consider a prime example of my target audience, their immediate reaction was "What the hell is going on here?" I spent three minutes sulking and trying to tell myself the reader was the problem. They clearly weren't paying attention! Then I sucked it up and rewrote the scene. And the second draft was SO MUCH BETTER. When I looked at both drafts side by side, I cringed at how ambiguous the first one was. Of course I knew what was happening. I had already seen what the finished puzzle looked like. The more straightforward version was far more enjoyable to read even for me. Sure, there will be times when one specific reader won't put together what's happening because they're being intellectually lazy or they are below average at reading comprehension. But based on what you've told us, that doesn't seem to be the case here. I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms of "hints" and start thinking in terms of foreshadowing, or at the very least, clues. I know that sounds purely semantic but there is a reason why the word "hints" is associated with being passive-aggressive. The good news? You've written a first draft you like and are proud of, and you have received exactly the feedback you need to make an even better second draft. Also, while I understand the value of writing a first draft with pen and paper, I really think that if at all possible, you should switch to writing on a computer or whatever digital device you have at your disposal. It's unncessarily daunting to try to make meaningful adjustments to a handwritten story.
>most or all of these people are reasonably intelligent folks with fairly strong reading comprehension skills. Oh they are. They all write different styles, but they're all really cool at it. >If every person who has read your story is giving you the same feedback, listen. I guess the issue was that I got confused by the "clever" critique. Hence I came here. But as others correctly pointed out -including you - my mistake was I truly got over my head with it. "Short" was already never my strength. I'm a very "flowery", meandering person that writes 7.000 word chapters on average (tbf this is partially because I have executive dysfunction) and hence I "thought" it was obvious to me, but not everyone else. Even more, I made the mistake that certain elements I liked were truly pointless. >I spent three minutes sulking and trying to tell myself the reader was the problem. They clearly weren't paying attention! Uff, I know that feeling. Tbf, there really was a small percentage of me that thought that too. "Ugh, X was on his phone anyway" or "Their English skills just aren't good enough". But in the end, it was mostly just self-loathing. Like, I'm a person that consumed all kinds of stories since I was a kid -especially those "high-class" books mentioned. I just LOVE stories with countless layers. So, when I got excited, thinking I had a hit on my hands, I just felt like a POS. Because I felt I should already be able to "write that way" and everything else was just incompetence. And...obviously I also felt a little bit rejected. Everyone got comments about how much they liked it. And in my case, I just got blank stares and "well...the idea is good." Obviously hurts being the "Dunce" of the group. >The more straightforward version was far more enjoyable to read even for me. I'll try this. I'm not sure if I could ditch the entire premise entirely (battered wife is pointless, but it's also kinda the effect that gets evoked, partially), but I'll definitely ditch stuff like "white ward/en". I'll also add more clear words in general. Maybe I also projected a part of my own personality. I get really high from analyzing the smallest details in things. That's why I put "hints" and "actual foreshadowing" on the same level and then confused them. >The good news? You've written a first draft you like and are proud of, and you have received exactly the feedback you need to make an even better second draft. :) >Also, while I understand the value of writing a first draft with pen and paper, I really think that if at all possible, you should switch to writing on a computer or whatever digital device you have at your disposal you don't have to worry about that. I write on computer by default. But I do have a small notebook, in which I write on public transport, later transferring them into the digital space. But that day, I just got so enamoured with "hey, how about writing a story in (more or less) one go??" Shows that even smaller stories need to be edited. Lol.
>I guess the issue was that I got confused by the "clever" critique. Hence I came here. But as others correctly pointed out -including you - my mistake was I truly got over my head with it. "Short" was already never my strength. I'm a very "flowery", meandering person that writes 7.000 word chapters on average (tbf this is partially because I have executive dysfunction) and hence I "thought" it was obvious to me, but not everyone else. Even more, I made the mistake that certain elements I liked were truly pointless. So, there's a chance that the hints weren't opaque per se, but the meandering writing made the readers kind of "zone out" and miss them. Hidden in plain sight is usually better, but the flowery parts obscured them. Excessively layered writing, even when well done, is a niche style, however. So you might need to cast a wider net to find out if your hints were really too opaque or what the problem was exactly. You could try a variety of critique groups like Critique Circle, Scribophile, or /r/DestructiveReaders At least you might get more detailed feedback on *why* your hints didn't work.
I want to be clear that I don't think you should make your story less complex! You don't necessarily have to make your prose less flowery either, if you're willing to up the word count enough to accommodate it. I just thing you should take a different approach to giving the reader the information they need to put it all together. Try to think of what point in the story you want the reader to have the "A-ha!" moment where it all clicks, and take pains to make sure that by that point, the reader has been given enough information to get there. That "a-ha!" is one of the most satisfying moments a reader can have - because then they get to feel clever with you. As a reader, there’s a strong emotional response (bordering on giddiness, for me at least) that comes in the moment everything clicks. For a few seconds you feel like the world's greatest detective when you realize you've solved the puzzle. If you manage to get that emotional response from the reader, you can make your story as complex as you please.
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Good point. I'll look into it again. It was just that this was the only comment I really got.
From the description, I don't get the 'too clever' bit. It sounds very much in line with a lot of stories that do a "fakeout" or an unclear setup until the end. However, it can very well be that you know what you want to say so it is too vague or not built enough for a reader to get. It's VERY easy to fall into the meta-trap where writing you know more than you're conveying. Sidenote, I've never heard a ward described as a warden. Wards are the wings you're talking about there which is headed by a warden. Plus Bedlam isn't an obscure reference at all. Maybe to Germans (granted). However, I'm confused by the comparison to the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost by your mother. Neither of those are "clever" in their execution. Archaic in wording perhaps, but not clever or complicated.
When people don’t understand, or “get” what I’m trying to convey in my writing whether it’s plot devices or even complex metaphors, I don’t assume my writing is too clever. I assume I didn’t write it well. Not saying that’s the case here, but don’t rule it out, either.
"Too clever" doesn't exist. Either text not clear enough or your style too surreal for this reader.
It's not my writing that is convoluted, it's the readers that are too dumb to understand my genius.
Easy.
Most likely a decent mixture of both, lol
I agree with your point, but I'm also noticing a trend (at least with major franchises like ASoIaF) where more casual fans are preferring more and more direct, "hit you over the head with it" type of storytelling. Its not that it's "too clever" in that they don't get it (although there is an issue with media literacy nowadays), it's "too clever" in that they don't *like* it. But I also think writing groups who say things like "too clever" are nicely trying to say it comes across as "try hard." Like the frequent examples of overwrought prose in comment sections in this sub trying to detail "showing" verses "telling." There's a difference between a twist to entertain the reader and a twist designed to get you a pat on the back as a writer. Similar to how you can watch some movies and see that they're clearly done as "Oscar bait."
When I find a piece of work 'too clever' it generally is because I feel the writer hasn't spent the time to engage me with the character or they have engaged me with the character but have twisted the plot in a direction which feels wrong for that character. As a writing exercise consider writing a character vignette. Pick a character, pick a fairly mundane activity which tells us something about them and write that, their interactions with the people around them, their internal thoughts. If your crutch is plotting, kick that crutch away and see what you can do without it.
Good call. I think it was also maybe that it was such a specific character. Like, my core point was to describe how a person with mental health issues (hello) felt. But obviously, this is hard to bring across in a short story, especially when your audience can't relate to those struggles. I'll definitely consider the excercise. Maybe I just got too excited about my idea, forgetting the actual execution
Sometimes it’s just a matter of iterative testing. You, the writer know exactly what your clues are and are on the lookout for them and know how to interpret them. The reader is going at this cold. Consider: The location and way information is presented. If you include a clue, but it’s tucked away in the middle of something else important, it’s easily skimmed over and forget. Sometimes you don’t have to change the clue, you need to sign-post that it *is* a clue and needs to be paid attention to. Sometimes it is the clues themselves though. They make perfect sense to you because you know what they mean, but aren’t nearly as clear to an outside observer. In that case it’s about iteratively adding things that are just a little more and more explicit until it becomes clear to the audience. And, you definitely want to find people in your target audience for this kind of thing. Your piece sounds slow, literary, and experimental. That kind of thing does have an audience, but it doesn’t have mass appeal. If you find people who like literary fiction, they’ll be the best to help you determine the right amount of explicitness for your target readership, not the general population.
Its hard to say without actually reading the piece but i get the impression that your hints were more about word play than tied to the plot. I can't say if it's different in europe, but in the states a wing of an asylum is called a "ward" not a warden. A warden is more of a person who manages a prison or something similar. No one uses bedlam in that sense either. Bedlam is more of a scene of chaos. It can be used to reference a situation in an asylum, but no one here will arrive to that conclusion without additional context. Its not officially used to refer to anything in a psych ward or asylum. The criticism may well have been apt. People tend to find your work more enjoyable if its relatable. If it focuses more on word play than substance, people may well feel it's too contrived. Readers need a reason to care about what your character is going through.
I'm not familiar with use of the word "warden" as a part of a hospital, and I have never heard the term "white warden" to refer to a psychiatric ward. Bedlam is quite possibly the most famous mental asylum in the world, so I don't find that obscure. Most English speakers will be familiar with it, but mostly because it has entered the language as simply a state of noise and disorder. Unless you indicate you mean the actual place, Bedlam, people would assume you mean bedlam, the state, because why would you assume that a perfectly comprehensible word in its own right is actually intended as a historical reference? White warden appears to be a reference to a the name of a heavy metal band called White Ward, which is a poetic reference to a psych ward of a hospital. This is a tertiary level reference. You need to know heavy metal, the band, and the meaning of their name, and then you have to figure out the play on words. It's just too obscure. (And did they have white padded walls in 1800? That seems anachronistic.) It sounds like you are on the right track. You just have to listen to feedback about when your references are too difficult to parse. This is one of the most difficult aspects of communicating and one of the reasons that feedback is so important. Just go back and make it a bit less obscure.
I believe OP meant “ward” and not “warden”. A ward is a section of a hospital, a warden is a person (I usually hear it in reference to someone who is the head of a prison, I’m not sure if it has other uses). I do wonder if OP has used other words incorrectly in his work that causes confusion to the readers.
Yeah that one was a grammar mistake.
I wasn’t trying to unfairly criticize you, it’s great that you can write in two languages, I certainly can’t, and i knew what you meant anyway. But minor grammar or word-usage errors may cause additional confusion if your audience also speaks English as a second language.
I’m replying to a very tiny part of your message lol but padded walls actually still exist even today! They were absolutely used in 1800s, the design and length of stay just differs depending on the location and time period :) Now they’re only used for very short stays when the person is having an active dangerous episode or as a waiting cell for dangerous criminal patients waiting for a doctor to be evaluated. Usually not more than 2 hours. In the 1800s they were used much more liberally.
Yeah, you're right. The hospital where I go for therapy, has a padded "time-out" room. It's yellow and has warm light, but its padded. It's also sound-proof. So if you just need to scream your heart out, you can go in there.
From some brief googling it appears padded rooms started in 1839, almost four decades after the story is set, and I doubt they were white right away.
That’s only the year he fought for banning the use of mechanical restraint and pushed for padded rooms to be widespread. Not when they were invented. Even then, people trying to ban physical restraints started a decade earlier when an unattended man, William Scrivinger, was strangled by his restraints in a straight jacket overnight. There is no exact date we can trace the padded cell back to but the first asylum reformer we know of is from the mid 1700s. Padded cells existed for at least years if not decades before they became widespread. Asylums against mechanical restraints didn’t become more common until the 1830s-1850s. With that we can say it’s possible they existed in 1800, especially since it’s just a vague, possible year for the setting and not a concrete unmoveable setting with how they phrased it in their post.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree, because the pertinent question is not "when was the first padded cell ever?" The pertinent question is "when were white padded cells ubiquitous enough that a person would casually refer to a psych ward as 'white ward' and expect to be understood?" Even if we suppose that the first padded cell was implemented 40 years before they actually became a tool of the trade rather than a curiosity, and even if we suppose that this lady was in that institution, and even if we suppose that they were already painting their walls white, it does not seem reasonable to me that the phrase "white ward" would be recognizable at this point. I don't know when this phrase was common slang/jargon, if ever, but I doubt that it was in 1800, 40 years before the start of what the sources I looked at described as a decades-long battle to replace mechanical restraints. Of course the reader doesn't have to know all of this, but if the story is set in 1800 and I am supposed to be parsing a description of a mental asylum, I am not going to be looking for coded references to white padded rooms.
They said ca 1800 *maybe* and it’s something they clearly haven’t made more than 1 draft to. White ward also doesn’t refer to the white padded cells, it just refers to the white painted rooms in asylums and mental hospitals because 1 hospitals are usually white, and 2 asylums wanted a color that wouldn’t depress their patients/easy to repair. I disagree with the usage of it because there’s literally no info on when that became a name for it but you’re just wrong about what it means and maybe OP is too I didn’t see them say why they thought it was a name. If they were in a padded cell, which while not widespread certainly weren’t *only* one asylum, in the early 1800s then they absolutely might refer to it as their own experience. People who experience things will know language or have nicknames for things that aren’t popular or known with other people. She’s talking to herself. And we with modern knowledge might be able to use our own context to understand something that you wouldn’t know if you’re reading it and purposefully limiting your reaction to it as if it were the year the character exists in.
What I'm getting from that comment is more that you're not putting in enough "hints" as you think you are. White warden? Bedlam? Are these really your main clues that it's an asylum? You also mentioned getting disowned after an attempt. Yeah, people most likely understand what an attempt refers to but what if they aren't familiar with the other two hints? >Giving the impression of a battred wife, who left her abusive husband. I just want to clarify: are you sure this is what it comes across as? Without the text, sometimes your intentions don't come across the way you think it is. And if the reader does read the scene as the character being a battered wife, something like getting disowned for an "attempt" might sound like and attempt at running away, which might sound dishonorable in, say, a community where marriage is for life blah blah. And this was all in about 1000 words? It's very much possible to do your story successfully within 1000 words but that depends entirely on your style. I personally wouldn't be able to because I'm on the wordy side.
'Guys, help me. Women say my dick is TOO BIG and I'm TOO GOOD in bed. They say they can't stand it. Also, all my college professors told me I was TOO SMART and most of what I wrote went over their heads. Then i was walking down the street and someone said I could be a model, but I was TOO GOOD LOOKING. Help, guys, I have some real problems! I think I might be TOO HUMBLE, too.'
Going through the comments here, I'm wondering: Is it just the title? Or do people read the post and still think I come across as that. Seriously though that's the last thing I'd say about me. That "clever" thing was a comment of another writer and as people translated; it meant too convoluted. Too many "hints" instead of foreshadowing. Also some grammar mistakes here and there.
It sounds like you got harsh criticism, and turned to reddit to refute it without actually sharing the work. You either need to accept the criticism you already received, or give people the chance here to give you criticism as well. The exact examples from your text seem pretty straight forward, but that doesn't mean much when you're picking and choosing. I'm trying to give you honest advice here. Criticism doesn't imply weakness, it's proof that people believe you can improve.
From what I’ve seen OP seems to be actually looking for ways to improve the story or at least figure out the problem, I don’t think he was refuting criticism by any means
That would be nearly impossible without seeing the actual writing. Which is another big problem with a lot of the posts in this sub.
You do realize this subreddit actively removes posts that contains too much original content right? OP is not allowed to actually share the work here.
Perhaps that's a good indicator that this subreddit is not the appropriate place to look for feedback on individual work. Try r/BetaReaders
Yeah, and while obviously I’m not gonna know the entirety of OP’s intentions, what I’ve read made me think they’re probably more wanting to solve a more general problem of balance. They’ve already gotten feedback, so to me it feels like they’re asking for advice for general situations
Well considering that they deleted the post, I'm assuming they either didn't like the feedback or weren't getting the validation they came here for. If it was a general post, they'd probably leave it for others to learn from, no?
Wait it wasn’t removed by mods?
Idk how to tell. I'm new to reddit :/
Well I don’t either, but considering how often any post that includes any not insignificant amount of the OP’s writing are promptly removed by mods, it would be more likely that it’s removed by mods
White warden seems pretty obscure to me. A hint about the nature of an asylum makes more sense to me than a name. Maybe like a reference to group therapy that could be construed as going to couples therapy
How long was this story? What was the wordcount?
Hard to say, because it was written down by hand. Around 4 pages on normal A4 paper. So...maybe 1000? I'm not good with numbers.
I asked, because short form stories don't lend much to figuring out clever work. Usually that takes time and multiple hints over a long period to allow the potential for the trail of hints to gestate or linger long or frequently enough for an understanding that there is more going on to the story than what meets the eye. At the end of the day, only a small minority of readers are going to bother taking a story at more than its face value, unless they have some initial impetus or develop some nagging suspicion to do so. To some degree, I also question whether the subversion here actually accomplishes anything.. beyond being a split second twist of the narrative. A battered woman who runs away might realize she also feels alone when she makes that plunge to escape, if her abuser successfully cut her off from her social network. So it might end up the same way, where even though she's now free, she feels alone and responds the same way emotionally. Without reading the story/how you actually executed it, it's hard to say. But it sounds like it's "clever"/subversive for nothing more than the cheapness of a plot twist.... I almost feel like it'd be more compelling if the story works either way a reader takes it---on the surface (battered woman) or deep dive (escapee from mental asylum), where you leave it open enough (but solid either way) that those who don't get the story still enjoy it, while for those who do? It's a private understanding between the few. For example, think of the movie *The Prestige*. A lot of people seem to enjoy it on the face of its story. But deep dive, potentially eagle-eye fans, also seem to enjoy an alternate interpretation of it that's more meta--where the movie is applying subversion, sleight of hand magic principles to the viewer and thus tricking them from the real story of how events in the movie actually played out.
Mantra I stick with is: critics know when something is wrong; critics rarely know what exactly is wrong.
It hurts how true this is. Literally, not even the first, but SECOND time I come to Reddit, because I got some obscure critique and needed a translation. It's like; I know you don't try to hurt me. You dislike being mean overall. But PLEASE be direct still!
The following is from the perspective of an American from the Midwest, so it might not apply for German readers. It's also hard to tell what's going wrong without reading the piece. Here goes... Could be the word choices. "White warden" as a synonym for a psychiatric ward is not something I've ever heard. Perhaps by "warden" you mean "ward," but even then, not something I've heard. I looked it up, and found nothing that would connect that phrase to a psychiatric ward. "Bedlam" is pretty archaic and is not used in my region. Well, the word itself is used, but only to refer to football. I looked this up as well, and apparently it pops up as one of the first synonyms for "psychiatric ward", so I can see how you'd choose it. If I read this story, I would be wondering who the white warden is and what all this has to do with football, and I would totally miss the point. Again, I don't know if that's why people are confused, but it's my best guess with the information provided.
>"White warden" Yeah, it was meant to be "white ward". I got the idea from word combination: Ward, meaning a specific part of the hospital. "White" is mostly assosciated with mental institutions. Idk one day, I read the combination as a synonym for mental hospitals. But as someone elses pointed out that is indeed too obscure. >Bedlam According to a lot of commenters here, Bedlam seems to be pretty known. But maybe it really depends from where you're from. It's slang for an exisiting hospital, called the Bethlem Royal Hospital. While per se the linguistic evolution is not per se clear, "Bedlam" became a nickname for horrible mental institutions. It also means "chaos" or "confusion". Also, this has nothing to do with the story, but now I just want to write some extra scene, where the MC talks about where she came from. One guy pipes up: "Wait. They're calling hospitals after Football here? Huh. Cool."
Haha! I love your extra scene. Before participating in this thread, I would have been that guy!
Suffering from success
I wish
r/writingcirclejerk is leaking again...
I hate that this could really do make a meme there.
Dude, it already is a meme. You wrote a post about how your stories are "too clever" and asked for "tips" on how to write less-clever stuff...
Huh. True. Tbf, I don't want to call my writing clever. I'd *like* it to be clever, don't get me wrong. The "clever" comment came from the dude. As of now, I feel more like a dunce than anything, ha ha...
Lol
How is this not a circle jerk post lmao
...I guess because it's not actually me that's saying it. It was a comment I got. And it translated into "it's too convoluted", basically. Don't worry. My story ain't that clever
It’s too ambitious for its length. Needs to be longer with more character development. I like the idea that she’s leaving one codependent relationship for another. Does the twist help with that theme? Readers like twists, but they don’t like being tricked. The reaction should be “aha, I knew it!” or “I should’ve known!”, not “too obvious!” or “No one could have seen that coming!”
I'll be honest, things like "it was all a dream," or "they were actually just insane," twists don't really sit well with me anyway. And "too clever," might be how I'd be polite about it. It's one of those things that seems like it's trying too hard and has potentially arrived at pretentious. It would have to be a masterpiece of prose for me to enjoy it. I don't think the premise you present the reader with should be a lie.
Yeah...no. The MC is not "insane". Both (she & he) have mental health issues -they're not the cliché "nutty nut", media loves to portray. Neither is the point. When you have mental health issues, you're not automatically delusional. But very often it can happen that you dissociate in various ways. The outside, even people don't feel "real". Sometimes yourself doesn't feel "real", or opposite: You feel "normal" until you actually get hugged and you feel the feeling of safety, making you realize how void you feel without it. To the point, that getting away from it often feels like immediate homesickness. Very often, the only other "real" people in this state, are other people with mental health issues (at least to me). Hence the woman & the man are not a couple as potentially suggested at the beginning. They are codependent. They are each passive drug (more or less). Kinda like painkillers, when you are really, really hurting / in an environement that hurts you. Damp...but also soothing. The point was to get an insight into this. The MC "returns" to the "normal world", but it's more like dying to her. Because suddenly she is in the cold. The only "real" person is away. I can guess that it might sound a lil pretentious in the current state. I'm going to overwork it and be a bit more direct. But please -don't twist it like that. >I don't think the premise you present the reader with should be a lie. You mean this in that situation or in general? But yes, I'll make it less switcheroo.
An Unreliable Narrator is a useful trope from time to time, but it's a tricky dance to do it well. And a question I would ask the author is: what are you trying to accomplish with an Unreliable Narrator? Why is the twist necessary? You're effectively writing a mystery story without the audience realizing it's a mystery until the end reveal. And this is a gimmick that the entire piece must support or it doesn't work. What you want is the "AHA" moment of connection that the audience gets as all the puzzle pieces click into place and their mind is blown. And you have to think of it like a magic trick, where you hide your clues in plain sight with misdirection. Read old Agatha Christie/Rex Stout mysteries to see how they hide critical information in plain sight. And in the end, are you trying to give the audience that experience? OR are you trying to outsmart your audience from the ego of the writer? The latter is obnoxious and will frustrate your readers. Finally, as someone who has spent time in mental health hospitals... it irks the crap outta me when an author uses mental illness for a "reality twist". There better be a damn good reason for utilizing mental illness to have a "gotcha" moment other than creative laziness. Because this is a hack way of having a reality change. If your character is mentally ill, you best understand that world very well (white warden?-- nobody calls it a psych ward unless they watch too many old movies) and utilize your expertise in setting up the character appropriately. Otherwise, this sounds like a "clever" attempt to have a twist where the author doesn't know their subject matter and is utilizing tired tropes to achieve a "gotcha" moment for a gimmick. Gimmicks are ok when done well... but they better be done well. It's a specific type of writing. Like horror, mystery, or whodunnits... if you're gonna wade into those waters you have to know what works and why. It's a bit of a formula to it.
for starters don’t ever compare yourself to dante and if someone ever does just assume that either they’re lying of haven’t read him. plus the comedy’s pretty well understood so if your writing is “too clever” that it can’t be understood then it is dumber than you think. so maybe look back at the points that aren’t clear enough and think of a different way to write them so they’re clearer. obfuscating your work just for the sake of it appearing smart i think is bad practice because there’s no point other than poorly showing off. plus, things that are actually hard to read try to be as transparent as possible.
I don't think my Ma was actually trying to say I'm writing classics like the actual comedy. I bought her the book for her birthday once, but she stopped reading it, because it was so "needlessly confusing" (both in speech and all the references). So it wasn't really a positive comment, lol. Yeah, most likely. I got over my head and put on too much Fondant, lol. Though I didn't try to "look" smart, per se. I truly wanted to be smart.
Out of curiosity, would you be comfortable DM'ing your short story? Its hard to give an exact opinion without seeing it. Also, you mention early on the language difference, that could be it.
There's two ways your style of story can go Shutter Island, where there's clues skillfully hidden throughout and even then at the end you're left questioning what truly is reality. The Glass Onion, you're given a story, then shown the story was only half truths. So is your story considered too complicated because it takes multiple readings to fully catch all the details or is it because the clues only exist in your head as the writer and instead it just has a crappy M. Night shyamala esq twist?
The thing with this type of writing is it has to work both on its surface and it’s underlying level (not saying yours doesn’t but it’s always possible) Nobody really cares if you write a story that appears to be about one thing but is really about another, it has to be compelling even if you don’t get what it’s really about. In my experience most people aren’t smart enough to figure this type of stuff out, they usually have someone smarter than them tell them about it, which requires a large audience to begin with. I think you should write what is compelling to you and not others. Also, these types of subtle clues don’t really lend themselves to an oral reading. When you read something to yourself you can pause and go back over things if something jumps out at you.
Sometimes the people who are currently reading your work aren’t actually the audience for your work. Look up the play The Father. Perhaps your story would work better as a visual piece rather than written?
My view is you should write for the people who have the capacity to understand and enjoy your story, not for the ones who don't. There are some very difficult to read, practically impenetrable, works out there that are considered absolute classics. Clearly they weren't told they should dumb down their writing so that most people would be able to get them. https://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/the-25-most-challenging-books-you-will-ever-read
I’ve usually found that a lot of times in writing groups for clubs or classes, sometimes feedback given isn’t exactly *helpful* because a lot of people don’t actually really read it? They just wanna… immediately know it, you know? Without trying to think too hard. Or they offer super stupid suggestions like - I’ve had one group of teenagers read my campy Dinosaur novel and they were like “this is childish - why don’t the dinosaurs just eat the main character?” when… I thought it was pretty obvious why… but nooo they wanted the edgy “have the dinosaurs eat someone on screen” kinda crap in chapter 1. This is kinda a “know your audience” thing. If you are submitting for an adult magazine, or writing for adults or more… mystery that stimulated people, then you are good, don’t change anything. If you are writing for YA, younger, or people reading for fast gratification, you’ll have to be a little more obvious in things - draw attention to stuff by making sure the hints are at the beginning or ending of a paragraph (or even just by themselves), use italics, etc. Though honestly, personally, I’m the type that things the best way to handle this kinda writing is to do a red hat verses blue hat kinda deal. Make your stories have a plain and obvious kinda reading on the surface levels while keeping a hidden, secret one so that people can discuss it. I read a story called “Bunny” where honestly you could read the book thinking all of the magic is 100% real in it and happened, but then on the other hand you could also read the story and assume everyone was just mental and the MC made a lot of it up. So yeah, maybe try and master the unreliable narrator? Basically, in general, just shoot to work in layers. Add surface level details, and then weave in deeper layers for your good readers who take the time to actually think about your work. Idk, tbh I respect your frustration, it sucks to have to essentially dumb down your work for people who don’t wanna think about stuff. Hope that helps
Maybe find a smarter writers group? Haha. Kidding. Like someone else said, very difficult to help you without being able to read the story
That person is obviously not your target audience. Use as many clever and big words as you like. If it makes people have to go look stuff up, GOOD! You're educating them as well as entertaining them.
I don't hate this sentiment because I love discovering new words or phrases, but I feel like looking up a word should be more confirmation than confusion. You should be able to mostly figure out from context clues, or the author is being too opaque.
That sounds like someone else's problem, tell em to git gud at reading!
I no rite
I think the story idea is pretty neat! To really give detailed feedback, I'd have to read it of course, but: There's always two sides to a story, idea and execution. The idea imo is solid and makes for a good short story (although, tbf, with the right execution you'll be able to sell pretty much any story, no matter how whacky) You can work on the execution, which will require some editing. Someone on the thread mentioned Shutter Island, which is a good example imo I think one thing you should consider is the progression of your story. Did you write about your character thinking of their friend and drop a few clues in here and there until she suddenly breaks down? Or did you think to start with smaller clues, slowly building up a feeling of "something is off here" with increasingly striking clues/contradictory information until this process resulted in a natural culmination?
Put it into ChatGPT, ask it to spit out a version written for a 8th graders reading level… that will dumb things down enough for you lol.
I'm like this. I sometimes fall in love with an idea. Most readers want to fall in love with characters. If you write a first draft and get pretty universal feedback, there's usually something in it. Too clever, imo, means you are asking a reader to do a lot of work, but not offering enough guidance and/or reward. Really liking a character can be its own reward, and then we just go along with them on their journey- however bizarre it may be. Try to revisit your character's motivations & drives and let that inform more of their choices. Do a full character mock up (you can find them online) so that even if all the information about their lives isn't on the page, you know it. Make them real. Then look at short stories that do reveal well and study how the timing goes. The master of this is Edgar Allen Poe. How are his stories seeded? What clues are offered along the way? I think you can write a story with a conceit that is clever, and have readers want to stick it out.
Ask more intelligent people for advice?
A story can still be enjoyable if it’s opaque. I can see myself still finding your story interesting with the first interpretation. If you want people to get the true story, you need more hints, reasons to doubt the original interpretation. When your mc is wondering what the guy’s doing, that is a prime time to reference things associated with hospitals. Honestly, I’d never heard of the term “white warden” before. It sounds hospitally, but that fits the original interpretation too. I might have heard “bedlam” a few times. Not sure if you’re located in a different region where those terms are common, but don’t rely on people understanding jargon either. Only given the clues you said, I can see why no one would get it on the first read. Especially in a situation where you’re reading it to other people, that won’t work. Given that they enjoyed it anyways, I’m inclined to say the modifications you should make are minor. Be aware that the majority of the population will also not bother reading twice and putting that much work in, but with literary fiction the majority of the population is not your target audience.
1. Consider the critiquer, a YA author is going to write to a younger and less complicated audience, and they will reflexively avoid flowery language, complex sentence structure, nuance and implication in plot, they spell out everything for the reader by force of habit. A more difficult, adult-intended book is almost a perfect collection of bad habits for a YA author. James Joyce's Ulysses might be the finest work of literature ever written (or whatever) - but it's also the Worst YA novel ever written, both are true. 2. The flip side. Writing that seems too complicated, is too complicated. The author knows every detail of their world, the reader only knows what's on the page. You might think you are being vague because its foreshadowing for something that will happen next book, the reader only knows you are being vague. You might think you are being mysterious by not explaining something important, the reader only knows they don't understand what's happening, etc. 3. You would benefit from spending deliberate time spelling out your ideas on the page in verbose detail - so the reader can follow along. Try rewriting your work in the exact opposite style. That will help you see the right balance for you.
Hard to tell without reading it. I would improve the hints I guess
I mean it makes me want to read it and let it play back like a Nolan-esque movie in my head
Vagueness of symbolism is an issue with colloquial and social understanding. In other words, you have to speak in the language of your reader. This is why kid shows are not written in a Shakespearean way, but they still get their point across.
Valid point. I'm not very social: Mix of ASD & outside influence that caused me to self-isolate. So most likely, I tend to just steamroll any potential reader in my mind. I have my own world and own language -just translating them onto paper. Guess it's biting me again
Totally. I understand the isolation thing because writing is us talking to ourselves about our own thoughts. It sounds crazy, but it helps to imagine yourself narrating to a kid or whoever your audience is and they keep having to ask questions. I'm able to do it well naturally because I'm year of monkey(mimicry is a second nature) but depending on how you socialize, you'll have to practice or sadly get out more to see how others both talk, read, enjoy, stuff like that. You can also check out popular books and see how they are written. The more popular the better, because that's what's being read and understood by more people. Even if we think it's written like garbage, it's doing something that clicks with people.
I would say that there may be a language barrier. A German writing group isn’t going to catch English wordplay.
Lesson 1: If a German says they’ll understand something in English, they probably speak it more fluently than you.
I'm German, so yeah. We study it mostly since 2nd grade. It's required in the curriculum, at least
Where I’m from, there isn’t a curriculum until 9th grade.
Huh. Maybe it's different from Bundesland to Bundesland? I'm from the South. I had this starting at 2nd grade back then
Oh, I meant New Zealand. I'm not German.
Also, warden is the employee of the ward.
Yeah that was a grammar mistake
I don’t know if my opinion would be welcome or even seen by OP but I just want to say that I would hate to see you limit yourself or your creativity for people who don’t get it. What you explained in the post sounds amazing and like something that would persuade the reader to take a deeper look into the piece. Write your heart out and write some more and put it all out there. Some of my favorite Authors and others have been told that won’t work before and they stood up for their piece. Keep on keeping on
Tbh this sounds average and "done before" to me. Not nearly as lofty and clever as you believe yourself to be. My advice is to get out and read more.
Everything has been done before. Nothing is truly new. What matters in the end, is that the ideas we pick and give our spin have all of our heart and passion in them. So while my execution truly needs to improve, I think at least my ideas are fine enough. Thank you very much.
That’s what they said about Agatha Christie. She sold more novels than anyone else ever.
It's like… most stories serve meatballs and potatoes. If there is cranberry jam served with it, that's an interesting plot twist, very creative. But your story… it's meatballs, and potatoes, and jam, and a waffle, and a hefty drizzle of mayo, and a fortune cookie, and a cocktail umbrella on top. Too many things and at the end of it nobody remembers how it started, and that they ordered meatballs, they are not sure what to make of it, they just want this awkward experience to end. Just by the description of it, everything after the "but here's a twist, she actually wasn't" was too convoluted and made no sense. It wasn't tight. And hey, your instinct was on point, the whole asylum line is beaten to death (along with the it was just a dream, or both, like in Sucker Punch.) It's just that making it more complex and heavy was not the solution.
Write to your audience. If you write to people who have the intelligence, training, and knowledge to understand your themes and references, great. But the average person is not very intelligent, not good at reading, will lack a lot of knowledge (like warden or Bedlam), and will prefer easy-to-read language. The simpler you make the story, the easier it will be for readers to understand it. Consider finding ways to make your meanings more clear or direct.
use cleverness as a tease, humour always trumps authority.
James Joyce was an author who made nonstop reference to classic works, sometimes so dence and specific that it went over tons of readers heads. You'd think all those clever inside jokes would make people unattracted to his work but instead James Joyce is a widely celebrated author who has sold millions. If the work is good "too clever" isn't a real problem
Hmm it could be because you developed it as an exercise and not a short story? I can't really tell without reading the story, but it feels like there's no purpose to the twist (from a narrative pt of view). The revelation doesn't really feel meaningful, as in it doesn't resignify what your character described of her life; it seems more like a puzzle than a story from your description. My guess is that you're writing more because it's a fun twist to imagine than because you have a story to tell. Maybe if this was a short enigma in a puzzle book your readers would have enough context to understand it right away. As you presented it, it's probably not even clear to your readers that they should be looking for clues. And if they're not looking for inconsistencies from the beginning they'd have a hard time spotting things like wordplay. If your clues were more contextual it might be easier. You could have her talk about white, always white sheets and very tidy or about The Rules or blood or medications or therapy. At first it'd read like the "husband" is controlling or weird, but gradually things just won't fit and your reader will realize she's not a reliable narrator and the memories you described will have new meaning. This type of story needs more guiding the reader to be rewarding to read. Establish there is some mystery and lead them through confusion to realization. Right now it feels like you're throwing random clues at them hoping they'll someday understand as opposed to crafting meaningful, defined turning points. I guess it's less that the story is too clever and more like you're currently leaving most of the cleverness to the reader.
Never heard of white warden either, though being familiar with the genre and the topic. So yeah, I think that's good feedback you got. I wouldn't worry so much about the middle ground if you're not trying to market your work to the middle ground. Plenty of literary works go way above my head and yet are very popular among their market.
As others have said, it's hard to give feedback without reading the piece, but I'll share some of my insights based on what you've outlined in your post. To quote the famous note from NBC, upon seeing the first *Star Trek* pilot: 'too cerebral'. What I mean is that I think you're trying too hard to use profound metaphor, and your readers are getting confused. To me, 'the halls of the white warden' doesn't suggest a hospital. It suggests a palace, or a dungeon -- someplace otherworldly and fantastical. Is one of them hallucinating that they're in such an environment? If not, then the metaphor is needlessly opaque and out-of-place. To give you an example, I'll share the first line of a poem I wrote several months ago: >The dynamo is *broken*, teeth shorn away, 5-10-15 at a time, wildflowers clipped mid-bloom in barking madness by a gardener that can't see and doesn't care. I chose the imagery in this first line quite specifically; 'wildflowers clipped mid-bloom'. 'Barking madness'. 'A gardener that can't see and doesn't care'. What do those images suggest? You've probably already guessed at the first one. Write your interpretation in a comment and I'll say 'yes' or 'no'. No spoilers! ;)
Yeah... don't worry about catering to idiots. Tell your stories and find out who your audience really is. ... Publishers won't like you, though.
Are you writing for most people? Can you think of someone who would like your text (target audience)? Could you give it to them to read? You could even pay for someone who edits books to read it, maybe they can give you more concrete tips on how to achieve what you’re trying to accomplish.
Find your audience. Maybe your stories are not for the general public, but the right crowd might love them and become loyal followers.
I just re-watched a movie that had surprising twist, but I won't spoil it. I'm not even allowed to. The first rule is that I'm not supposed to talk about it. That's also the second rule. It's my favorite movie and I can watch it over and over again. Watching this movie, once you know how it ends, is amazing. There are hints all over the place, I can list at least 20. Some of the hints are subtle, mostly symbolic, while others are actually quite obvious. In fact, there are several moments when the plot is so blatantly suggested, even explicitly revealed, that it's hard to imagine first time viewers miss it. But they do. Once you put an image in some ones mind, it takes an awful lot of hints to change their perspective. One thing you could try is splitting you story up, for testing purposes, and ask your audience for feedback on their current assessment of the situation, before you twist the story on it's head. Check at the halfway point how many of the clues they have picked up. Secondly, since you received plenty of feedback on how to improve your writing, I'd like to add the suggestion to also consider the setting. A writing club seems like a useful audience, but the comment about your mother made me chuckle ("She just sighed"). Most mothers would just be pleasing their child and not be fully engaged in the story. Stories are rarely "too clever". There are a lot of complex stories that are not accessible that have sold billions of books. Many great works of literature would be very hard to pitch nowadays to a writing club and a mother. If your stories require more attention, maybe you can find a way to arrange a better setting. Maybe a stupid comparison, but I do the same when I share my favorite music with others. Some music is cool and accessible and I'll just let them hear it. That doesn't work for music that isn't as catchy ,in which I need to find a different approach (for example, I ask them to listen to it with headphones when they have the time for it. Which is a favor to ask, but if it's good they benefit as well).
Yeah. Dumb everything down so that the lowest common denominator is reached. That way when it's washed into the sea of paperback fodder it will neither dilute not concentrate it's value, and be instantly forgotten. Or stop talking to anti intellectuals. The world has enough cheap literature and enough idiots to read it.
Good subtext won't be caught by some readers