From the personal journal of Pen Name.
One Month Later…
“This story had to be a fluke! The writer writes way better than this!”
“The story was doing fine until this happened!”
“I can’t believe they made these changes!”
“She’s such a Mary Sue!”
“He’s such a Gary Sue!”
“This is awful!”
Do you hear that? I certainly do. It’s the sound of rears being hurt and ponies complaining about them. Can’t say I’m not use to it by now, but I certainly can say I’ve gotten quite sick of it. To which, I guess I need to say that I love constructive criticism, but also hate unintelligent comments.
Let me explain. A piece of criticism is, in the simplest term, helpful. It’s something you can learn, grow, and better yourself from. In its nature, you can understand its constructive point of view, take the remark with a humble attitude, and then work hard to apply it towards all creative projects you’re currently working on. Thus, in the end, whatever you were doing before would come out better than what it previously was.
That’s good and constructive criticism.
On the other hoof, a comment is something completely unnecessary, words meant to spew out hate or distaste for the writing itself. A comment, or shall I say a hateful remark, can often hurt the writer to the point where they’re enraged, frustrated, or violent towards what was said or written to them. Comments and snarky remarks usually don’t serve any greater purpose for a writer who is wanting to improve.
Yet, we, or shall I say I, still hear those words daily.
“Is Equestrian your second language?”
I know. I’ve already written down my remarks concerning this type of comment in another journal entry prior to this one, but it’s a comment that’s still used to this day. I’ve tried to avoid it by doing what I could to never hear those words again, but they’re still tossed around in the writing world and in our offices as well.
Just the other day, I overheard one of our editors shooting down a new writer for their work. The young mare in question wrote an article with grammar “Only a foreigner with one class of Equestrian” could make. It was harsh and true, I’ll admit, but something completely unhelpful to her. How was she supposed to know their grammar isn’t the greatest? Is their effort to improve worth something to the editor? Heck, why did she even get hired in the first place when her writing wasn’t up to par? Was she a fluke?
I had so many questions.
Well, as I investigated the aftermath of the event, I ran into the writer in our own Writer’s Pit at the office. She was from Saddle Arabia, Sandra Jawhara, and spoke with a thick, arab accent. Her personality was sweet and charming, but her work was another story. As it was blatantly pointed out to her, Sandra wasn’t the greatest at writing for a reason which I didn’t see coming.
Due to her limited knowledge with the Equestrian language, she had to spend half of her time translating her words from Arabic. Armed with a multilingual dictionary on her desk, Sandra would have it open while levitating her quill a few inches from the paper. Once she found the word she was looking for, the mare would then write it down. Then, after a few more letters were inked into the paper, she would stop and search through the dictionary once more. This cycle continued to repeat itself a few more times until she finally had written down an entire paragraph.
It took her thirty minutes to write a paragraph with seven sentences!
If it wasn't obvious before, it was obvious now. That mare needed some help with her writing, not a slap to the face for her inability to correctly construct her sentences properly! Also, this mare was on a tight deadline, therefore she had no time to rewrite her work and make it look like something decent!
It was plain to see that she needed two things. The first thing she needed was more time to work out her issues with grammar and the Equestrian language. I already asked the Chief to extend her deadlines, giving her more time to work on her stories while I suggested her second need.
Sandra needed to work under the supervision of an editor. Since I took the liberty to suggest the idea of somepony working with her, it ended up with me sitting right next to her while she wrote. This practice with me and her developed into something special for us, when we could work on our writing and editing at the same time. As she wrote down her sentences, I would almost immediately, and politely, suggest changes to her grammar in order for them to flow or sound better when read out loud. She seemed to almost thank me after every session we had, to which I would chuckle and say something along the lines of it being a pleasure to work with such a beautiful mare as her.
That somehow got her to blush every time.
After about a few weeks rolled by, Sandra's writing vastly improved due to how close we worked with each other. It went from broken Equestrian to what we expect out of our writer’s when they turn in their work. I couldn’t be any prouder of her accomplishment, to which it seemed to put a spring into her hoofsteps. She now had a sort of glow to her, beaming confidence and pride towards her new abilities to write and make it look good.
She came a long way.
Every now and then, Sandra would thank me for the time I took to work with her. With a smile, I stayed humble about it while saying “You’re welcome” and “I’m always here to help.” Then one day, the mare asked me about what I do after work. She wanted to know if we could hang out and talk about non-work related subject over a cup of coffee. I was first surprised by this offer, but I then accepted it with grace.
Looks like I have a date.