Critiquing Myself

I don’t have a thick skin. Journalists are supposed to. But I don’t. I don't handle criticism well.

So, instead of criticizing someone else and hurting their feelings in a way that I know I don’t enjoy, I thought I’d start with myself. Let me thicken my own skin.

Here’s a short story I wrote as a senior in high school. Our literary magazine published it, but I'm having second thoughts about how proud I am of it.

It’s called “Tasting Autumn.”

The lights in my house are dimmed, all a soft yellow. I’m sitting at my kitchen table, eating a sausage and sauerkraut sandwich. It tastes like Germany, or at least that is what my parents tell me.

Outside, past the long red curtains and window panes, wind shakes the trees. Through the oncoming pale light of the moon, just barely a white sliver in a navy sky, I see weak yellow leaves drift to the ground. They remind me of fairies’ wings, quiet and delicate. The cold has curled their edges, and they begin to crinkle under squirrels’ feet.

I finish my sandwich and lick the warm grease from my fingers. I hear the back door slam. Dad is home. In the moments that the door swayed open, I could hear the crickets and cicadas outside on the lawn, and I could picture the moths fluttering desperately around the golden porch light.

Dad clomps up the stairs and says hello when he sees me at the table. He forgot to shave this morning, I think. Some whiskers on his face are turning gray, and the hair on the crown of his head is starting to disappear. His smile is the same, though. His brown-green eyes still crinkle. Like leaves. Under squirrels’ feet.

The biggest problem I have with this piece is its voice. Yes, it’s mine, but the use of first person seems to get in the way of the images.

Look at this: “I see weak yellow leaves drift to the ground.”

Wouldn’t it be more powerful like this? “Weak yellow leaves drift to the ground.”

That is the difference between telling your reader something and showing your reader something. By removing yourself as the speaker, the images can speak for themselves.

Let’s try another one: “I finish my sandwich and lick the warm grease from my fingers. I hear the back door slam.”

This way, the sandwich, the grease and the back door are front and center: “The last crumbs of sourdough slip behind my lips and grease saturates my fingertips. The back door slams.”

There are a couple of things I love about this piece. The images, while not exactly shared eloquently and efficiently, are still beautiful and take me back to that kitchen table. And I get a kick out of the circle back to leaves under squirrels’ feet.

“Tasting Autumn” is about six years old now. It shows me that I’ve grown as a creative writer quite a bit, despite not studying it in college.

My journalism classes taught me the importance of writing with rhythm. When your words carry a beat, they’re easier for your readers to understand.

This sentence doesn’t flow easily: “In the moments that the door swayed open, I could hear the crickets and cicadas outside on the lawn, and I could picture the moths fluttering desperately around the golden porch light.”

Eliminating some words helps: “When the door was open, crickets and cicadas screeched on the lawn, and I imagined moths fluttering desperately around the golden porch light.”

I’ve found that the simpler a sentence is, the better. But that said, I’ve got plenty of room to grow. And that’s just fine.

:)