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Some of you might remember that I took a class last term on how to write plays. It was definitely a...mixed...experience, full of some great feedback and writing practice but left me and the other students questioning our professor's sanity.
Essentially, each week we had to write a two page script for a scene inspired by a prompt. Then we rotated who would be featured in the seminar for feedback. These sessions usually found ways to be hilarious, awkward, and even offensive every time. That last part was usually the teacher.
Her comments ranged from mildly constructive to borderline racist. (If you ask a girl in my class, she felt directly attacked by some of the teacher's remarks.) The issue, I think, was that she was the kind of reader who would formulate her own meanings and ways a story should be, and then sometimes forcefully try to convince the writer to make it match her vision.
The reason I mention this is because my whole final project, a ten page script, was founded on suggestions she made. I tied two of my weekly scripts together, one of which she even used in-class as an example of the best you can do on the rubric. I left that final class feeling over the moon and excited about the play. So happy, in fact, that I was already planning on asking her in the new term how to get involved with school productions.
But when the marks were posted...
She ripped into my script, literally starting off her marks with "It's a pity you wrote this." She went on to say that it was unbelievable that a character could have a flaw in their personality (I'm not kidding) and marked me several points down for a having a single typo. The only good thing she could find was backhanded, with 'some dialogue is very sympathetic but the whole thing hangs unconvincingly.' I'm not gonna lie, it felt like someone took my heart and smashed it repeatedly with an over-sized hammer.
Here was someone who has tons of professional experience working with plays and stories telling me that mine wasn't worth writing.
I felt broken, and at a total loss for how the exact same scripts she loved earlier, just with more context, could be hated and torn apart. I know it might seem silly that one person could damage my confidence in my greatest passion so easily, but that's what happened.
Especially after talking to @ntowl, it's clear the biggest problem was her. It didn't exactly repair my self-confidence right away, but there's too much of a contrast between all of her positive feedback and that final grade for it to all be my fault. A family friend who is also involved with theater said she was really interested in what I wrote, and would want to read more. While I could accuse @ntowl of a maternal bias, she also has loads of writing and reading experience and said she thought it was great.
Even though I had more positive feedback than negative, I was stuck on my teacher's words. For real, whenever I'd think of my script or writing in general I'd hear the painful tings of "tedious," "irrelevant," and "unthought-out," nevermind the aggressive questioning of character choices. Professors, and mentors in general, are supposed to be people who know better than us, who can support us and educate us. If she says it's terrible, what qualifications do I have to argue?
Particularly now, a few months later, I know that regardless of her feedback she is just one person. Yes a person in a position of 'power' and 'knowledge', but at the end of the day she is just one reader. I've since paid more attention to the success stories of others, and the countless rejections and bad reviews they've received both prior to achieving their goals and after.
Moving forward...
I still feel a little insecure, but I'm choosing to take it as a lesson of perseverance and confidence-building. A part of that means finally posting here on steemit again, including the scripts and final project. I was actually going to post the first one today, instead of this near-editorial, but I thought it might be interesting or relatable to some of you. I'm curious, do any of you have similar stories with teachers or hurtful feedback in general?
Also, needless to say I didn't contact the teacher again. I was tempted to, for clarification on exactly what she thinks I did wrong, but I knew it wouldn't be helpful. I think the best thing to do is try and learn the lesson and move on, like I said.
I plan on posting the scripts in the order that I wrote them, with only a little bit of editing, so you can see my growth. I'll probably post the final project in parts after the regular little scripts. Hopefully you like it more than my professor did. 😅
What a horrid tale of real-life events with instructors being unnecessarily cruel and not even doing a thing to help students. It really is a shame, truly, when they go one way but don't even have a tinge of remarks to give for the "best" students, like yah in one instance, for when they just stoop low. Makes me wonder if they think their biases as the Whole Good or they are jealous of a student's masterpiece work and must diminish them unnecessarily - failing to see that support can get a writer further than harm. But such is the vices of such an education system where competition is held King and no thoughts given to cooperation, even when cooperation can make competitive things fun. But, such is the life under our current systemme.
Well, do publish it to the whole wide net and we can provide a better feedback and nuanced critiques than the shout-fest that was your theatre director/professor/teacher/instructor!~
Comradely Love,
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Thank you, I’ll definitely start posting them! 😊
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I wrote a script once and my instructor told me it was shit and would never sell.
He told me this a week after I signed the “buy out” deal.
The lesson is try not to take things personally, nobody knows what’s good until it does or doesn’t make money at the box office.
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Thanks for sharing!
Awesome to see that you be posting again.
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Thanks, it's good to be back 😄
Ohhh this is horrible, and a teacher of all people should know better, the world is full of people who shoot others down and a learning environment is not supposed to be one of those places.
It sounds like there was something else going on with the teacher, maybe a degree of bitterness that she tried to deny but split out onto her students on a regular basis, with maybe a bit of 'knowing best' and maybe a hint of seeing teaching as hitting predetermined boxes instead of the creative experience writing is. Even if it wasn't good (which I am sure it was) that isn't useful feedback, a teachers job is to help you improve, not crush you to giving up.
Motherly support is the best, I am lucky to have mountains of that myself, although appreciate that bias wondering, but equally, I tell myself that someone who really loves you would want the best for you, which would be telling you notes if you needed them <3
Brutal feedback is a hard thing to get over, I had a fair bit on here and it knocked me so bad I struggle not to hate every single thing I write. Its a hard place to be in, because you want to love what you write, but it becomes harder and harder to ask for help, and i have reached a point where I am haunted by comments people have made. Like friends suggesting the best way to improve would be to sound like someone else when I write, people who tell me that my stories don't make sense at all, or writing groups telling me that I can't write and should stop wasting my time trying cos i will never reach a professional level. It makes me feel like i need feedback and hate so hard on my own work, but that also makes it hard for me to hear feedback.
But I have been trying to think of writing more like birds. Yeah, there are these people who farm birds, they keep loads of them and they may be pro fancy bird farmers, and keep birds commercially and breed super fancy birds at a very high quality, but i do it for the love. For me its more like hand rearing birds, and setting them free, it shouldn't matter what other people think cos that's now why we do it. They might not think that raising that injured magpie was worth it, but I got to set it free, even if it never makes it, I gave it a chance at life. we all grow and change, and improve over time, but that doesn't make the stuff we create along the way less valuable. In fact, do you know Lladro and Nao? They are two parts of the same company that make porcelain figures. Lladro is made by the masters, and Nao by those still training - but a Nao figure will still set you back a pretty penny <3<3
Aww thank you for your thoughtful comment, it’s helpful to know I’m not the only one to struggle with harsh criticism. I’m sorry you’ve had such hurtful experiences with feedback, but I’m glad you’re continuing to do what you love!
I think it something that everyone encounters, sometimes it is needed, and some people do need to be told to stop wasting their time and only do it for the love, but you are very much not one of those people so very glad you are fine and posting again.
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