Listening to Critics

Scott Kurtz is the author of one of my favorite web comics. I read PvP every day, and have even used his strips to send messages to my wife. Scott has had a few controversial opinions, but I usually don’t pay much attention to them. Most of the time, Scott is just telling people the uncomfortable truth, and they don’t want to hear it. Beside: success speaks for itself, and you cannot argue with somebody who has had as much success as Scott has had. That won’t keep me from arguing right here and now, though.

In a recent post, “Why We Insulate”, Scott was trying to explain why the book “How To Make Webcomics” doesn’t have a chapter on dealing with critical response to somebody’s work. Early in the post, he states this:

Why we insulate ourselves from the notion that the external critic can EVER be right, is because their critique is moot in regards to the progression of our work.

I very much disagree with this statement.

External criticism is often valid, and there’s nothing wrong with it shaping our work. This is a topic that I want to comment on because much of my past work has been in the public eye – not on a daily basis, with the feedback cycle of a web comic – but people have certainly have had opinions on my work in the past. It turns out that many times, they were right! And I couldn’t have figured that out without listening to them.

The heart of Scott’s argument comes early on, in a suitably geeky Star Trek reference:

Think about Star Trek and the Prime Directive. Sometimes, civilizations take a left turn in their natural progression and things go tits up. Sometimes there is a dictatorship or a famine or a plague that is going to steer this civilization into trouble, but the crew of the Enterprise CAN NOT ACT. They can NOT interfere. To interfere with those hardships would be to damage the natural progression of that civilization.

Except for a very important detail: in every single one of these episodes that Scott mentions, the Enterprise does leave the planet having made a difference. This difference is usually achieved by working around the Prime Directive (which is where the fun of the episode lies – “how are they ever going to get out of this one without violating the Directive?”). But every single time that the Enterprise gets involved somewhere, that involvement is transformative. Scott is correct in that the Enterprise cannot interfere - but they do act.

It makes a lot of sense, if you think about it – if the crew ever left behind a status quo that we find repugnent, we would soon stop watching the show. The focus of these episodes would quickly shift into a repeated justification of the Prime Directive, rather than an exploration of the issue at hand.

And just like the Enterprise always leaves having affected change (often in a subtle way), listening to critics will always better the artist’s work in some shape or form. Many times, outside feedback must be ignored because it doesn’t come from a place that is constructive to our creative process. But sometimes, there is good criticism, and it just needs to be interpreted correctly. It becomes the artist’s job then to filter out the good feedback from the bad, and to work the valid opinions into the fabric of his creation without violating his core beliefs or upsetting the natural order of his world. Especially when, as Scott admits himself, this change will probably happen anyway if the artist left was just left to his own devices:

It’s not that we don’t realize we’re making mistakes. It’s not that we’re oblivious to the fact that our work is imperfect. But if we play it safe and never risk those imperfections, then we’ll never grow as artists. Ultimately, we can’t chart our course based on what our readership or critics thinks is working. We have to go with our gut.

I agree that we have to go with our gut, and we cannot chart a creative course that is governed by the many-faceted opinion of the audience. To make matters more difficult, we’re operating in a world where only the most vocal and negative audience member are usually submitting their opinions.

But sometimes, listening to critics can point out wrong turns in our work faster than if we only relied on ourselves to figure them out! As the artist, we’re always closer to the subject matter than the audience. Often times, we’re too close, and we are missing perspective. And that’s where critics play such an important role! They give us something that we don’t have ourselves: perspective . Critics can alert us to times when a change in direction is driven by indulgence, rather than by constructive exploration. I find it foolish to disregard that resource.

And that’s why there is no chapter in our book on when to accept that, sometimes, the critic is right.

I don’t understand this. The crux of Scott’s argument seems to be that artists need to be allowed to experiment and to make mistakes. No argument here. But this doesn’t mean that the artist always needs to discover wrong turns himself! Following your instinct and listening to (sometimes overwhelmingly negative) feedback are not mutually exclusive! If we strongly believe in an idea, it will withstand the storm of negative criticism.

Sometimes, the critic is right. If we listen to him (listen - not let him persuade us against our better judgement), we can learn from his opinion. Never mind that we, as the author, often arrive at the same conclusions sometime later. Listening to the critics might have gotten us to a valid conclusion faster – and that is good!

The notion that Scott Kurtz puts forth, that insulating yourself from the opinion of critics, is a dangerous one. I can list dozens of areas in my past work that I believed in 100%, only to find later, by listening to the critics on the internet, that I was missing the big picture at the time. Many of these occurrences I had already figured out myself. But other areas were a complete surprise to me, and if I hadn’t listened, I might still be making the same mistakes today.

I’m a better designer for listening, and for the insight that I gained in the process. I believe that the same applies to authors in other areas.

Update: There’s a good podcast by Kurtz & Gang discussing the topic. They discuss the subject much better than the post could.