Feedback Received During the Course of Pursuing a Degree in Creative Writing

You should push yourself to expand your ideas beyond the immediate.

Learn to cut!

People don’t write poems like this.

I couldn’t find a character I liked. They’re all so flawed.

The disdain for everything is hard to take.

I feel like I’ve read this before, but I haven’t.

Your influences shouldn’t be so obvious.

I’m struggling with this, and not in a good way.

If I were writing this, I’d try to maybe add some conflict. No one wants anything. Give Jack something to want. A glass of water? For Becky to answer the phone? Something. Otherwise, why should we care?

Add color. Red for energy. White for peace. Black of severity. Blue for tranquility. Green for immaturity. Dress your characters as they are. It makes it easier for the reader to see them.

Have you ever heard of plot?

Too much attention is being paid to insignificant things. You’re not Edgar Allan Poe.

Pull back from the urge to shock. This is the 21^st century. What haven’t we seen already?

There are no original stories, but that’s no excuse for this.

Have you thought about moving the POV from 3^rd to 1^st person? 1^st might make the reader relate better to the narrator. Maybe even 2^nd?

You have the structure of a sonnet, but not sonnet worthy content. How are you honoring the form? Does the subject matter need to be presented in this way? Also: if you must make this a sonnet, look again at the ending couplet. You’re stretching things to make two lines out of what might work better as one. And 13 lines a sonnet does not make. I know, I know—we read that Donald Justice poem, but just because he got away with a 13-line sonnet doesn’t mean you can. Or should. Respect the sonnet. Don’t play around with a recipe that works.

Jesus, you men.