my poor NBFB is embarrassed because he screwed up the gender of one of the characters in a story we read last night. now he’s questioning whether he belongs. it absolutely breaks my heart. i convinced him to take that class and the fact that he’s not enjoying it anymore makes me feel bad. blech.
and really, he shouldn’t be so embarrassed, because another classmate also thought the character was a girl.
and at least nobody shouted at him. like they did to me.
“uh, i have on question,” i said. “when he says, ‘i want to be tough like B.A.’ who is B.A?”
“B.A. BARACUS!” the male portion of my class shouted in unison.
“sheesh,” i said. “i didn’t know.”
then some discussion of the a-team, which i never, ever watched ensued.
talk about embarrassing.
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It’s not you… no one can say B.A. Baracus without shouting.
Chalk it up to experience, my friend. I didn’t feel so good at the drop-in clinic when I encouraged a street youth to physically usher me out of an improv scene to end it, and the counselor came screaming in about, “keeping physical contact to a MINIMUM!!!” But I learned from it. Everyone has a different level of expertise or previous knowledge.
Having said that, writing classes *are* hard for this kind of stuff because we’re talking about messages, and trying to get them across. A simple question or misunderstanding turns into a personal attack on the author. What we need to do is ask who our audience is, how much does the average person need to know, and does the inclusion of a pop culture reference suddenly exclude the bulk of your readership? Of course, your class isn’t your readership, but a cross-section of a whole bunch of ’em. There will be varying opinions. It all has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Now, having said *that*, writers are morons. Our egos are halfway up *your* ass. We’re trying to please people and it messes us up when we realize our point wasn’t clear.
Socrates said, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. You and Jeff shouldn’t feel bad. You don’t learn if you don’t ask. In a literature class our final or midterm was an essay on a character’s avocation. Not being exactly sure of the definition, and not wanting to blow the exam, I asked the teacher, which brought laughs from the class and the teacher, and then he tried to save himself saying he was surprised because I was usually pretty articulate. Hey, we’re all smart enough to realize that no one knows everything and we are not perfect. Usually only we are the ones who expect ourselves to be infallible.