I DO NOT waste anything.
Especially if it is something delicious that I have written.
Especially if it has been previously sampled and enjoyed by a small group.
So, I’m sharing this Feedback material I wrote after I asked my students in my online Master Class on Creative Writing about the last romantic movie they have watched in the movie house.
Believe me, some people’s last romance movie cinema experience was “Titanic”, 1997.
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Feedback on the Movie Question—
Firstly, it was a test to gauge your capacity to follow my instructions.
Or, conversely, how clearly I give the instructions.
So far, with most people answering correctly, I think I give pretty clear instructions.
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Secondly, it was a test for your self-awareness.
How well you know the life you have lived.
If you remember your last time in a movie-house, watching which romantic movie, and with whom—I think that’s beautiful.
Of course, the romantic movie, or even the movie part could have easily been another event (like eating what flavor of ice cream).
I just feel that because we are going into “love month February”, I want to check your Romantic Factor.
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I always think that the cinema, although expensive, is a romantic thing.
I hate the convenience of hitting the Pause button to go pee, or to deal with a Facebook notification.
I like the ritual of dressing up to go to a cinema.
I mean, I still wear T-shirt and jeans, but I pay more attention to my T-shirt and jeans if I am going to the movies.
I also love the collective reaction of audiences.
And the magic electricity that happens in the darkened hall where I am connected to the rest of the movie-going humans even if we are not staring at each other eye-to-eye.
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I cry a lot in the movies.
And that’s why I like watching romantic films.
They make us remember all the great loves that could have been, and never were.
The crazy, grand, exaggerated loves that do not seem to happen in real life.
The risks that only imagined characters can make—like turning away from riches to go with a stupid prostitute.
If movies don’t make me cry, they’re not romantic enough!
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Crying is so important to me.
It makes me feel more human.
More vulnerable.
Because Life can be a bitch, and I often bitch back.
But I don’t go to the movies to bitch.
If I pay for a movie, I’ll surrender and hope for its magic.
I have never walked out of a movie.
I’m that cheap! If I paid for it, I’ll suffer it.
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Now, if it’s a bad movie on DVD or Netflix streaming, I can stop in the middle of Scene 15, pop in a new DVD, or choose another selection to stream.
I don’t think that’s giving the movie a real chance.
But if it’s (almost) free, why suffer?
Romance is very important in writing.
You have to make love to words, to punctuation marks, to sentences and phrases, to your potential readers, to the empty page/computer screen.
I even think that you must have a romantic bias to be able to write warmly.
If you have loved, have been wooed, and been hurt, you know which words may titillate, and which words could irritate.
Then, you would even be more careful with the words that you use.
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Thirdly, the question was a gauge for your reading/writing level.
If you can’t read and follow instructions, I doubt very much that you could write very well.
I don’t need to prove this.
I’ve seen this a lot in my experience with many workshops and classes.
(I was a high school English teacher for at least 5 years, and a university instructor of Philosophy for some time.)
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I also wanted to see how you work on the literal level.
The question was very straightforward.
Some of the answers were written with florid vocabulary.
Trying very hard to be poetic.
Very operatic.
That makes the work suspect for me.
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Fourthly, I wanted to start with ordinary and real things like watching a romantic movie.
I didn’t want to be impressed by your movie choices.
I’ve probably watched more movies than all of you combined.
I’ve been watching European and South American movies in 1992, before pirated CDs and DVDs where even invented.
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I’m evil for thinking badly like this.
But I also felt there was an effort to impress me with your answers.
Both in your movie choices, and how intricately you answered the question.
Here’s a lesson I want you to learn this early: Do not write trying to impress anyone. (Especially me!)
Write only true.
Write only in the simplest terms.
When you have mastered your sentence structure, you may use the thesaurus to fish out the most exquisite and highfalutin word you want to use.
Just be sure you understand the nuances of your word choices.
Like, can you see the flute in highfalutin?
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This can be a sour note, if you want to read it that way.
But this is also my way of leveling expectations.
I have read your responses, and I have studied them very well.
I think I know you better now with just that one-two question.
Of course, you will try to prove me wrong by revealing more of yourself, and your genius, as we go along.
Bring it on! (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
