Finding harmony in feedback…

“I don’t know if I like that…”

When you’re a writer, sometimes you’re going to hear this or a variation on it from people you’ve asked for feedback. And you may instinctively get defensive. After all, we tend to be our own worst critics, right? You’re not sure if you like “that” either, or maybe you wouldn’t have had anyone else look at it in the first place. But on the other hand, you feel like you had good reasons to write what you did, and feedback that something doesn’t feel right is maddeningly vague and tempts you to just ignore it and bull on ahead.

This happens occasionally in the Wolf household because Dawn functions as my first reader. Most of the time any feedback is more along the lines of figuring out how to draw a given panel or asking me to please alter it because she doesn’t think it’s going to work visually, but occasionally the critique goes deeper than that. The original draft of this week’s page was one of those times where I could tell she felt uncomfortable.

“I don’t know if I like that she doesn’t know how to use the rifle.”

Ah. I explained that I didn’t want Suzie to come off as an expert in everything, all the time. She’s not used to automatic fire, but she corrects shortly and nails two Huachucas.

“Yeah, but, Suzie’s supposed to be a Clint Eastwood type. You wouldn’t see Clint Eastwood have that loss of control moment.”

This gave me pause, because I couldn’t readily think of an example to refute her. Dirty Harry is a master of all weaponry from revolvers to bazookas. The Man With No Name can handle small arms and artillery alike with unquestioned, sometimes even nonchalant competence, and I never asked myself where he learned to shoot a cannon with pinpoint accuracy. And certainly no supporting character was nearby cannonsplaining to him. The closest I could think of was William Munny’s shotgun misfiring in Unforgiven, and that was the hardware at fault rather than him.

But still, Zombie Ranch is meant to be a deconstruction of such fare as much as it is a celebration of it. It felt right to me to acknowledge that moment of uncertainty, even if just for a second. And Oscar’s advice isn’t meant to be mean-spirited. On Dawn’s end, though, she still felt something was off.

At these times when you’re at impasse, both feeling strongly but struggling to express that in more precise terms, it can help to take a break, so I called for one. Let’s have some dinner and watch some TV and then revisit.

When we came back to it a couple of hours later, Dawn still wasn’t feeling in agreement, but she was able to articulate, “I don’t like that they’re ganging up on her.”

You see, in the original draft, just after Oscar shouts advice, I cut to Frank grumbling about a “goddamn waste o’ ammo” — I meant that to be him grumbling about Oscar’s insistence on carrying and using an automatic rifle, but I had to admit the timing of it seemed more like a critique of Suzie, especially since Frank had been snarking at Suzie in their last interaction. Completely not what I intended, and for that matter not really necessary to the moment… so I snipped it. And thus was balance achieved.

Dawn’s not the best at articulating her critiques, but I’ve learned over the years that if she feels strongly about something, it’s worth examining that and sussing out what’s giving her pause. Then we can figure out a solution together, and more often than not the end result is the better for it.