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Tolkien’s 7 Tips on How To Be a Thoughtful Critic
If you read the blog you know I’m fascinated with J.R.R. Tolkien’s letters. I feel like they are the best path to figuring out what the author thought about everything. Not only that, they are indexed for easy reference.
Upon reading through the letters, I stumbled over a letter Tolkien wrote to C.S. Lewis in September of 1948, a letter of apology. It is common knowledge that the two authors would meet in a writing group they dubbed “The Inklings”, but this letter gives us insight into the inner workings of that select group and what apparently transpired to prompt this letter was that C.S. Lewis had been deeply hurt by some things Tolkien had said to him regarding (possibly) Lewis’s reading of a passage from his English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Tolkien 125).
The following tips are gleaned from that very lengthy letter:
1. Make Sure There Are No Hard Feelings — Tolkien writes “I regret causing pain, even if and in so far as I had the right; and I am very sorry indeed still for having caused it quite excessively and unnecessarily” (Tolkien 126). It is important that in a writing group everyone understand that criticism is not meant to harm the person and that people should not take things personally. Criticism is meant to help the writer be a better writer. Everyone in the writing group should lay…
