Levels of Thinking in Writing
This week, I wanted to talk about constructive criticism, but I changed my mind. Read on!
There are many styles of criticism.
Criticism for Editors
Criticism for Writers
Criticism for Readers
Criticism for Students
There is good or bad criticism.
There are different levels and topics
Surface
Characters
Plot
Metaphor
Big Ideas
Small Ideas
Details and Accuracy
Grammar
But, before we get into all that, I realized we need to have a talk about “thinking” and a few terms that I often use while talking about criticism.
So, I will be releasing a series of journals about these topics. Next week and following, these will be the topics I will talk about:
What is good or bad criticism and how to give or receive it
Styles of criticism and where to find them
Note: I am splitting these up because there is literally way too much to discuss in one week. No joke, I could write an entire book on this topic! I want each journal to be focused on one idea and be super digestible for you all!
Before We Begin
Last week I talked about “Poetry—Writing Wednesday Tips and Advice #2” I mentioned receiving criticism as a writer and I will include it here because I think the advice is important to keep in mind while reading this article.
"I want to touch lightly on how to receive critiques and criticism. Poetry has a lot to do with emotions and strong feelings (sometimes) so this is something that needs to be brought up first.
When you create something, you are very attached to it. That's normal! I've sat in many classes where a professor explains how a type or subject of writing should be avoided unless you have something new to say about it. Aka, avoid cliches. Let's say you constantly write in that cliche, it's easy to feel defensive and think everyone is attacking your writing. They are not. I used to be very emotional about my writing. But, in critiques and workshops, I learned to look at it with perspective, taking advice with a clear mind and turning to my writing objectively.
If you ever feel yourself getting defensive, take a deep breath and try to clear your head. Being defensive will stunt the possibilities of your growth as a writer because you will not be receptive or even listening to the ideas and advice put before you..."
As a further disclaimer, I will be talking about levels of thinking. By levels, I mean digging deeper and really looking at a piece versus glancing at the surface. These “levels” do not mean you are intelligent or unintelligent because you think about a certain one!
What is “Higher Level of Thinking?”
Higher level of thinking appears in many parts of academia. You often see it alongside a pyramid-graph showing common thought to deep analysis, inferring, and more. I’m not going to give you a pyramid. In writing we usually talk about three levels.
The Surface Level
The Mid Level
The Deeper Level of thinking
Now, this certainly isn’t what everyone calls them, but it gets my point across. Let’s take a look at each one with an example. (I am looking at this from a reader’s perspective of a fiction novel)
I am going to use William Golding’s Lord of the Flies for an example. I have two copies and I can’t find them anywhere, so I am going to give you the general idea and talk about it (Please bear with me.)
In Lord of the Flies, a plane full of English schoolboys going on a field trip crashes on a tropical island. The boys establish a tribe-routine that eventually descends into absolute chaos and violence towards the end of the book.
There is a scene in the book where a character, Jack, kills a pig on the island in a very violent fashion and enjoys it. There is a lot to say about that, but I am not going to go into detail for the NSFW nature. Know that Jack is mean, he has a knife, and he wants control of the island.
The Surface Level
A surface level read, is literally only scraping the surface. It is usually a discussion of simple or obvious items in the story. For example, have you ever sat in a class where you are supposed to talk about the meaning of a book, and no one can stop talking about the way it made them feel? That’s surface talk.
In this scene of Lord of the Flies, surface level thinking will focus on the emotion of the scene and the characters on a basic level. You would say, Jack is evil. Jack enjoyed the killing, so we know he is a bad person. This word and this description disturbed me and that was the author’s intent.
There are a few things that are not great about reviewing a piece in this way. First, obviously we all know this is a scary scene and we know Jack is crazy bad. It is good to identify this and understand the plot, but do not stop here. That is where some people fall short. You understand, but you are not done yet. Dig deeper! Pick up your spade and start asking questions to lead you to the mid-level of higher thinking.
The Mid Level
This level is a little deeper than the surface and often deals with intentions and asking questions.
You know that this scene is scary. But, what makes it so scary? Tell me more. On thinking about this topic, you know that Jack is scary because he killed the pig and enjoyed it, but that is not it. Think about it, Jack is a schoolboy. Why would a school boy commit such an action? That’s a little more disturbing than just some adult killing a pig. With mid-level thinking, you usually compare the questions to the plot. If Jack is out killing pigs for fun, will he turn his violence and control onto the rest of the island? Will he threaten the other boys?
See what you are doing here? You are taking details from the scene and you are now asking questions and making inferences. That is mid-level thinking—good job!
The Deeper-Level of Thinking
Now, you have understood the plot and you have asked questions and made inferences and even hypothesized a little about the story and characters. Are you ready to go deeper?
Looking at something beyond the characters and plot, expands ideas to a bigger picture. You start to ask, what is the piece trying to say as a whole? Being a little dystopian style, it’s asking, what does this reflect of society and our morals? Etc.
I’ll give you more details about Jack. You wonder what this means for the plot and characters but let’s add one more thing. Jack, a schoolboy on a school trip has a knife that he wields often. How did this boy have a knife? Why is he so eager to murder things with it? You think, how did he get it on the plane? That takes a lot of effort and at least a little planning. With all that effort, what was the knife's purpose? To choose to bring a weapon to a school trip and he is already violent, what was he planning to do to his classmates?
When my teacher asked us this question back in high school, we all stared dumbly at the book. We realized we didn’t think about where the knife had come from. It was there and we just accepted the fact. But in questioning it, we opened a whole new can of worms.
(Another side note: I know that boys carrying knives, especially back then was not rare at all. But no other boys in this book were carrying knives, Jack was the only one, making it a purposeful choice of the author. Plus, as the book continues, the knife is the weapon used to destroy the society they created among themselves and becomes a metaphor etc. etc. etc.)
So that is the Higher Level of Thinking!
I know a lot of you are probably reading this and are thinking “DUH” the entire time, but I want to make sure everyone can start and understand from this point. I work a lot of projects as a freelance editor and these are things, I see a lot in the writings I review. I see a lot of writings created solely for emotional thought and reactions only rather than building plots or bigger ideas. As a writer, analyze your own work to make it deeper and more of a richer read. And when you look for feedback, you will now have a better idea on what kind of feedback you would like to request. (We will talk about in the upcoming weeks!)
There is one more thing I want to touch on and that is assumptions.
Assumptions
An assumption is reading something in a story and assuming something is a certain way without the author providing anything proving that idea. For example, a classmate in my class once said, “That was so sad. This character, she has gone through so much, so I think she is very strong because of all the hardships she has faced.”
My teacher asked, “What hardships? Yes, she was sad for a moment, but what happened to her to make her strong? This character has faced no adversity yet, so she has not had a hardship.”
Student: “But it was so sad, so that is a hardship.”
This student assumed because a moment made her sad while reading, she assumed the character was struggling, when in reality the author had nothing happen to the character, there were no hardships.
… I wish I remember what we were reading but all I remember was the student filled the blanks and invented parts of the story that didn’t exist to assume. … don’t do that.
So next week, I will begin talking about criticism. You will see these ideas come up as I talk about what is good or bad criticism/ advice, what kinds of criticism you can expect from certain people and more.
Until then!
Let me know in the comments what you think! Maybe in school, what did your teachers call these ways of thinking? What terms did they use instead? It even varied by class for me so I'm very interested.