while i think alex’s advise is excellent, if i were the letter-writer, i would just offer some vague praise and criticism, because the “author” isn’t going to listen to anything else.

the key phrase in the original letter is “she wants to be taken seriously. Her ego is protected by a thick layer of arrogance (teachers, mentors and editors have nothing to offer her), and I’m afraid that if I give her an honest assessment she would push me away for good.

it doesn’t sound like the novel-writer really wants to be a writer, but be praised to the heavens about her talent. i’ve seen this person in writing workshops and elsewhere, and you wonder why they even bother letting others read their work. they get too defensive and try to explain away their choices and mistakes; they seem more interested in defending their work than actually trying to improve it. if the friend she tells the truth about the awfulness of the novel, she loses her pal and doesn’t really accomplish anything.

who knows? perhaps the novelist is an unrecognized genius. but i kinda doubt it.

I think of it this way: if you and a friend are getting dressed to go out and your friend asks you if her dress makes her look fat (and it really does), you tell her. That way she can change. If you’re on the town and she is about to go talk to a cute guy and she asks you how her butt looks in her dress (ready to mutiny at any moment) you tell her it looks fantastic because more than anything at that moment she needs confidence. She can’t change her dress anymore, she can only change the way she carries herself as she struts across the bar.

In this, you are lucky. I think I am much less talented at giving hard criticism (especially complicated considering, erm, what I do for a living).

Have you seen the brouhaha surrounding Po Bronson’s new book? Among the subjects he tackles: the over-praising of children. His point; kids know when they are being lied to and when the praise is false. This can’t be good for society. It can’t be good for adults either.

He helped me in office hours with encouragement, and my writing was better for it. I am indebted to him forever for that sharp change in writing direction.

I don’t need that kind of slashing feedback anymore (though I can handle it, too), but what I tell my friends is this: If I had a booger in my nose, you would TELL ME, right…? So if my writing has boogers all over it, please tell me, don’t let it walk around like that.

Or because I love metaphors, I also say, if my ass looks fat in a particular pair of jeans you would TELL me, but then you’d ALSO point me lovingly to a pair of more flattering pants, too.

Okay I’ll stop here.

Thank you Alex.

However, I don’t know if the letter writer, who calls him/her self “A Writer’s Friend,” is much of a friend to begin with. S/he sort of reminds me of someone I sat next to at a dinner once, who was telling me about her various friends, and classifying them as “real” friends and “pity” friends, the pity friends apparently being the people she only hung around with because she felt sorry for them. I think A Writer’s Friend is the same kind of person, and is therefore not even an actual friend to begin with.

As a reader, I ask the writer ahead of time what they are looking for (in essence I try to find out WHY they want me to read it) as I have discovered that quite often they are asking for my feedback but what they really want is for me to pass it on to my agent. So I’m clear, this is what I’ll do if you ask me to read this, if that’s not what you are looking for I will cheer you on when you get published.

And like you I NEVER show my work to anyone I’m involved with or — my mom.