That's wonderful

"He certainly didn't ever want me to say I didn't like something," admitted John Steinbeck's widow, Elaine. "He wanted me to say, 'That's wonderful,' and I did."

Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write

We all want someone to tell us, "That's wonderful," and believe it to be true, although the latter is optional.

I took several creative writing classes at Ohio University, and each week we would critique one another's stories. Mostly we criticized them. We searched for things we didn't like or didn't believe. We found grammatical errors and spelling errors. But what each of us really wanted was something on the order of, "That's wonderful." The poet Cecil Hemley, one of my instructors, called one of my stories "artful," a comment I have treasured for decades.

Scott Adams

Recently I heard Scott Adams, the "Dilbert" creator, talk on the radio about a Dale Carnegie class he attended where only positive comments were allowed. The group was intended to train people to speak effectively in public. He remembers one shy woman who gave a terrible speech. What positive comment could possibly be said about it? The instructor told her how much courage it must have taken for her to stand up before the group and speak. Her next speech was much better, as was the one after that.

Years after college I attended a retreat for editorial writers, where a group of us commented on one another's editorials. As in those creative writing classes, we mostly criticized each other's work. When my turn came I had found nothing wrong with the editorials in question. I felt like a failure. Yet when I said the writing was flawless the smile on the writer's face told me I had said the right thing, the best thing.

Most of us remember criticism longer than we remember praise. Perhaps the sting can motivate us to do better next time, if it doesn't discourage us from ever trying again. And if nobody points out those grammatical errors and factual errors, etc., how might we ever find out about them?

Even so, you can't beat "That's wonderful."