Last night, I was watching MasterChef with my fiancé and I realized that, over the two seasons I’ve watched, there are always a few contestants who seem certain they know better than the judges. Gordon Ramsay will come around, ask them what they’re cooking, taste it, and often offer some sort of “Are you sure about this? Did you think this through?” criticism. The contestants who often do the best, take that cue and work toward applying the criticism to their cooking. The contestants who are often eliminated early on in the competition are the ones who shake their heads at the criticism and seem convinced that they know better than the judges.
I think it’s safe to say that, while each and every contestant on MasterChef is a very talented cook, odds are that not a single one of them knows more than the judges—three individuals with years of professional experience. Can these judges be surprised? Can they be wrong? Yes. But, especially when it comes to the basics of taste and the techniques of cooking, they are almost always more knowledgeable than the contestants.
More than that, it’s always surprising that these contestants, who frequently explain how they’re looking forward to learning from some of the best chefs in the world, refuse to heed any advice or criticism.
Here’s the kicker… Surprise, surprise! I’m not just talking about Master Chef.
As an editor, my stock and trade is based around critique. Much like Master Chef, I’ve found that the people most willing to really listen to and learn from criticism are almost always the people that end up writing/drawing/creating the better comic. Another perspective on your work, be it cooking or writing, is an invaluable thing. Don’t turn your nose up to it. Odds are, you are not writing completely perfect scripts or drawing entirely flawless pages. That has nothing to do with the fact that you aren’t talented. It has everything to do with the fact that you are human. We’re all flawed. We’re all imperfect. Or, to flip it, we all have something to learn no matter how good we are at what we do.
Brian McDonald‘s Invisible Ink blog features some great posts on being open to learning. Here are two of my favorites…
–A Few Thoughts on Learning
–The Secret of Magic
The second you stop learning is the exact moment that you’ve decided to limit how good you can be at anything. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Ego’s hard to push out of the way, but it affects us all. We’ve all been there. But, the more you can do to put that aside and open yourself up to the imperfections of your work, the more you’ll learn and improve.
Before you call me a hypocrite, thinking I’m preaching something I don’t practice, why do you think I’m reading Brian McDonald’s book? I may know a thing or two, but I still want to learn the next thing or three, four, five… you get the idea.
For another anecdote, I recently wrote a short comic script. It was for a 10-page story that I was really proud of. It went from brain to page easily and I thought it was damn funny. But, not wanting to fall into the trap of convincing myself my work was great within the vacuum of my mind, I sent it off to some trusted friends for feedback. When one of them said—among other notes—”It could be shorter”, I was skeptical, but entertained the point. When a second friend echoed the note, I cut the story by two pages. (Note: Feedback from an additional source can be helpful when it comes to your ego trying to ignore good feedback.) Was it a fine story before? A good story, even? Sure. Is it better now? Absolutely. You can be proud of something, you can write something really good, but why stop at good? Why not go for great? In my experience, every creator that is open to feedback, listens to it, asks themselves why they are getting it, questions what is at the root of it, and then applies it to their work… well, these are the creators that I not only want to work with again, but they ones that turn out the best final product.
As the title of the post says, never stop improving. Never. And maybe, one day, that mentality will help you create a really great comic. Or win MasterChef. That’s up to you!
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