Do you remember how, when you first started writing, you just had to show that piece of work to anyone that would read it? And do you remember how most of your family and friends would respond to it?
"Oh, I like it. It's good. Keep going."
It just made you think you were the best writer in the world, didn't it?
I know it did that for me. When I was little (like, 13 or so) I thought I was good enough to start posting fanfics on fanfiction sites like zeldalegends.com and fanfiction.net. Then, I had other writers -who of course couldn't see me and had no problem with it- tell me the brutally honest truth. That really, I sucked at it. I have to say that I'm kind of grateful for people under pen names like Fox the Cave II who brought me down to size. But at the same time, that particular person did it in a very rough manner that could have been refined.
So what writers need is a happy median, between the people who won't tell you anything other than "It's good" and people who tear you completely down. That's why it's really good to make friends with writers. Don't just show your work to your friends or other writers you don't know, but to the combination of the two, your writer friends. They're the ones who understand that you're asking their opinion because the work needs improvement and you want their feedback, because you know that they know what they're talking about. They're also not so distant from you that they don't mind ripping you to shreds and leaving you bleeding ink.
So I was very fortunate to find people like Stinger-VXR42, SPG Inc., Irish Redd, Phantom, and The-One-True-Koneko who were my happy median writer friends. They were very good at constructive criticism, as well as helping me up when I began to falter. Now I have three mentors and couple of extra writer friends to help me out as well.
So tell me, do you have any specifc writer friends that you go to for critquing? Who are they?
My first reader is gold. She knows what to look for and is honest enough to tell when it isn't there and smart enough to suggest how to make it better.
ReplyDeleteI would go to Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, and Roger Zelazny. Wait. I'm not crazy. Ah, well, maybe a little.
ReplyDeleteBut let me explain : I would go to some of my favorite passages, bits of dialogue, scenes of description from those writers. Read them with a critical eye, then go back to what I've written -- and the flaws in my prose would glare back at me.
Then, there are my friends who visit at my blog. They point things that slip past me, patterns of prose that annoy or repeated words. My blog friends are truly worht their weight in gold.
You have a lovely blog. I will pray for The Father to grant your dream of becoming published. If it's not too much of a bother, pray the same for me, Roland