Finding Mr. Write
By Sarah Callender | March 11, 2015 |
I wish I could have one of these.
My high school boyfriend wore eye liner and had self-pierced body piercings. He dealt drugs and somehow managed to acquire a not-for-hunting gun. He was also Sophomore Class President. He loved me as passionately as one sixteen-year-old could love another sixteen-year-old. And after cheating on me (as sixteen-year-old Romeos are wont to do), he carved an “A” into his skin, right over his heart. We had recently read The Scarlet Letter in American Lit. Did I mention he was passionate? We dated for four years.
My college fella was (and still is) an exceptionally good man. He came into my life without piercings or illegal guns. Not once did he carve anything into his body. But while we dated, we made each other laugh and learned to tolerate each other’s roommates, and he didn’t care when Top Ramen and frozen yogurt gave me an extra fifteen pounds of poundage. However. I was Irish and Protestant (not Italian and Catholic), and that was the ultimate deal-breaker, especially in the eyes of his sweet Italian, Catholic mother. He and I still chat on the phone and exchange Christmas cards, and for that I am grateful. We dated for three years.
My post-college beau was the aforementioned Fritz. I loved Fritz’s parents and sister, and aside from the two over-the-phone break-ups, Fritz was kind and smart. He probably still is, but I don’t know because we don’t exchange Christmas cards. I do know he is a urologist in Milwaukee and based on the fact that he named one of his daughters “Sarah,” I assume he spends a good portion of every day regretting that he broke up with me twice. We dated for eighteen months, including the Time Out in between rounds.
My current boyfriend doubles as my husband. We met when we were both living in Chicago, and because I am 5’4” and he is 6’4” (and because he tends toward obliviousness), I needed to push him down into a snowy patch of Lincoln Park, get his face level with mine, and kiss him; he needed to realize we should give kissing a try. We were engaged ten months later. He thinks I am funny. I think he is funny. He almost never annoys me. He has never broken up with me. He went to see The Sound of Music sing-a-long with me even though musicals are as painful to him as infected body piercings. He loves me through my bouts of mental illness and has easily won Best Father every year since 2003. He did, however, lie to me the first time we met, and it was a doozey.
“I love to read literature,” he said.
No, he doesn’t. If he reads anything, it’s non-fiction Malcolm Gladwell. We’ve been dating for almost twenty years.
When I look at the evolution of my relationships, it makes sense that my search for the Ms./Mr. Write-ing Partner has been no less epic, upsetting, challenging, joyful and meandering. It took me years to find the proper tripod to support me in my writing. I imagine the same has been–or will be–true for you, too.
Why is it so difficult to find a fabulous critique mate?
We don’t want to. Many of us are introverts, passionate about writing because writing gives us permission to be alone in the quiet for years on end. The idea of putting ourselves out there to share not only ourselves but our writing? No gracias.
Writers are really weird. Therefore, it’s a challenge to find someone who’s compatibly weird. Think about it: we are insatiably curious about people who don’t exist, often loving our characters as if they are real humans. We swing wildly from one pendulum end to the other—I Love writing! I Will Never Write Again! Finding a critique partner who is weird in ways that complement our own weirdness takes time and energy. Do you have extra time and energy? No, me neither.
What are we looking for? Sometimes a critique partner can be perfectly lovely except that his goals don’t match ours. He can only meet at 1:00 a.m. on the second Tuesday of every other month. Or he only wants to help with line edits. Or he is always too busy to bring writing to the meeting. Or he wants us to read 200 pages of his novel each week. Critique partners must have similar goals, levels of commitment, flexibility and needs; otherwise we will feel frustrated or misunderstood or unsatisfied. Or all three. It’s wise to chat about goals before we tie the knot.
It takes time to find people who are as jazzed about our writing as we are about theirs. I have been in critique groups where one or more of the members clearly did not like my writing. And vice versa. This scenario stinks, partly because we have to sit there in a circle, pretending we care about something we don’t care about and summon tidbits of thoughtful, constructive feedback for something we hate. On the other hand, our critique partner isn’t helpful if he blows only sunshine and rainbows up our tush. Sunshine and rainbows belong in the sky, not elsewhere. Why have a critique partner if he doesn’t challenge us to grow?
OK. So it’s difficult to find a great critique partner. Maybe it’s just better to fly solo . . .
No! It’s unhealthy to write in complete isolation! Do you know what happens when incarcerated people are placed In Solitary? They lose their minds. And we writers will have an easier time writing a novel if we have our mind. We are meant to be in relationship with one another; others keep us in check, keep us moving forward, always improving. In other words, even introverts need others. Much like the monkeys, we often cannot find the nits in the hard-to-reach places of our stories. We need someone who’s willing to comb through our plots and pick out things that don’t belong. How nit-picky should our co-monkey be? Nit-picky enough to improve our work; not so nit-picky that our story loses all its fur and no longer resembles a monkey. Not so nit-picky that we feel like a total losers. In one critique group, I felt like a total loser. Probably everyone felt like a total loser. Regardless, let’s try not to place ourselves in relationships where we feel like total losers.
A good critique partner is much more than an editor. Have you ever ridden a roller coaster solo? It’s lame. The fun comes when we get squished in beside at least one other person. We scream together. We act brave together. Sometimes we throw up, and it’s nice to have someone who will hold the bag, or at least hold our hair back from our face. My current writing partners (and two amazing former partners who had the gall to move to another state) are amazing barf bag holders. And when I have moments of success, they become people who hold PhD’s in party planning.
So where do we meet available critique partners?
Everywhere. We just have to be on the lookout. And we have to be willing to talk to people who may or may not reject us. One of my fabulous, moved-away critique partners bravely came over and introduced himself when I was camped out at a writers’ conference. We started talking. I could see that he was nice and roughly as normal as I am. We had similar goals. And he was funny. In other words, he was someone I could hang with. He became someone I trust implicitly with my work. And I think that’s a vice versa situation.
I have also met critique partners at work, in my neighborhood, in writing classes, via mutual friends. While not all of them turned into ideal mates (and one was a hyper-demanding sociopath), each relationship helped me get closer to understanding what I need in a monkey. After roughly thirteen years of kissing a wide range of both primates and apes, I have found a few writerly soul mates, and subsequently I have taken out life insurance policies on each of them; without these monkeys, I’d be in deep trouble. I’d be lying alone and fetal in some muddy gutter somewhere. Or In Solitary. Or worst of all, I’d have hit the bumps that writers inevitably hit, lost all hope, and given up on my writing altogether.
Your turn! What do you seek in a nit-picker? Which critique partnerships have been a smashing success (or a terrible failure) and why? In what interesting places have you stumbled upon critique partners? If you have yet to search for a critique monkey, what are the obstacles in your path? Thank you, dear WU’ers, for chiming in.
Monkey grooming photo compliments to Flickr’s Trey Ratcliff.
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
This has been my biggest challenge. I’ve tried several partners over the years and it just never seems to pan out. I think the problem is matching our writing methods. I’m a planner and would like someone to bounce ideas off of, then a short synopsis, long synopsis, etc. until I’m certain that the story will work. And I want to do the same for my partner before we both spend hundreds of hours writing and critiquing a story that is going nowhere. I’ve actually critiqued half a novel for people only to have them give up on it because it was going nowhere.
To me, the perfect partner is past the basics of show vs. tell and active voice. He or she should understand structure, the character arc, etc., so they can point out when my story isn’t working. I want someone who is serious about their writing and spends as much time as I do reading on both the craft and business side of the writing.
I’m sure he or she is our there somewhere (if you’re reading this now, the email is rmestrada@ameritech.net).
Thanks for the post.
I love the idea of WU being a community where we can make connections, list Want Ads, and find compassion and support. I just can sense that you are a catch, Ron!
:)
My writing partner for a critical part of both our careers is still a very good friend – but we haven’t read each other’s work in ages.
I have replaced her with a beta reader – someone who has volunteered to read everything before it goes out in public.
She has razor-sharp intuition – and catches me when I don’t show enough of the story because I know it already, and forget the readers might not. She only gets work that is as finished as I can possibly make it.
Other than that, I can’t do anything that involves reading someone else’s work, especially unfinished work, because I can barely keep my own in mind.
Oh, and my husband doesn’t read fiction – but he never said he did: we are both hard scientists. I’m the one who forgot to mention that I read tons of fiction, and planned to write some. It is what it is.
Public commentary after I put the next serialized scene up on my blog every week seems to be enough feedback so far. I’ll find out soon if that was foolhardy.
I miss the days when my writing partner and I got together over lunch and read the WIP – but have no desire to go back.
Good luck with yours – and thanks for writing about your experience. I marvel at how many different ways there are to write.
I love your point . . . “there are so many ways to write.” Yes! And so many ways to be in relationship with other writing partners.
I know what you mean about that first love . . . the person who set us on a good and healthy course. I wouldn’t choose to go back to those days, but they are an invaluable part of who we are today.
Happy writing, Alicia! I DID get my husband to read A Constellation of Vita Phenomena, and All the Light We Cannot See is the next one I’ll be nudging him to read. When we were dating he portrayed himself as a lover of RUSSIAN lit. He went big. ;)
Great stuff, Sarah. Here’s my two cents. In addition to the requisite editing skills and grasp of story and character, a critique partner must respect and understand your chosen genre. A member of my writer’s group whose judgment I respect has been highly critical of my work and I just did not understand why. And one day it hit me. He writes dystopian, action-oriented sci fi. If I drafted a story where there was a space ship and five people got killed on the first page, he would love it. That’s just not going to happen. I write family sagas. The stakes will never be domination of the universe. A writer must not be afraid to submit her work to a variety of critics. Eventually that writer will find one or two critics who are in synch with her work and can provide helpful, actionable feedback. And those are the relationships that must be nurtured. Thanks for sharing these insights.
Gosh, I am so glad you brought this up, CG. My current writing partners (both fabulous) both write memoir and creative non-fiction (while I write fiction). I think it’s a breath of fresh air to read their work, but I must say, if I had to read one of the genres that doesn’t typically appeal to me, Dinosaur Erotica for example, it might be more difficult for me to be enthusiastic.
Such a good point. Thank you!
I didn’t have to look far. My muse/wife/editor keeps me straight and right with God.
Your essay left me with a glorious takeaway: the definition of a TRUE friend is one who holds your hair back while you are barfing. Sweet, lyrical and an irradicable, timeless image. Thanks for that.
It’s not just that you write thoughtful and thought provoking essays, Sarah, the best part is that they’re so much fun! Sort of like the roller coaster you mentioned (without the puking).
I guess I come away with two issues. First, I’m a “don’t show it till it’s ready” type of writer. As in, completed manuscript. So having what many call a “critique partner” just doesn’t fit my modus operandus. Maybe that’s depleting my remaining marbles, one by one, but so be it.
Second, why does the move to another state preclude being a writing partner? I live in the middle of Erehwon (that’s nowhere, but backward), so finding someone I can routinely see geographically would be nigh impossible. But I’ve shared my work plenty, with some wonderful folks. And read theirs. Many, many times. And the sharing and growing has been perhaps just as wonderful as it might have been if they’d lived down our (currently muddy) road. (Maybe this time of year, the muddiness would make it a bit yuckier in person). For me, the interwebs and their connectivity have been a special blessing.
Anyhoo, just wondering. But in any case, thanks a ton for the fun!
Yes, Vaughn. Such a good point about the geography of our critique partners. In this case, the guy who moved away was a pilot. When he was on trips, we would Skype him in to the conversation, but ideally, the three others wants to meet in person. When The Pilot learned he was rarely going to be in Seattle, we decided to part ways. That said, he and I still exchange work, and it’s fabulous.
Thanks so much for mentioning your situation . . . with technology, the old boundaries (and hurdles and excuses) related to geography are no longer an issue.
Sending thoughts of springtime to Erehwon. (That was very, very hard for me to spell).
xo!
OMG, OMG, OMG! Sarah, so so yes. This part especially — “I have taken out life insurance policies on each of them.”
I’ve had sycophant crit partners. Useless! I’ve had, Yeah, it’s good partners. Equally nada. I’ve had way too many who wanted to re-write my story in their own image. Yeah, right, that’s not happening.
And then, while wandering around the nets, found a local Meetup group, kinda into wife-swapping, (yeah, oooodd!) changing partners every month. Just joined ahead of me, another writer in my genre. I said sign me up if you’ll pair me with said same species. Well, month one ended and I calmly told the organizer, the shotgun wedding took — match her up with someone else IF you wanna die.
Now a year later, I’m in final revision of the first of two books I got through her development edit. Two books, 200K. She’s elbow deep in an equally major developmental edit that takes massive research.
That said, I also sponsored another online crit group, which despite several weeks of how are we gonna make this work, settled into a lively, pick your poison batch of fantasy/SF writers from all over the world. One of the group got us on Trello for posting. I put us up on Google plus for posts (this is about to go up there!) and we are getting ready for our second Hangout, with a guest speaker. The take-away being — if ya build it, they will come.
Thank you, Morgyn, for weighing in. Your ideas and creative matchmaking methods are brilliant! And you are brave and determined . . . two necessary qualities in a writer.
I’m so glad you mentioned your experiences and your creation of the Hangout. Really fantastic.
Happy writing and “meeting” to you and your group!
I’m extremely lucky in that my writing partner is my husband. We’re not always at the same stage of a project, but we always have access to the other for advice, critique, and those moments when you say, “Hey, what’s the word that means…” He helps me write realistic men, I help him write realistic women. And because we’ve been together for twenty years, we speak each other’s language, we know what areas the other tends to be sensitive, and so far we have not hurt each other’s feelings.
That is so great. And I am so jealous.
My book club read one of Erik Larson’s books, and because he lives in Seattle, we invited him for dinner & discussion. His one and only reader is his lovely, intelligent wife. When she finds a place where she is bored, she writes a trailing “Zzzzzzz” down the margin.
I bet he (and you) have extra big life insurance policies on your spouses. Thanks so much for sharing. I really am jealous. ;)
What a fun post!
I’ve never had an actual critique partner, because I don’t personally know any writers who write in a very similar style to me. Instead I rely heavily on beta readers – some of whom are writers, and others who are simply readers whose tastes and instincts I trust.
But it all starts with my first reader, who is also my ESO (Extremely Significant Other). She’s the first one I allow to read my stuff, and she’s also my best barometer of whether my stuff is working. If I can make her laugh, cry, and get really pissed off at my antagonist, I know I’ve got something viable. Getting her gut reaction to my writing has been invaluable to me in my literary journey, and I feel very lucky and blessed to have her input and support.
You are so lucky, Keith. I am sure she considers herself lucky too as your writing is a true pleasure to read. What a treat to have a built-in monkey to groom both you and your work.
Thanks for weighing in!
I think finding a compatible husband was easily then finding a compatible critique partner. I finally found one whose writing I love so much I confess I sometimes just get lost in the story and have to go back to do the critique. She loves what i write and she “gets” it. She doesn’t try to mess with my writing voice and her suggestions are usually spot on. I’m hoping to hang on to her for a long time to come!
Yes, Carol! It’s that intangible “he/she gets my writing” that is so very hard to find. Count yourself among the lucky. I have told my writing partners they are not allowed to do anything reckless or dangerous; I cannot be left to write without them.
Happy writing . . . so happy that you’re happy with your critique partner.
:)
Awesome, Sarah, that you found a good mate AND crit partner!
I am lucky to say I have a few great crit partners. Each brings a different talent to the table, and all I treasure as friends. This is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a writer: the paths we cross. My life will forever be changed having met these people. How great is that?
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
It is SO great. And I love your point about each partner bringing a slightly different eye (or skill or talent) to the table. We all have friends who play different roles in our life. It makes sense that our crit partners are no different. That’s the beauty of having more than one, you lucky lady!
And I can tell, without a doubt, that you are a gift to your partners too.
:)
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Be careful what you wish for.
I married an independent editor. A good one. A *very* good one. Lucky me.
As you may have gathered from my posts and comments I, too, work on fiction. Not rushing. I did that back in the Eighties, writing work-for-hire and romances. Nowadays I’m following my own advice, taking my time, writing from the heart, not worrying about getting published (done that) or the market (still tepid).
How wonderful, then, to have an expert eye on my pages. Except. She’s tough. Very, very tough. Unsparing, even. Not that I need sugar coated comments, you understand, or a cheerleader. But, oh man. It’s painful.
Which in another way is what you want, right? I guess I’m lucky. Partner and critique partner rolled into one. And, hey, my life partner has seen every wart and loves me anyway, true? True.
Of all the humbling I’ve undergone as a husband and dad, though, I never feel quite as small as when I read a page aloud and glance up to see a certain look on my partner/critique partner’s face–a look that is studiously neutral but really is saying, “You’re kidding, right? *That*? You’re keeping *that*?
I know then that I’m not keeping those words…but keeping her, definitely.
It’s funny, Donald, I was lucky enough to spend some time with Holly Black, and her and I have a similar process–we read our work out loud to our husbands.
Writers are pretty good at picking up on those “seriously?” or “you’ve got to be kidding?” faces, aren’t we? And when I see my husband fidgeting or completely bored as I’m reading to him, I usually end up cutting that piece. Out of curiosity, I’ve sometimes kept those bits to see what a critique partner would think, and they didn’t like it either. Body language can say so much.
Even for those us who don’t have partners that are editors, it’s still a dream to have a partner who will sit down and listen to our work, isn’t it? :)
Yes! What a luxury . . . thanks, Don and Naomi, for sharing.
I have often wondered about Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicolle Krauss, what their rules and boundaries were went it came to reading each other’s work. Or did they read each other’s work? I recently learned that they had split up, and I felt so sad. And shortly after I acknowledged the sadness, I had to manage my curiosity. What had gone wrong? To what extent did their similar talents and passions play a role in their separation? Were they ever jealous of one another?
Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that lovely couple’s home!
Sarah, the romantic in me loves the image of 5’4″ you pushing 6’4″ oblivious him into a snowbank to get a kiss!
I have a good friend, she’d been a writer for magazines way-back-when, who was very good for critiquing my non-fiction book. My story? Not so much as she wants that baby birthed and swaddled and handed over now.
In January, I connected with 2 crit partners through a blog that I frequent. The blogger had offered to be a neutral site for people searching to meet. I have a completed, extremely rough draft of a family saga. My partners do not have a completed MS. One has self-published in a couple of genres and the other, like me, is new to fiction writing. So far…I’ve been enjoying our swaps and critiques. And I’m learning from their process of crafting a novel too.
Hi Lisa,
I’m so glad you mentioned the idea of finding mates via blogs. Such a good idea . . . I especially love the idea of a neutral place to meet. It’s so much easier to commit to a new partnership when we feel like the turf is neutral.
And I’m so happy you’re enjoying your new partners. You are off to a great start!
Happy writing to you.
:)
What a delightful post. Thanks Sarah. You’ve really tapped in to secret of finding that ideal writing pal—the one that will strike hard across those cliches we insist on using and telescoping in on the obvious questions regarding our characters and their relationships because the answer rings so loudly “in our heads” we forgot to put it on the page.
Finding that certain someone is exactly like finding the ideal mate for life and writing. It’s all a process and the sooner we are willing to be patient to try people and stories on to see if they’re elastic enough for our evolution as a writer the happier we’ll be.
Personally, I’ve learned the right critique partner arrives just when I need them. The hardest part is having the balls to ask for their help. It’s all a glorious ride to the summit after that!
Such beautiful words, Jocosta. Thank you for sharing them with us. And you’re right about timing. Relationships work (or don’t) partly because the timing is either perfect or not quite right. You’re also correct that the right partner often shows up when we need her most. It’s rather magical, really.
Thanks so much for your thoughts.
:)
So true, so true. I can’t “leave home” without my 2 critique buddies. I trust them to tell me the truth about my work.
Hi Carol,
Yes, it’s a pretty special relationship when we can trust that person enough to tell us the truth. Hold on to those two partners!
:)
Sarah, I was flummoxed that you described our high-school relationship without mentioning the stolen cars. Or the shared Oscar Wilde tattoo. Onward, though.
In my salad days I was in a gazillion writing classes and workshops, where my work was chopped, diced and julienned to the degree that I fled the salad bowl for a turtle shell. I did join a writing group long after that, but it softly fell apart—bad seams, poor stitching.
Though I collaborated, happily so, on a long short story with a writer friend a year ago, and we’ve clanged on about doing it again, we never really served as critique partners, partially because he’d hired me to edit a long work of his, and that brought the oiliness of money into our palavers.
I did have some willing beta readers for my last novel (now frozen in the rear of my fridge), but that’s not the tennis-ball rally of a writing exchange. But your post has made me want to get back on the court, racquet high.
Bwahahaha! You’re just lucky I didn’t use your name in the post. I thought about it . . . is your tattoo holding up OK? Mine is sagging. I guess our parents were right when they told us nothing would last, not even tattoos.
A friend of mine is starting to do some fiction writing, and she bravely signed up for a class at the UW. It was a nightmare . . . she replayed some of the conversations and critiques that had gone on, and it absolutely made my stomach hurt. Only put yourself out there when you are ready. Or when you think that someone else would tell you that you are ready.
You are hilarious. Thanks for the laughs.
:)
Sarah, this post made me laugh so hard, as did the picture of the nitpickers. I’m a foot shorter than my husband so I’ve had to climb stairs and chairs just to steal a kiss. I have beginners luck … first man I fall in love, and I marry him. First writing class, kid-lit, my genre, first crit-group, my tribe. What can I say? I miss my writer buds in WA and now I have one trusted writer-friend in SC. I have several online critters as well, but nothing compares to the face-to-face meetings, scribbling over each others pages, reading aloud. But I know that one by one, I will build my tribe here too. I am nothing if patient.
Thanks, Vijaya. I had NO idea how important it is to have patience on this writerly journey. It’s even more essential than natural skill!
I’m so glad for your beginner’s luck. I hope that keeps working always and forever. :)
I’ve been lucky in having belonged to several great critique groups that always provided the best feedback on my work. What I always valued was the honest critique, not just the “Oh, that’s terrific, Maryann.” LOL
OMG, Sarah, you are so damn hilarious. I just want to tackle hug you every time you write a post and force you to be my friend (I’m not weird, promise).
I had some strange encounters with boyfriends too, and when I met my now current husband, he was wearing a tiger striped speedo (he was on a swim team called the tigers), I swear it was love at first sight. He’s a wonderful man, actually, and unfortunately I haven’t had any critique partners present themselves as so, yet.
I really look for someone who will not only be raw honest with my work, but especially someone who will point out where they’re confused. Often, during a critique if a someone says (aside from grammatical reasoning), “I think you should change this to such-n-such,” –I usually don’t listen. But if they say I’m confused, that’s when my ears perk up. Critiquing can be a difficult beast, but I do enjoy it just as much as writing, it’s a huge gateway into fine tuning ones craft I think.
Here’s a shout “Hallelujah!” for my apparently rare good luck in finding a critique/writing partner worthy of the name. We met in an online writing class a few years ago, and hers were the only critiques worth reading. So I took a chance and asked if we could send each other stuff.
Since that time, we’ve become good friends as well as critics and cheerleaders of each other’s work. An e-mail from Kate is always full of thought-provoking wisdom. She and I both quit work to do more writing, so she really gets this writitng life. So glad to have someone to share the lunacy with. Thanks, Kate!
I am blessed to have a wonderful reader who I trust with my work, though he is not a critique partner. You’re so right about there needing to be balance. This friend has proven himself, telling me, with no suppressed amount of rage, how pissed off he got by some of the %*$&#($ things I did in scene xx. However, he’s also the person who will pull me out of a poor-me slump via text messages by saying, “Man, you have some of the most unique epic fantasy ideas I’ve ever read! Don’t give up. YOU CAN’T GIVE UP!”
I have also been on the flip side with critique exchanges that were not helpful, and in fact were destructive to my process. This has nothing to do with receiving “tough feedback” (which I absolutely love because it gives me inspiration to dig deeper), but rather from receiving mixed and non-expert feedback that comes across as expert. I’ve been a part of this before in some writers group experiences. In a good critique, I aim to focus mostly on symptoms and reader experience, hanging up my writer and editor had (it’s very hard to do). Unfortunately, I found the writers group I was a part of indulged in pseudo-editing. I have found this dynamic is a big mistake, because it leads to diagnosis and prescription of issues, instructions on how something should be written, and often identifying issues in the text that are very subjective. The result is a mixture of gold and dirt, and I’ve spent as much time (and grief) addressing the dirt as I have sifting dirt from gold. The worst part is it casts doubt and second-guessing where this might not be merited.
But you’re right that a writer must not be an island. I love my beta reader, but he’s not going to help ensure my writing is up to par. My approach is to use a writing coach (bless you, Jennie Nash!), which is actually the topic of my blog post this month. Being part of a coaching program I am able to receive professional editorial feedback on story development as I go, as well as encouragement to keep my confidence up in what I’m doing. Most importantly, I can spend my time on the writing, and on making the writing better. True, I pay money for this service, but as far as I’m concerned it’s money paid for professional development and investment in a stronger end product.
John, I admit to a degree of dazzle, in crit with a bunch of literary writers tossing the term ‘poetry’ as a descriptive of my writing. The moment they started discussing ‘plot’ aka the narrative ‘enemy’ — the gloves came off and I took to growling. Nothing toughened me quite like a bunch of effete you know what’s shilling 800 plus pages of the same bloody scene with interchangeable characters and an utter lack of story.
Good crit from practitioners of my genre taught me when to dig in and when to shut up and cut.
I can relate, though fortunately I’ve never been a part of that kind of writer’s group. The folks in the one I was part of were all very kind and well-meaning, which is what made it to hard for me to see the damage it was going–I just loved getting such detailed feedback. But then I started working with a coach and editor and found there were contradictions to my feedback. On the one hand, feedback from the my editor was very specific and was focused on story and character development, whereas feedback from the group was all over the map. I got to the point where, after a critique swap, I was just exhausted when it came time to revise. My coach helped me identify that the group I was part of was not helping my process, and I decided after hearing this feedback that indeed I do not need a belt on with my suspenders.
A good insight for me because I’ve come from the assumed approach that “more is better” when it comes to getting feedback. This is true for some writers, but not all. Other writers (I’ll cite Vaughn, above) need to keep their pearl safe until it’s all shiny and ready to be released. I fall somewhere in between. I can show my work, but it’s not always beneficial to me, since much of my process of writing involves rewriting and discovery through writing itself–although I aim to write each scene as though it’s the final material that will be in the book, and do lots of thinking and background sketching beforehand, in truth as I write more I gain better perspective of all the nuts and bolts that are at play in that given scene and hence that particular scene may need some radical rewriting as I get closer to the story’s heart. Throw me in a critique group where the feedback is based on this work being finished, ready for readers, and, well, need I say more?
I think a group situation is better than one-to-one. When I was asked to convene a writers’ group in Sydney in 2010, what I did first was ask the members to assist me in setting up guidelines for giving and receiving feedback. This made for a harmonious group that developed great critiquing skills over time. I am now part of a smaller group, five of us, who still apply these guidelines in helping one another on the path towards publication.
My husband does not read for entertainment. Sometimes it is hard to accept that my life partner, who never complains about my endless hours spent in isolation as he goes off to work, will never read my book. Not ever. The day it becomes a movie, he will buy the first ticket and sit in the front row. He is proud of me and likes to tell his friends that his wife is an author, but I still feel bad that he will never read my book.
On the bright side, I am blessed to have a neighbor with an amazing talent for content editing, and a brainiac friend who found 300 punctuation errors in my manuscript after being professionally edited.
I attended a couple of writers group’s and left feeling depressed, wondering what the heck my problem was. What was I looking for? The answer came as a surprise when I realized I was attending in hopes of running into Dean Koontz or Stephen King or Suzanne Collins – some superstar that would take me under their wing and mentor me. Dream on! I am the only fiction writer there who has written, or is even in the process of writing a novel. Just really nice people, who like to journal, contribute to local newsletters, etc. and that’s okay. Maybe someday an aspiring novelist will show up and I will be their superstar, take them under my wing, and teach them a trick or two.
This is so touching! And discussing a good writing partner at the same level as a good romantic/life partner? Well, now that you mention it, it’s true. Thanks, Sarah.
Thank goodness I read this–albeit a helluva long time after everyone else. Anyway, my better half also doesn’t like reading very much, and what she likes to read the least is my stuff! At first I was looking for the equivalent of Stephen King’s wife–she who would be so much on the same page (writing-wise) with me that she would take my Carrie out of the garbage and tell me to finish it.
This is much more impossible than I would have thought it to be, but I’ve learned that this is okay: this relationship could certainly not stand two writing nuts. I’m enough for both of us!
So right now I’m actually looking for another writing / critique partner, though I’m also uncertain if I have enough time for one. After all, there’s a critique group right down the street from me, and I don’t go! Maybe I should find enough time to go, but I can’t help but think that if I just had one great critique partner, than we would be enough for each other.