A well-known writer read my page one and said, "You’ve
got to get more feedback."
“
Well, I'm in a critique group," I said. "We meet--"
"
It’s not enough," she said with a curt wave of her hand. "Find
a good writing class."
She wasn’t wearing her Newbery medal that day, but she could
have been. If I wasn't so in awe, I'd have been jealous of her success.
At
that moment I was only intimidated.
Why isn’t a writing group enough? Why ask why?
To understand what a reader sees when he reads your work, cage
a reader, or two, and make them tell you. Don't try it with
family though. Either
they won't get it, or if they do, they'll hate it. Don't
ask your friends, either. If they are good friends, they can't
be trusted.
And in the
rare cases when they do tell you the awful truth, you won't
feel very friendly with them afterwards.
Some lucky writers have a loyal writing group, and that's
good. But unfortunately, it still may not be enough to
get the amount
of feedback
you need in today's super-competitive business. Sometimes,
our writing group is also a support group and it knows
us too well.
Or not well
enough. There are only about a million other reasons why
many of the writing groups out there, good as they are,
aren’t enough. These
reasons don’t matter. What matters is do you feel you are improving
in your craft?
Perhaps you are like me. Sometimes I have a hard time
understanding and/or believing the comments of my well-intentioned
readers.
Perhaps I am too stubborn to get it. Unfortunately,
I usually need to learn
everything the hard way: all by myself One thing I did was hunt, and hunt, until I finally found
that good class. I’ll take it again when I can swing it. I've also found
valuable criticism at writer's workshops and at the critique sessions
during SCBWI conferences. I’ve met a few agreeable readers who
are far outside my group. These fellow SCBWI members will know my
struggles, as only another writer can, but they are also virtual strangers
to me.
If I'm lucky, they will be more honest, and more critical, than someone
who sees me on a regular basis can be. (And I am happy to provide
the same service. My motto is: you only get what you give.)
Has any of it helped?
Well, there's no doubt I learned more about writing
for children in one semester of that writing workshop
than
I did in all
four years of
college as an English major. The workshop also helped
me learn to how interpret and weigh criticism. However,
I must
also
say it was
thanks
to the always cruel, but kind, comments of my trusty
critique group members, plus a few more fresh opinions
from another
critique session
after the annual NY conference last year, that one
of my humorous middle grade stories became a winner chosen
from
over 1350
entries in the 2003
HIGHLIGHTS annual contest. The prize was a week
long writing workshop in Chautauqua.
And what did I learn?
Hard work, wherever it comes from --from a critique
partner --from a writing teacher --from a mentor
at a conference
--or from the
writer himself, shows. Great readers will read
every page submitted, give
written
comments, and some line edits too. In a classroom
setting, a great teacher will read student work
aloud without
letting on
who wrote
it. (The writer
isn’t allowed to react.) By listening to the sound, the rhythm
of the words, the heartbeat of the language, I can learn for myself
what works and what doesn’t. It sinks in, I think. At the very
least, I can figure out what not to do.
The few times my work has been read aloud, I’ve benefited by discovering
the reactions of all the vocal students. Try ignoring or discounting
the heated comments of twenty vehement writers. They can’t all
be wrong! These vocal class members benefit too, believe it or not.
If you can formulate and voice a theory about why something works, or
doesn’t, you are exercising muscles that you can bring into
your own writing.
Mostly, I’ve learned that in order to compete with all the other
manuscripts in those famous piles, I must work harder still by reading,
reading, reading (which should go without saying, but I’m saying
it anyway) and by writing, digesting all that precious feedback, and
then re-writing. Repeat until sold.
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