Behind the Curtain - Writing Advice
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Lately I've been reflecting on the fact only that which we measure tends to improve. Now that's not always the case, but generally I think it is so.
In our non-writing careers or schooling there are generally hard metrics that we're being held to. When it comes to our personal lives however there is rarely any metric consistently being forced upon us. Instead I think that the primary mechanism for self improvement is self reflection.
As we spend time comparing ourselves against our other's responses to us, against our goals, against the yardstick of our beliefs, one of two things generally happen. Either we become completely delusional and detached from the truth, or we become more self aware.
Once we become aware of how we measure up against our beliefs or priorities we quickly find out how closely we actually hold to the things we've been telling ourselves are important to us. If they really are important, we'll tend to improve over time as we see where we actually come in. If they aren't actually a vital part of us then we'll tend to see little or not improvement over the course of months and years.
I know in my life that is a hard thing to swallow from time to time as I find out where my priorities really do settle out. Unfortunately, there is a whole additional layer of complexity added as writers undertake this process.
Most of you already know exactly where I've been headed. There is little if any hard, authoritative feedback for an aspiring writer.
Every interaction we have with every person who crosses our path during a given day tends to serve as a mirror for how other people perceive us generally speaking, but there is no such mechanism for providing us with a status check when it comes to our writing. It's almost impossible to get people to read our work. Friends and family may be cajoled into finally undertaking the onerous chore of reading one of our novels, but they can hardly be viewed as non-biased, and unless they are exactly your target audience they still aren't a an authoritative source when it comes to judging your writing.
There's your critique group if you have one, but I've seen all kinds of problems in those interactions as well. They may not tell you the truth out of jealousy, because they don't want you to be too hard on their work when positions are changed, or because they really just don't care. Developing a solid relationship with your critique group can help ameliorate some of those problems, but it introduces bias, and ultimately who's to say your fellow writers know any better than you do?
The submission process isn't really enlightening either. Plenty of so called 'crap' gets published, and there are perfectly good novels that are passed on because the hook wasn't right for that particular agent or editor.
It's all pretty depressing when you come right down to it, but there are a few weakly shining stars to be taken away from all of this.
First, keep your goals firmly in mind. If you want to write the next Great American Novel then your aims aren't really furthered by listening to someone who never ventures beyond the 'dreaded' genre fiction. The reverse is also true.
Second, find people that you really trust. There are plenty of people who will lie to you. Sometimes it seems that our society is built upon it. When you've got someone you can really trust to give you honest feedback you've got the beginnings of a way to measure how you're doing.
They say most of communication isn't verbal, and that holds true for your critiquers. They may say that they love your story, that there isn't anything wrong, but it took them three months to read your book and in the meantime they read four other books. That's a signal that they probably aren't being completely honest with you. At the very least, it's a sign the opening of the book didn't pull them in well enough to get them to the better writing they're talking about when they tell you the story was great.
The last point to remember is that for the most part good critiquers are made, not born, and your interactions with your test readers need to keep in mind where they are at in their development. Someone who's had quite a bit of practice critiquing can often tell you what they didn't like about the story, and then be fine when you respond back with a description of factors you don't think they considered in their assessment. They'll engage in a kind of give and take that has little to do with you or them defending initial positions and quite a bit in exploring alternate ways to get at what you were trying for in the first place.
A beginning critiquer however has much of the same hangups a beginning writer has. When they are finally enticed to share with you their true thoughts about your work, they'll tend to feel like anything other than unconditional agreement is an attack upon them personally. This is something to keep very much in mind if you're a beginning writer, and you'll tend to react more forcefully to their comments than you should.
Remember, there is a definite difference between defending your work, and trying to point out things they might not have considered, but it's not enough just to be open to their comments, they have to feel like you're open to their ideas.
If you've got someone you believe will be able to provide you good feedback about your writing, be very careful not to chase them off in your first few interactions. When push comes to shove, you're going to take everything with a grain of salt regardless, and you never have to change anything if you don't agree with them.