You'll shoot your eye out

When my wife and I lived in Columbia, SC, I attended my first writers critique group. I saw an ad for the South Carolina Writers Workshop in Writers Digest and found a local group that met twice a month. I found one of my finest pieces of fiction, the first chapter of a book I still might return to someday, and headed to my first meeting with several copies for the group to critique. Someone who I met that night and am still friends with told me if I wanted to get any benefit from a crit group I had to check my ego at the door. How true. Like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, I expected everyone to adore my fiction and tell me how great it was.

But like Ralphie, I got “you’ll shoot your eye out.” Sort of. I was dismayed to see all of the marks and questions on the papers as I glanced at them after the meeting, but then studied them more carefully later on. The suggestions and questions made me think more about the chapter, and subsequent revisions made it read smoother with more clarity. By the time I’d been to a few sessions, I decided I’d never submit any fiction, long or short, anywhere without first letting a few people look at it and rip it apart, if need be, so I could put it back together and make it better. To this day I hold to that belief. I don’t think I’ve ever used every suggestion others have made, but I always use some (or most) of them. If one person points something out, I think about it. If several people point out the same thing, I look at it very hard and usually make changes.

Even pros run their work through editors. I’ve heard one famous author refuses to let anyone edit her work, and subsequently through the years one of the comments about her is that all of her books sound the same. Specific critiques can be a writer’s best friend, especially when they come from people who will be honest, hopefully in a diplomatic way (“here are a few things you might want to revise” sounds better than “this sucks”). And general critiques don’t do much good (“I didn’t get the overall tone”), while specific comments (“when your main character lashes out against his girlfriend it goes against everything you showed us about him earlier”) can make the story more believable.

So yes, if you show your fiction to others and ask for their opinions, check your ego at the door. I’m still friends with several members of that first critique group and always enjoy hearing from them. After our twice-monthly meetings we always went out to eat and discussed writing and life for a couple of hours. Those after-meeting meetings were some of the best times I’ve ever had. Some of the group members – C. Hope Clark and Elizabeth Boyce, perhaps others as well – now have contracts with traditional publishers (as opposed to self-publishing, which is another subject altogether).

So if you want your writing to improve, let a few others see it if they can give helpful advice. Try to find a local writers group or even an online group.

My exception to this rule is my blog posts. Hopefully I won’t shoot my eye out.