The Pen And The Tuning Fork

At one time at a MileHi con (in Denver) Connie Willis said something that has haunted me ever since. And probably not in the way she meant it to haunt people. She was talking about shameless self-promoters – I think Diana Wynne Jones called them “God or Shakespeare” in Deep Secret – and said that they had to know what they said wasn’t true because in the dark of night, in the solitude of our own souls, we knew exactly how good or bad we were.

Since then I’ve been praying she’s wrong, because in the dark of night, or the light of day about the most confident I ever get about my books is “they might, possibly, perhaps be pretty good.”

Mind you, ten years after writing a book – which is about the soonest I can stand to open it – I’ve been known to open it and go “Oh, wow, I wrote this?” And there was of course the experience of hitting my head and getting a last minute request for a couple of short stories while recovering. The resulting stories were news to me when I got the contributor’s copy and other than one factual mistake on guns (which I might have made while I was well, writing under pressure) I can say they are pretty good stories. I can say so because I don’t remember writing them.

However, we can’t go on hitting our heads all the time – at least I hope not – so how can we tell when our stories are good? How can we tell we’ve hit what we’re aiming for?

I bring you bad tidings. I think Connie Willis was wrong. You can’t. And I can’t. At least, in the secret recesses of the night, no angel has ever come down (or up) to tell me the true worth of my life’s work.

If you’re doing any art (yes, I’m cringing, since really, I’d prefer to be considered a master craftswoman) properly, you’re wrapping so much of yourself in it that you cannot step back and see it objectively – unless you wait ten years or so. (It’s sort of like seeing your home objectively. At least I can’t. It’s only when I’ve been away for a month or so, that I can come back and go “this kitchen needs SOMETHING on that wall.”)

Oh, there are circumstances under which you have some idea that what you’ve written is a step up or a new technique for you. This is usually while you’re learning it. You can feel yourself straining to weave it in. This happened to me (still does somewhat) for years and years as I struggled with plot. Or as I tried to weave in background fleshing with action.

These were techniques I’d realized I needed while reading other books (that’s one way to tell what you’re missing, though not necessarily the relative worth of what you have) and which I’d studied and applied, consciously. (I think this accounts for new artists/writers thinking their stuff is great. It’s the “wow, I can’t believe I can do this at all.)

There is only one problem with that. Once you master a technique, it becomes part of you. And then you don’t notice you’re doing it – until ten years later. Or until you go back and try to analyze your book (though this is an imperfect and difficult ability.) Or – and this is important – until someone tells you that you managed it – particularly if they didn’t know what you were trying for.

And here we hit upon the only “tuning fork” you can use to evaluate your work. The eyes of others.

The problem is that others are not objective, just as you aren’t. When selecting first readers, you must take the following into account: their feelings towards you; their feelings towards your writing (if your mom hates the idea of your writing, she’s not going to be objective); their experience with the field/reading in general; their ATTITUDE towards what you’re writing, in general (for instance, it would be foolhardy to give my boys erotic romance to read. Not that I’ve ever written that.)

Two general guidelines – if someone always tells you he loves your writing, he might make a great spouse (probably not. It would be very bad for your character) but he is not good first readers. And if someone always tells you he hates your writing, it’s just the same thing (only please, don’t marry him.)

If you don’t have time to carefully vet one first reader, get ten volunteers. If all of them point to the same problem, you probably have it. If three of them point to the same problem, there’s a good chance you have it. Most of the time you’ll find they don’t agree, but when they do it’s time to pay attention. (And by problem I don’t mean typos. We all make typos, and you’ll usually have only one or two readers who find them – out of any group. I mean problems in characterization, action, world building, dialogue, etc. The difficult stuff.)

This doesn’t mean you know how to revise – remember my article on that? – but it means you can read books with an eye to stealing techniques and know how to do it right next time.

So – who is your first reader? Do you have first readers? How many? What has your experience been like? And do you know exactly how good or bad a writer you are – in the middle of the night? (It’s entirely possible I’m odd. It wouldn’t be the first time.)

UPDATE Tangentially related and something I can't speak to but the author of this post can:

http://www.kjablog.com./