May 9, 2008 Finally . . . a new Writing Tip!

I've been ill for the last three months, and I've had a lot of time to think and to count my blessings. During that time I was too sick to read or to write. Now I'm back to doing both and it feels so good, like a warm bath when you're cold or the sun breaking through the rain clouds after a freezing down pour. And I'm also working with my trusted critique friends again. Yesterday I got off the phone with a dear friend who reads my work and I read hers. We can see a thing in each other's writing that we miss in our own writing. I sort of floated after the phone call yesterday realizing how much it means to me to have someone else look at my work, give it their honest opinion, and help me make the story in my heart come to completion on paper. And how fun it was to hear her say, "Oh Beckie, that is brilliant, that is exactly what my story needed. I would have never thought of that."
Finding people you can trust to rip apart your work and who trust enough to let you give your honest opinion is a careful choice for me now. There are many people willing to rewrite your story the way they want it or envision it to be, there are many people who will flatter you and say "it's so great," but I have found that there are only a few who will be honest, and brutal with kindness if necessary.
When I first started writing I wrote a draft of a little picture book. I sent it around to my family members and several of my friends and took every single person's input. Then after rewriting the story I sent it back to my brother, who also writes. He said, something's missing out of this version. It's like the heart of the story is gone. Do you have the original?"
I groaned inside. I had not saved the original. I just saved the story as I revised it every day. Hard as I tried I could never bring back that story. I had to put it away. But I learned an important lesson--too many chiefs ruin the stew. So now I always save copies of the first and other drafts, and I also have learned to limit the people I share my writing with and most importantly to trust my gut.
When someone gives me critique I listen, I don't argue, and I take notes. But then I ponder it, and mostly right away I know if I will take their input or not. Usually I have an ah-ha feeling. It's like I knew something was wrong with that part of the story, but I couldn't put my finger on it, and when I hear the solution, I know it and am so grateful and can't wait to go into the computer and do the rewrite. Other times if more than one person complains about the same area, but gives me a suggestion I don't like, or the suggestion doesn't give me the ah-ha feeling, I still analyze that part of the story. I try to see what is weak in that part, and even if I don't take their suggestion, I try to make my writing more clear in that area, so that the point I did want to make comes across more clearly.
I also let very few people see my writing. I have three or four trusted friends and my two daughters and husband. Over the course of the drafts of Converting Kate all of them saw drafts of my novel, but not all at the same time. And I didn't take all their advice. I trust my heart. I realize that only I really know the heart of my story. I keep tuned to that as I take in critique. I only take advice from my trusted readers that will help the heart of my story become stronger. If I am not true to this idea, holding strong to the heart of my story, I believe I will lose my own voice. My writing will become the echoes of many people, a patchwork story without heart, and worst of all it will lose its magic.