Writing Tip #3: Never Too Early or Too Late for a Few Voices of Reason

I've been reading a lot of posts around writing forums lately about the value of receiving critique on your work from outside sources. The most common thread twining through all of them seems to be a variation on the following key points: that critique is not only a good idea but rather an essential one in the process of ensuring your work is at its best before considering it for publication, and that it's a good idea to get several opinions but also to keep in mind that opinion is subjective and to limit the corrections made to your work only to those things recommended by more than one or two of your readers.

And do I agree with all that?

Absolutely.

Further to that though, I want to address a question that I didn't notice anyone really focus on too much in their discussions: when during the writing process should a writer reasonably start seeking outside opinions on what they write and how they write it? My answer is that if you've got yourself at least somewhere around a page (give or take), then enlist test-readers to your heart's content. Or even after a paragraph, if you just don't feel like waiting that long. It's not so much a matter of how much you have - it's a matter of what you can get from running it by someone else.

Obviously, I can't speak for all (or even most) writers in this area since we've all got our preferences and our processes, but for me, for the debut novel I'm working on now I enlisted a friend as a beta reader after the first four or so pages were written. And I honestly can't say just how invaluable her critique was. 

At that point, I'd just decided on a radical personal change in my writing style - I'd struggled for years (and in vain) to emulate the authors I look up to, whose stories are often written in literary, almost poetic prose, and had finally come to the conclusion that their style just wasn't mine. Mine was more cut-and-dry conversational, with a more subtle bit of flair mixed in. With this change, and with a re-imagining of what my novel would now be portrayed as, getting my friend's honest feedback set me on the exact track I needed to solidify my personal writing voice with confidence, and charge ahead in writing it. The parts she liked and that worked as a clear narrative, I used to address the weaknesses and cliches she mentioned (which were also mentioned by the people I had read it after her). The result from that initial critique is that I'm the happiest and most confident with this project than I've been with anything I've written in my life, helping me to tailor it into something I can be proud of from the get-go.

Since then, I've had seven different people read each chapter I've written, and their advice when they have any to give hasn't ceased to be enlightening, calling on a consideration for things I may never have realized on my own. If I could give these guys salaries for this stuff, I would in a heartbeat!

Image courtesy of StuartMiles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, today's writing tip in a nutshell... well, the above picture is pretty self-explanatory: SHARE. Whether you do it near the beginning of your work like I did, or near/at the end of it doesn't matter - what matters is that outside critique of your work can help you in ways that you can't even imagine if you haven't gotten any yet. Lending you positive affirmation in your strengths and methods for improving your weaknesses, proper critique will absolutely shape your work into the best of what you can deliver.

Have you had any experience, positive or negative, with receiving critique? What are your experiences with getting those outside opinions? Comment with your stories below!

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