It’s my birthday today. I’m old – or at least, today, I’m feeling old, but I feel good too – so I think I win. Hubby got me a Nook, something that hasn’t arrived in the mail yet and paid for my trip away with my friends tonight. He’s all sorts of awesome.
This afternoon two of my friends (and crit partners) will be heading off to Tulsa for the Nimrod International mini writer’s conference. This is my first ever writer’s conference. I’m scared shitless because an editor will be looking at my first five pages (which may not stay my first five pages, but that’s a story for another time)
The thing I realized last night during my critique group meeting while we brainstormed is this:
It doesn’t matter what you write, how brilliant a piece of inspiration you might have, or how perfectly you (and perhaps others) think you’ve phrased something.
You can never please everyone.
There will always be at least someone out there who doesn’t like your style/voice/genre/story/characters/cover art/etc. Not to mention all books are subjected to their reader’s likes and dislikes.
For exmaple: one of my crit partners HATES, and I mean HATES present tense. She loves the premises of my work, but hates that I write in present tense. It’s a dislike she can never fully overcome and so while she has great insight, sometimes that dislike is going to carry over.
I’m not fond of first person – so books in first person have to feel solid enough to overcome my inherent dislike (and let’s face it, there are a LOT of first person books out there).
Now, I don’t mean you shouldn’t listen to sound advice – but you need to be strong in your belief of your work, or else critiques and other people’s opinions will crush you and your dreams.
The point is – you can’t please everyone ever. So there’s no use beating yourself up over it. Just write the best god damned story you can and be confident in yourself and what you’ve written. Stay true to your story and your characters. Don’t let people who might have an axe to grind against you, your genre, or your personal style change the goals you have.
Sometimes people can influence us, whether they mean to or not, with indirect comments, thoughts and actions. It’s taken me a long time to realize that my story doesn’t have to please everyone – the outcome has to please me. It has to be something I’m proud of and I know has taken my best work to produce.
I’m in this to tell my stories, and though I hope the world loves them too, I just have to know that I love and am proud of what I’ve created.
In all my wisdom, old age and stuff, this is a realization that’s taken me far too long to reach, but I’m glad I finally found it.
What about you? Do you allow your writing to react to the opinion of others? (Not the sound advice or good critique, the opinion). How do you let others influence your writing?
You can never please everyone….
A really important lesson to learn…and I suspect we keep having to learn this over and over.
Happy Birthday!
Thank you 😀
And yeah, it’s something I think you need to constantly reinforce for yourself.
The major bit of advice I ever had was to look at crits with a grain of salt. They can be all over the place: but if more than one of them references a certain point in your story, that spot bears a bit of inspection and revision. Some are spot on nd will strike a chord with you on occasion, but mostly it’s redundancy. :3 And happy birthday!
Yep – more than one person finding something in the same spot generally means it needs fixing.
Thank you 😀
I can’t answer this as nobody has seen my work yet, but Happy Birthday to you and enjoy the conference 🙂
It took me years to get up the guts to show people my original work… Some days it’s harder than others. Just have to stay true to yourself.
Thank you!
Happy Birthday! Yes, I totally know what you mean. I’m a member of a large critique group and it amazes me how often what one person likes, another person hates. In those instances, I just go with what I like.
*nods* sounds like a good plan. I know exactly what you mean.
And thank you 😀
Happy Birthday, first of all! You are wise indeed 🙂
I too belong to a crit group, and I often find the input I receive there invaluable. If someone has an opinion I disagree with, I’ll give it due consideration, but if at the end of the day I still disagree with it, I don’t change my writing to please them.
Yeah, I think a lot of people have a problem with that. Sometimes it can be very difficult to differentiate good advice from opinion
Happy Birhtday and enjoy the conference.
I was so eager in the beginning to get feedback on my work and that I was letting everyone read it and then found myself revising way too early, and possibly changing things that i shouldn’t have.
Now I wait, I write, I edit, edit some more and then have others critique.. If I do it too early, I let my vision get clouded.
Thank you – I had a great first conference.
And yeah, one of the worst things I think we can do is edit too soon.
Hey, I passed an award to you, check it out on my blog =)
Thank you 😀
Happy Birthday!!!
Oh I can so relate to that people-pleasing feeling where you want to take everyone’s suggestions/advice. But I soon learned that my story was evolving into something I didn’t know or recognize anymore. So now, I only go with others advice if its…
1. resonating with me. Sometimes deep down I’ll know something is wrong (just not what or how to fix it) or sometimes somebody suggests something that I’m like ‘wow – why didn’t I see that or think of that!’
2. if more than one or two people are saying the same thing.
Thank you!
I love your criteria for listening to advice. I think we have to learn to realize that we truly do know our story best, and not to jeopardize it by listening to every single piece of advice regardless of anything else.
Good self advice birthday girl!! What you write is part of you.
*hugs* Thanks, hon.
Happy birthday, KT!
I have some long-time crit partners whose opinions I trust and respect. I trust my gut first, but if they stumble over the same bits, I know I have to massage that scene more.
Thank you!
And I think that’s an excellent methodology you’ve come up with 😀
I will remember your very wise words, thanks, and Happy Birthday KT.
Thank you, and I’m glad they struck a chord 😀
WORD to this. It’s one of those lessons that I know but I have to keep rediscovering time and time again. Sometimes it helps for me to go read negative reviews of my favorite books so I can go, “Well, hey, even so-and-so has problems with this.”
Also, can I just throw my support behind disliking first person? It is EVERYWHERE, especially in YA, and I’m so tired of it. You don’t have to be in everyone’s head – I’ll take a super-limited third – just get me away from all the I, I, I.
Also also (and probably most importantly): HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It’s a day late, but I believe birthdays are a multi-day event.
Have fun at the conference – it’ll be a fabulous experience for you, I’m sure.
Thank you for the birthday wishes, hon 😀 And wow, it’s fantastic to find someone else who’s sick of first person. Makes me feel AWESOME and not alone LOL.
I had the best time ever – will post about it tomorrow.
I’m in a critique group where we have an Actual, Professional, Published Authorâ„¢ as a member. He doesn’t show up often, but when he does, he generally leaves ripples because he seems to feel that ‘critique’ = ‘I tell you why your writing sucks.’
The only critique I ever got from him was when I submitted a story I was very fond of, that I thought was ready to send out…and his entire critique was, “Your writing is pretty good, but this is completely unpublishable.” It took about a month before I was able to put that behind me and move on. It was really unnecessarily abusive.
I give more credence to things multiple people point out, or if I really trust the opinion of the critiquer, I will give their suggestions more weight. Just a few weeks ago, I read a chapter before the group and one writer asked me, “What is the point of this scene? I don’t mean what is YOUR point for including it, but what is the point from the characters’ POVs?”
That prompted me to really examine why I’d put that scene there, and helped me make it make more sense for the character, not just the writer.
Ah, yes. I’ve ben in one of those groups where the ‘published’ guy tries to make everyone feel like less of a person.
Oh, that’s a fantastic question to ask. Everything from the character’s motivation. Thank you!