- Joined
- Jul 27, 2015
- Messages
- 302
- Reaction score
- 29
I hear you, Adversary.
This really gets to the main issue, for me anyway. Yes, I love reading my work, because I know what’s going on in my characters' heads and hearts. My mind can fill in the rough spots where a reader would miss something important. That’s good for my experience when I reread my writing, but it’s not helpful if I want someone else to enjoy it, too!
I’m at the place in my work where I'm almost ready for betas. My critique partner is halfway through my WIP, and it’s a revelation. She'll comment on a scene, and suddenly I can see where a character's emotions — that are perfectly obvious to me — don’t come across. It’s like the scales have fallen off my eyes. Then I'll rewrite and it’s so much better.
So as much as I enjoy reading my own work, I know that the same experience is not necessarily going to happen for a reader. That, to me, is the essential challenge that fascinates me about writing. How do I build a bridge of words across that gap?
Yeah, thats a thing i'm wary of for sure. I think the more you know your characters/the deeper they go, the more trouble you can get into with this. I know my characters so thoroughly i could read (my own writing) saying 'Mary crossed the road.' and have a whole wonderful cinematic experience in my head. You're just gonna read that and think, yeah dude, stick to music... Might be a double-edged sword? having that much depth to work with?
CathleenT
I've been thinking about it a bit, and going back, well back, i remember now that i never used to like my writing. I loved the characters, the story, but i thought my ability to convey it was shit. I used to burn anything i didn't like back then. I'd let it sit for a few months, then come back to it and re-read it. If i didn't like it? burn pile. I'd re-read stuff over and over, after months, after years, and sometimes it'd take a few years to get the torch. I wrote tomes back then, and yeah... pretty much nothing survived... only the ideas. I still do the same (only now 'burning' is hitting delete and emptying trash), and you know, i haven't burned anything in a long long time. Progress maybe?
I cant listen to audiobooks or podcasts, i just cant, but what i do like to do sometimes is read it aloud. Interesting how that changes things sometimes.