What’s your favorite way of doing this? Once you’ve made a story nice and shiny, you’ve still got to get over the reflection of your own face as you stare into it. It’s crucial to get other’s opinions on the work, because, let’s face it, we tend to either be too hard or too soft on ourselves. Sometimes we need folks to point out some major flaws we never would have seen. Or maybe we just need someone to say that the story is worth the effort, and that it is starting to shape up.
So where do you go to get this feedback? Friends? Family? They can be encouraging, yes, but are they willing to give the hard criticism the story needs to get better?
I have several forums and blogs I will post chapters and pages on to get some general feedback…things that focus on the first 13 lines, or the first page.
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/cgi/Ultimate.cgi
http://crapometer.blogspot.com/
Also, I have a few writerly friends who have read materials for me in the past and given invaluable insight, and so I often approach them and see if they are free/willing to scan a story and let me know what they think. I’ve come to appreciate the “beta readers” as some have come to call them, because it’s nice to know they will give me an honest opinion, unworried about hurting my feelings, while more concerned about making the story stronger.
What about you? Where do you go and what’s your method? Ambushing strangers on the street? Letting your multiple personalities do the editing?
I see that smile.