Taking advice.

I take advice on my writing so readily, you'd think I have no pride at all.

I was at writer's group last night, and another writer said "You have a poetic style" (I'm not sure about that...) "But you don't vary it for the action scenes."

So she turned some of my compound sentences in short declarative sentences.

She was right.  Completely.  I thanked her and reminded myself to do similar adjustments to the other action scenes in my book.

When it was her turn to read, I tried to return the favor.  She has a great story, great characters, but she writes almost completely in short declarative sentences.  I tried to tell her that she could loosen up a little, give us a little more information, maybe a few interior dialogues, etc.

I could tell she was having none of it.

This is the most common reaction to critique, and it has always mystified me.  People go out of their way to ask for advice, even coming to a group whose purpose is the offer advice, and then most often reject it.


What I've found in both writer's groups and with readers is that they are right about  90% of the time.

There is the occasional person who is completely offbase.  Sometimes they have an agenda, often something they read in a book or were taught in a class.  Always a bad sign when they say, "Show don't tell" as if that is the panacea to everything wrong in the story.

But if you can scope out the bad advice givers, and listen to those who give the good advice (like I said, 90% of the time) you will improve a lot.

In fact, I've always maintained that those writers who have come to writers group who internalized the critique, tried to change based on the critique, and came back later with a much improved revision -- those are the writers who almost always got published later.  It is the single most obvious indicator.

Perhaps it is because I took classes from Dwight Newton who didn't put up with the bullshit of "I meant to write it that way!" that I learned to take advice.

Oh, sure, sometimes I'd go home feeling crushed and want to rebel, but almost always I would eventually come around and do it the way he said.

When my editors make changes, I most often accept it.  I have a theory that one can get stuck in a "Style" if you will, and it is a positive to change it up, to have someone else make it slightly different, which you can then learn from and try to incorporate the next time.

Plus, sometimes they just catch the way it should be said, the way you wanted to say it, but just couldn't figure out at the time.

So in taking advice, I split it into three responses.


1.)  Accept the advice.  This I do 90% of the time.

2.) Not accept the advice.  Sometimes wrong is right.  Sometimes wrong is just being more creative.  Sometimes, the other guy is wrong. 

3.) Not accept the advice because it is too overwhelming.  The advice might be right but in order to make the changes necessary to facilitate the advice, the rest of the book might fall apart.  So I measure the cost/benefit ratio.  Is this change important enough to possibly weaken the rest of the book?  No book is perfect.

Anyway, I just thought I throw this out there to all the beginning writers.

Take advice (just as long as you make sure the advisers isn't completely off base.)