Slitting Open Your Chest

No, this post is not a how-to for the darker aspects of fantasy fiction. This has to do with one of the writer's hardest tasks. Two weeks ago I handed out the prologue and first two chapters of Unholy Alliance to my critique group. And yesterday was D-day - the meeting where I would hear their first critique. Putting your work--your vision--your beloved characters and passionate prose--in front of others for the first time is a tough, but necessary part of the writing life.


Perhaps some writers' brains are capable of distinguishing the prose/characters/story the they intended to put down from the prose/characters/story they actually put down. Mine is not. I can write,

"He took chance on love"

and read it over fifty times never missing the "a" because my brain believes I wrote it. In the same way, I can write an action scene that plays perfectly in my head, but a reader will say, "Where the heck did those fifty cavalry men come from?" or "Weren't his eyes still closed when he shot that arrow?"

I need fresh eyes to look at my work and tell me what's confusing. What's missing. What they believe they have learned about the characters, the mystery, the world. I make the judgment as to whether they've learned what I want or experienced what I intend. Critique is a list of symptoms. The writer must diagnose the disease. It is not even the task of the critiquer to offer solutions, though sometimes I'll ask what might have worked better.

I am fortunate to have six excellent writers who read my work (and I read theirs as well, because you can learn just as much about writing from critiquing as from being critiqued.) I was a bit nervous about handing out these first chapters. When I handed out the first chapter of Flesh and Spirit, which I thought was much more polished than these, they hammered me for a number of problems - nicely, of course. So what was the verdict?
Overall, a great reception. Whew! Best: they enjoyed Portier's voice as narrator, and the developing relationship between my three investigators. They liked the magic, and the background of the conflict between science and magic, though there were clearly some places where I had left ambiguity. Does "blood-borne magic" imply that you have to prick your finger every time you work magic? No, no! It means "genetic" - inherited! And using actual blood in spellmaking is actually an important nastiness, because it can (and does) lead to all sorts of terrible crimes.

The biggest negative? Yes, I knew the short prologue, which is an introduction to our narrator and how he got involved in the mystery, would garner some negative reactions. It violates a couple of accepted standards for "openings." Will I change it? Not yet. I still think it might work. I'm anxious to hear from a member who was not there yesterday, to see if any comment jars me out of thinking I want to leave it as is.

Some authors disdain critique groups, saying that they don't believe in "writing by committee," and yet they will swear by their "first readers" who might be a wife or a good friend. Yet a first reader who does nothing but tell you how great a writer you are is just as useless as having a critique group that believes you should rewrite your story to please any or all of its members or accept 100% of their suggested line edits. A good first reader will give meaningful, useful critique. And a good critique group is just a set of good first readers. I value mine enormously.