readers

I want to say a bit about readers, of the friend not the ‘e’ variety.

My friend Jess and I had decided to exchange pieces of our own writing with each other for the purposes of both critique and encouragement, of course encouragement. It would give us both a chance to experiment with different stories and different styles.

The first thing I wrote fresh and sent was the opening scene to this story. Her response was immediately very encouraging. So I continued writing and emailing one or two scenes at a time to a continued positive response, I’m happy to say.

Suitably bolstered, I sent the accumulated scenes to other friends, Jane and David, who then gave me feedback and so it went on for all 28 scenes of the story. Everyone's combined encouragement helped me to complete my first draft.

I’ve never worked this way before and I found it incredibly useful. Not all the feedback I got was entirely positive but that’s to be expected, and listened to, but it was always constructive and still encouraging. I can’t thank these friends enough for the time and effort they put into improving my writing and standing on the sidelines cheering while I sweated and strained to get the story over the finishing line.

I'd really recommend that any would be writer gets a few trusted friends to read their work and offer comment. It really does make a world of difference to working in complete isolation.