The Beautiful Sound of Feedback

This past week’s donation went to pay the full tuition of a fellow at the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. It was made in honor of the engagement of Kristen Arnett and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, which Kristen wrote about beautifully for Time here.

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Two weeks till #1000wordsofsummer starts.

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Hi friends.

I have been reaching out so much to my writing peers lately.  Needing their opinions, their wisdom, and, because no one is immune from insecurity, their approval. (Oh my god will someone please tell me it’s going to all be OK in the end? Great, cheers, thanks.) All I can hope is that I can offer the same to them — if not now then someday.

I’ve mentioned already I’ve been sharing my drafts of my novel. When you hand a fellow writer your book — any kind of book! — it’s always important to ask what you want from them, what kind of read you want, what the specific angles are. You should know why you’re asking them, too, why you want this exact person to be one of your readers. Don’t show it to someone because you think you should. Show it to someone because you think they’ll be helpful in a specific way. We’re not here to waste anyone’s time, are we?

Mostly at this stage of the game the people I’m asking to read are particularly accomplished, have written multiple books, and understand how literature works in a grand and expansive way. And the request that I make of most of them is to tell me if there are any holes in the book, any missed opportunities, any paths I could still go down that would make the story feel bigger and better, more alive in the world.

My readers have been beyond helpful. Everyone has helped me to add at least a few master strokes. I am always grateful to learn more. My editor is reading it right now and I am, of course, dying to know what she thinks. But the friend/peer read has already been a compelling, productive and educational experience. Everything is going to be OK in the end.

It is easier for me to exchange help with people then to just flat out ask them to give me their energy, but the timing doesn’t always work out that way. To my great relief, this week I’m reading Courtney Sullivan’s new novel, after she read mine last month.

Courtney and I have been reading each other’s work a long time. We are different writers in some ways but we have things in common: we traffic in messy family stories, for example, and we both tend to write about women, ones who are loving, but also ones who make mistakes. I think, also, even if we write about serious things, we both like to make people laugh, too.

It’s always a joy to read something new by Courtney. I like to see what she’s up to, what’s on her mind. What new tricks she’s got up her sleeve. She knows how to build suspense, how to tease a reader, and how to accumulate a character’s strengths and weaknesses over the course of a book. And she is funny and wise. Her characters feel like people I know. Also, she somehow always makes me cry at least once a book.

There was an interesting thing that happened this read for the both of us: in each other’s books we ended up identifying some smaller characters we would lean into more if they were in our own books. Characters that were real and authentic and served their small purpose in our books beautifully in just a page or two, but were the kind of character the other writer would spend many, many more pages on quite lovingly. Give them more to do, exploit their role in the story, give them a big personal history, let them really sing.

All of this has to do quite simply with gaze. We have crossover themes and interests, Courtney and I, but also we have completely distinct gazes. We zoom in on characters differently. We are different people, we lead different lives. It makes perfect sense.

I accepted the feedback and listened to it, chewed on it. I genuinely asked myself if I had more to say about this character, and then, because of her note, I ended up thinking about other characters in the book that operate on the same scale, checking in on everyone, seeing if they had anything else to say. On her end, Courtney contemplated it, too. But I think we both knew why we had made our respective choices. Because we know what kind of writers we are and who we’re interested in writing about.

Do you know who you’re interested in writing about? Do you know what kinds of characters you connect with or strike your fancy? Can you look at your work and see if all the characters are tended to, have been used to their fullest extent? The answer might be: Yes, they have said all they have to say. (A gratifying feeling!) But it’s worth a moment of your time to scan all the voices in your book, see if they have any chatter left in them. This quick gesture can get you one step closer to done.

And maybe, even it’s just for the day, make you feel more secure about your work. Which is honestly goddamn priceless.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram. I try to answer comments as best I can, which are open to paid subscribers. You can subscribe here or give a gift subscription here. Fifty percent of the proceeds will go to various cultural, educational, and social justice organizations in New Orleans (and sometimes elsewhere).