Wednesday, October 19, 2011

You Are Not An Audience Member Of Your Own Writing

Unsurprisingly, I am compelled to completely contradict what I wrote yesterday. As I said before, being the author of your own work, you are in a unique position. Because of that, you can never truly be an audience member of your own writing.

You know too much. You know about the characters, the settings, the process, the possibilities. And more significantly, you aren't guessing. You know things to be true. You don't wonder what a character may have been thinking or why they did some action or what that mysterious thing was - you know for a fact the answer to those questions. And that removes the mystery or the intrigue.

You can never read something for the first time. You always know what's going to happen at the end. You may be able to enjoy the journey (provided you can get over knowing the future), but you will never enjoy it the way any other person enjoys it.

It's a little sad and a little frustrating, but is also a fact. You simply cannot judge your own writing the way an outsider can. Make sure that you have somebody who isn't you read your work. You can miss some big things if you don't.

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