But after he read it, he told me some of the things that didn't sit well with him or that he didn't really like. He explained the things that he thought got in the way of the story. He also suggested a few alternatives for what could possibly happen instead.
But you know what's funny?
Every single thing he pointed out was something with which I already had an issue. The second he would bring up a scene or chapter, I knew exactly what he was going to say. I'm not blind to the faults of my manuscript. I knew they were there long before he pointed them out.
The difference is that I had let myself become complacent. I had been working on this thing for so long and I had done about six or seven rounds of edits back to back and, frankly, I was tired of looking at it. I didn't like it anymore. I didn't like the story, my writing, certain scenes, certain characters, nothing. I was over it. I didn't want to look at it anymore. I put it aside and started writing other stuff.
Now don't get me wrong. It was absolutely the right decision to step away for a little while. I was burned out. Continuing to work on it at that point would have been unproductive and frustrating.
But my problem is that I never let anyone else read it. I let one writer friend read about two, maybe three, non-sequential chapters and I sent the entire manuscript to another friend who hasn't actually read it yet because life gets crazy sometimes. Other than those two, I have never let anyone read this work at all. At. All. So the fact that someone was even willing to sit down and read the entire lengthy mess, much less all at once, is rather remarkable (he kind of likes me).
But because I was so frustrated with my work, I started ignoring the faults mostly because I didn't know how to fix them. It was like when you are searching for just the right word. You can think of synonyms that aren't really what you're looking for, but you just can't place the word you're trying to remember so you settle for the inferior synonym. That's how I'd become. I knew certain scenes or events were wrong, didn't fit, or weren't believable, but I didn't know what the right answer was.
My boyfriend, because he was fresh to the project and outside of my own head, was able to look at it with a different perspective and tell me exactly what was wrong and pinpoint exactly what was causing it to be wrong. Now, to be honest, a few suggestions didn't really work, but that's not his fault. That was due to the fact that, as the author, I have knowledge of what will happen later on in the story. Because he doesn't have that information, he made a few suggestions that would not work. But for the most part, every suggestion was either perfect or sparked another idea in my head.
I did about half the edits we discussed and it already feels so much better. Scenes that I had grown to hate because I knew they were wrong suddenly feel so much better. Obviously, I still have work to do, but his critique was far more helpful than I think he'll ever know.
So, the moral of the story: let someone (who isn't you) read your work.
I'm a writer, okay. I know how absurdly terrifying, nauseating, and anxiety-inducing it is to let eyes that aren't your own see your words, but trust me, it's needed. I might have never figured out how to fix those problems if he hadn't talked it over with me. Even just talking through the story made me see some holes that he hadn't noticed.
I know it's scary, but do it. Start with just one person you trust and work from there. Try for more after that. More perspectives can't hurt. It was scary for me, but talking about my book with someone reinvigorated me about it and made me excited about it again.
Plus, it's just fun to hear someone else talk about characters you created. It's more fun than you think.
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