Comments on: Scott Westerfeld Talking About, Um, Me

By: Angelo Thomas Crapanzano

Angelo Thomas Crapanzano — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:29:14 +0000

My wife doesn’t even read my manuscripts. I like it that way. I got my daughter and daughter-in-law to edit my books but that didn’t realy work out that well. An editor has to detach herself from the story line. That is hard to do. I tried to edit it myself with the help of the word spelling and grammer checker. I finaly gave up and now use a professional Editor. It’s expensive but it always amazes me what story line errors a Pprofessional Editor finds.

By: mb

mb — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:14:27 +0000

I have two groups — one meets weekly, and I read aloud to them, maybe 3-8 pages a week. The aloud thing is essential — you know when you start saying, “Hmm, maybe I’ll skip over this bit….” that something there needs work. My other group reads bigger installments (sometimes the whole novel) and addresses big-picture concerns. I like this two-step system a lot.

By: Rebecca (allreb)

Rebecca (allreb) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:56:11 +0000

My BFF and I work closely together; we’ve done some writing collaboratively, but we also do a lot of brainstorming together when one of us is outlining a project, and first read for one another. I have another couple of good friends and my sister for reading, too.

After years of them reading the stuff I’ve only been writing for fun, now I’m attempting to write something for publication, and sending it to them got a lot scarier. The reading aloud idea sounds kind of fantastic for helping with that.

By: Gillian

Gillian — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:17:29 +0000

I write a complete first draft and then ask (on my blog, usually) if anyone’s game to beta read it. I just did this the other day and now a bunch of people are struggling with my strangeness. Sometimes I’ll have other people who look at it (a Texan astronomer is currently checking a draft, for instance, because I wanted to check my guess as to how astronomers might work in if the cosmology were truly bizarre, and I just checked a single scene with a martial arts expert) but all this comes after I’ve made sense of everything myself and written a complete version of the novel. This is funny, because I work with other writers (mostly on Medieval history background) and for every writer who works like me, there are two writers who get input as they go and then work that input into new plotlines.

By: Paige

Paige — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:56:21 +0000

Me and a friend like to swap work and make suggestions for each other, especially when one of us (or both) is struggling through. It’s good to have another person to do that with.

By: Benjamin Solah

Benjamin Solah — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:27:59 +0000

I’ll have to check out the video when I’m not at work.

I work pretty closely with some writers but not nearly that close. It’s an envious position.

But I’m very interested in having a supportive partner. I do, but others don’t. Don’t understand why we do it. I guess having a writer for a husband is a pretty good deal.

By: Erin

Erin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:04:12 +0000

I don’t have any writer I work with closely, although, I wish I did. I usually start each piece saying I’m not going to share it until I’m on the second or third draft, but by about the second chapter of the first draft I get a bit too lonely for that. Then my sister hears it. My mom (who is an English teacher) goes through all of my chapters before they’re seen by a large group of people, though. I read a lot of my stuff to my creative writing group, but I’m generally on the third or fourth draft before they see it. I have a couple of different close friends who read my stuff first, but not one frequent person. Really, I wish that I had a person to read everything first. It would make my writer’s life much less lonely.

By: nathaniel

nathaniel — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:24:13 +0000

not a crime

By: wandering-dreamer

wandering-dreamer — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:13:21 +0000

Uh, does getting help on papers count? Never underestimate the value of a good proof reader, I always had my mom read over my papers in high school to help me correct one or two things, and the one time I did have to write a short story I took it to my friend and went “Help, correct my grammar!” She actually felt pretty guilty for scribbling all over an A paper, and I will admit that one reason I’m not liking my new English class is because there isn’t enough scribbling on my paper during our workshop groups. Bring on the red ink, I need it!

By: Q

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:07:49 +0000

Usually I only show certain parts of WIPs—parts that won’t spoil and that I’m particularly proud of—and usually only to convince myself that I’m not as horrid a writer as I think I am on bad days.

By: Anabelle

Anabelle — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:35:27 +0000

It’s a sad, lonely life I live. No one has ever read a single thing I’ve ever written, if you exclude school papers. Imagine writing Liar and not a single person knows about it…

By the way, I’m reading Liar right now. I’m going to go because it’s so good! I MUST read more.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:49:13 +0000

I have a handful of close friends who serve as my first-readers: I’m lucky in that they are all avid readers (my theory is that anyone who reads a lot can edit too – they instinctively recognize places in a novel where the plot meanders off so far into the wilderness that they fall asleep, for example). I’m double-lucky because, since these friends know me very well, they have no qualms about giving criticism. Praise is nice and all, but criticism is what really helps me when I go back to revise.
Also, a couple of my awesome writing professors have helped me out with revisions (so much love to Donna Jo Napoli, who must have read my first novel about 5 times over. But going through that process, I became about a zillion times better at rewriting).