The Beneficial Writer’s Group

I joined a writer’s group about six months ago so that I could learn more about the writing process.  What I have discovered is more than any creative writing class could give me.

My writer’s group meets twice a month at the local library.  We go over various things, such as grammar, perspective, voice, creating unique and strong characters and setting as well as the whole publishing process.  We share our stories, our hard work and gain feedback from our peers.

I have discovered that while my work is not perfect, at least I am on the right path.  Joining a group where I have to read my work out loud to a circle of strangers was intimidating; still is intimidating in fact, but it has helped me more than any class could ever do.

Creative writing classes teach you how to properly build a story from beginning to end.  The group teaches how to do the same thing, but you also get the honest opinion of your peers, without having to pay for the class or worry about passing or failing.  If my story is awful – they tell me.  If my story is great – they tell me, and I get the opportunity to do the same for them.

Joining a creative writing group has been a very rewarding experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in writing professionally.

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First Person Arrogance

I never gave much thought to Point of View, Tense or even Voice until I started editing my own work.  After all, a great writer just has to sit down with a good idea and write, right?  Wrong.

It took me a few edits to fully realize that writing is hard work.  You take for granted all the work that went into the crafting of each and every book on the shelf in the local library.  The hours of painstaking work put into each book in the book store.  Even the bad books (the books we’d disregard without a second’s hesitation) took a lot of time and effort.  Blood, sweat and tears as my father would say.

I never thought a story could/should be written from a first person point of view.  To me, it was arrogant and pushy.  I always wrote in the third person, i.e. “Jane looked down at the pillow she was holding. ”  Third person let me see the world from the shoulder of whomever I needed in order to tell the story to it’s fullest extent.  It allowed me to distance myself from the characters and let them do stupid things without me feeling the need to interfere.  The problem, however, is that it did not allow me to fully “feel” the characters; to give them the emotion they needed.  Readers could not connect with Jane because she had no depth, no soul.

I rewrote Remembering Jane from the first person perspective, though it was painful at first.  I felt strange, as though I were trying to be somebody or something I wasn’t.  It felt as though I was forcing my thoughts and my opinions on the characters in my story, but I made myself continue.  I had to find a way to breathe life into my characters, otherwise they’d remain as flat as paper dolls and be just as easily discarded.

One draft down, and already, Jane was becomming more real.  She has personality, thoughts, feelings, wants and desires.  Reading through it a second, third and even fourth time, I realized that writing in the first person wasn’t arrogant after all.  By using “I,” I was able to put myself into her shoes and give her the feelings and emotions necessary for her to continue on, to make the decisions she needed, and face the problems that arose throughout the story.

Remembering Jane is still far from done.  There are other factors to consider in her story, such as the voice and tone as well as the tense used when telling it.  I once thought writing was easy, that books were written in a matter of weeks.  Who knew that simply jotting the story down would take a few months, and then editing would take several more (and I’m not even talking about the months/years it takes to find a publisher willing to take a risk). 

Writing is hard work.  It is a job, a job I love (though sometimes I desperately feel like quitting).  It takes passion and dedication and more importantly – the support of those around you to keep on going.

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