Please excuse for a moment the possibly misleading title; I’m not writing this to tell you how to become a better writer — at least not precisely. What I’d like to do is develop a bit of a shared system which should help encourage and develop aspiring writers like myself. Which means you, too, if you like.
First, a little bit of background.
It’s no secret that there are countless platforms where people can voice their thoughts on any subject they choose. Many of them are quite good, and I consider Medium.com to be my standby. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a platform which rewards and develops good writing with much beyond drive by comments, clicks, reads, and in this case, claps.
I think this can be done better (within this context, i.e. without even leaving this site) and if you think so too, then please continue reading — perhaps to add some comments below. What I would like to do is develop a sort of a reading and feedback group; a few fledgling writers who love the craft enough to take a few steps beyond the somewhat familiar process of pick a topic, any topic, and go!
If you’re like most writers here, you don’t have an editor to ‘answer to’ nor do you have anyone (aside from yourself) proofreading your work or giving you consistent feedback about what it sounds to others like you’ve said.
You can do a lot of passionate work on subjects you hold very dear to yourself and still fall very short of the impact you’d like to have while working as a determined soloist.
There are certainly a variety of disadvantages to being your own boss.
But what if there were a way for you to retain your autonomy, gather concise and direct feedback from a group of peers with shared interest and skill, and develop your craft to the point where you could look back at the body of work you’ve done as an objectively developed accomplishment?
I think there’s a way to do that. What’s more, I think it may be a cost-negative benefit-positive method — which is a short way of saying, “with slightly less total effort, a group of writers could get better results working independently together rather than independently alone.” At the end of the day, what you do with your own time will always be subject to your own determination of whether that time was spent in a way which rewards you more than it costs.
About that aspect of things, there is nothing different here; the primary difference is that I’m willing to put an hour or two of my time toward using what skill I have as a writer to review and comment on each piece of your work, and the reason for that is pretty simple:
I think great writers are born as much as they are developed.
As much as I aspire to become a great writer, it’s equally compelling to me to discover other great writers and learn from them — and when I’m writing commentaries, I’m still writing; still learning. Melville did exchange quite a few letters with Hawthorne, in point of fact.
I value the passion people put into the things they say as much as I value the arrangement of words if not more. I think we become better as much by reading excellent thoughts as we do by developing our own further, and often we can only develop our thoughts further by finding others willing to read them very carefully and listen to what we’re actually saying.
How many times do you find people missing your point?
I think more of us need a sort of “nitpicky but not nitpicky” reader to comment on what we’ve written, in the same way that people need their friends to give them sincere feedback about their perceived shortcomings.
I think we need to stop this nonsense of rejecting critical feedback based on the seemingly daft premise that on the surface of things, it ‘sounds critical.’
Finding our work as needing no improvement is the same as thinking it perfect, is it not? Perhaps it merely means our skin is quite thin.
Anyhow, I thought of this writing and review system, and perhaps you’d give it some consideration. It works very simply, and because I’m the one proposing it, I’m willing to do most of the initial work to see whether it can accomplish what I believe it can. As a guess, I think it ought to take about two to three months to get started.
What I don’t have is about ten writers who are willing to do what they usually do (write) plus one more thing: review their own previous content and select three to five of their best pieces to submit to…
Well, let’s call it The Gauntlet.
At this point, there is a single cost and a single benefit to you as a writer for identifying what you personally consider some of your best work. Aside from the time that may take, the only disadvantage is whatever pressure you might feel about submitting something you’ve worked hard on for something beyond the typically casual reviews online writers often receive.
The benefit you get is certain. I *will* read and review all three to five of your submissions and I’ll do that for the first ten writers who are willing to submit their work for this test. Which in some ways makes this about as close to a no lose situation as you can possibly get.
Some notes about this:
- I will not offer my reviews in public unless you specifically request that I do so.
- I will not rate your work so as to compare it to anyone else’s.
- I will not restrict my comments to any one of the following: grammatical issues, content questions, suggestions about where something might be reworded for clarity, or even social judgments about whether a piece is or is not appropriate. In short, there is no reasonable way for you to determine what sort of feedback you will receive on the work you’ve done, just that you will receive it.
I feel, as I’m sure many of you do, that even though my writing can be very good at times, it still could be much better. (And yes, I do see the double meaning in that sentence.) What I plan to do is develop a better understanding of the way people present their thoughts and ideas so that I can get better both at presenting my own and also offering useful critiques to them.
To find out how I plan to do that, please read my next piece:
The Gauntlet: What is it?
Thanks.
