The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack M. Bickham [44]
The first roadblock, of course, is that you may not know your own feelings very well. I have known young writers who had to spend a brief time with a professional counselor or therapist to overcome this kind of blockage. However, such a step usually is not necessary. For you, it will probably be enough to make a strenuous attempt, in your private journal, to write down an honest and blunt description of your emotional state every day. Additionally, you may try to write brief descriptions of the exact emotional state you observe in some other person—or imagine in your character.
When you write, you may not write so overtly about the feelings... or sometimes you may. You might develop ways to show the physical effects of strong emotion—tears, a palsied hand, or clenched fist—and so define the imagined emotions indirectly, through the presented evidence. But in any case you cannot write fiction without being aware of the feelings inherent in your story people—and then having the courage to put them down on paper in some form.
In first draft, I think you would be wise to avoid any chance that you might still duck confrontation with powerful feelings. In other words, I would much prefer to see you write "too much" of feeling in your first drat you can always tone it down a bit later, after sober reflection, if such trimming really seems to be called for. On the other hand, a sterile, chill, emotionless story, filled with robot people will never be accepted by any reader.
One more word on this topic: whether defining a character's inner life or planning a powerful and harrowing scene in your story, you should avoid the impulse to "play safe." The world's greatest literature has been produced about people on the edge—by writers with the gumption to walk on an edge of their own, on the precipice of sentimentality, melodrama, or some other literary excess. "Better safe than sorry," goes the old warning. But in fiction it just doesn't work. "Safe" will always be sorry for the writer dealing with character emotions and strong plot situations.
Face feelings. Then take the risk! Walk on the very edge of some situation or scene that will be horrible if you write one word too much... carry it one step too far. For it's only on the brink of the abyss where great fiction is written. And nobody ever really had too much fun playing it safe all the time, did they?
30. DON'T TAKE IT TO THE CLUB MEETING
USUALLY IT'S A MISTAKE to seek advice from other amateurs at writers' clubs. I don't think it's a good idea to ask family or friends to read and "criticize" your manuscript, either.
If you want to share your work with your spouse or a close friend, that's fine. But to ask a club member, relative or friend for criticism is mostly a waste of time for at least two reasons: they won't be honest; they usually don't know what they're doing anyway.
Of course your writer's club may have a much-published professional as a member. If you can get advice from that person, it might be a fine thing. But most writers' clubs are filled almost entirely with unpublished writers, or those whose minor newspaper credits don't qualify them to judge your copy.
I have nothing against clubs of writers. I belong to a couple myself and sometimes attend meetings. They provide companionship, a place to meet others involved in the same kind of fascinating work, sometimes sources of market and other information, and new friends.
Far too many of them, however, encourage members to read their copy aloud for group dissection and discussion. This is always a waste of time. Reading your copy aloud is not the normal "delivery system" for a story. It's written to be read in print, not read aloud by the author.
Also, whether you read your copy aloud to club members or circulate copies to them, your club audience is in no way a normal audience of the kind you want to please. There are people here