Last night I went out with Dorothy, one of my very good friends who has been reading my novel, The Fourth Channel, and has become quite a big fan of the book. However, when she read chapter 17, she was a bit bothered by one of the scenes and, since we’re friends, she was reluctant to tell me.
Luckily for me, I had put enough chocolate and coffee in her to loosen her up, and she confessed that she had a hard time reading chapter 17. Now, a few things happen in chapter 17, but I knew exactly what she was talking about because when I wrote the questionable section, it bothered me. I couldn’t think of another way to illustrate something so I compromised myself and wrote something that I wasn’t comfortable with, either. I had no one to really bounce it off of, so I just stuck it in there and hoped for the best.
Dorothy’s a fellow artist and art teacher of many, many years, and has a lot of experience in the art world, so I let her talk and tried not to interrupt. I could tell she was uncomfortable because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but it was a good chat and in the end I was really glad she said something because up until then I didn’t have anyone like-minded to talk to about the issue.
So on one hand, it’s good to know that I have to rework an aspect of the novel and make it truer to who I am. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that I have to come up with a new solution. The good news about that is that the new ideas are usually better but it’s still frustrating to have to redo stuff. I woke up last night at 4AM and ended up tossing and turning for the next two hours because I was thinking about it. But it will be okay — better than okay. I’m already feeling really great about the changes and they reflect who I am a lot more than the way it was originally written.
Then she brought up another good point — if I had a writers group, then I’d have people to pose these conundrums to. Our church needs another homegroup and we have a small group of writers emerging in our church. Now, I am not a leader in that sense so it couldn’t be me heading it up, but I wouldn’t mind helping to organize. Besides, I don’t even know what a writing group does. Does one just show up and start blabbing ideas to a bunch of strangers? I don’t know. I’m skeptical. Does anyone know how an effective writing group works?