Last night's meeting really got me thinking. We were a healthy sized group of about fifteen. Two comments each on things that worked, and two areas that might be improved adds up quickly to a whole lot of input – perhaps as someone rightly pointed out, enough to destroy the quality of the original work.
I think that's why it's important to take the comments as input and then, as the author, to decide which are relevant and improve it for its intended purpose and which would detract from that purpose.
3 comments:
A wise comment indeed, and one with which I am intimately familiar.
I'm not sure it's the right way to do things, but I didn't go back over people's comments on the excerpts from my novel until I had finished most of it. I went through them all, and as you would expect took some and discarded others. The throw rate was pretty low, though. Sometimes I had conflicting comments where I just had to make a choice while others fell away in the overall context of the work. Most of the comments were on point and if I didn't implement them exactly they nevertheless caused me to rewrite and improve the manuscript. Those comments also informed how I dealt with similar problems that cropped up later on in sections the group has not seen.
So I agree with Geoff. The group's comments are extraordinarily valuable, but don't be a slave to them. Remember the definition of a camel: an animal designed by a committee. It's a lot easier to sell a work that has the author's pedigree stamped on every word than the bastardized product of a drafting meeting.
I got a lot of good comment on my piece this week and I've been thinking about how to revise it. I was surprised that some readers thought it was a really negative piece about His and Her marriage. That needs to be lightened up, and I have some ideas on how to do it. If only I had time....
There were four usual members who were not present, so that brings us to a group of 19. That is a lot of comments. But perhaps that is a good thing.
And I do agree with Geoff.
Mary Ann
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