Why am I so horrible at judging the quality of my writing? My hypothesis:

[Steerpike]

@Russ:

If you've never read any of the Bosch books by Michael Connelly, or the Pike/Cole novels by Robert Crais, I find those two authors are very good at thrillers and keeping the pages turning. Lee Child does pretty well too, with his Reacher novels, although sometimes Reacher is a bit too good at everything.

 

[Svrtnsse]

One thing I did recently, which was very rewarding, was to rewrite an old short story. I took one of the first ones I wrote back when I first started out writing a few years back and used it as the basis for a rewrite. It is for all intents and purposes the same story, just written at my current technical skill level.

Doing this, I found that not only had I improved significantly, but I found I could also tell why the newer version is better. I'll probably go back and rewrite the same story again in a few years, just to see how I'm progressing.

 

[Russ]

@Russ:

If you've never read any of the Bosch books by Michael Connelly, or the Pike/Cole novels by Robert Crais, I find those two authors are very good at thrillers and keeping the pages turning. Lee Child does pretty well too, with his Reacher novels, although sometimes Reacher is a bit too good at everything.

I have enjoyed Connelly but not Crais yet. I will add him to the reading list.

I also quite like Steve Berry's Cotton Malone books because of the historical research he puts into them and the interesting settings. I do have a bias though as Steve is a friend of mine.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Here's my hypothesis:

Writing is the act of using the words to translate the pictures/emotions in my head to create pictures/emotions in the head of readers.

When I read my writing, however, the words serve to remind me of the pictures/emotions that already exist. No creation of pictures/emotions is necessary.

Yes. As the writer, we have the benefit of knowing the scene's intention, the ideas which generate the words. The reader has only the words on the page. In my opinion, this is the number one reason that writing well is so damned hard and takes so much work.

THE BIG QUESTION:
How do I ever get to the point where I can trust my own judgment about my writing?

We're close to the same point in our writing careers, so I can only answer with what I hope will be the case.

I hope that experience will make this easier...okay, maybe not easier. That's not going to happen. Maybe experience will make us better at conveying our intention, the conflict, and the emotion of the scene. Time will tell.

But, keep in mind, even the most experienced of writers still employ editors. There's obviously a reason and a m quite certain it's not all for the sake of grammar.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I think of it like a family reunion. For the family members, there are surprises and reminiscences and old injuries that add layer upon layer to the conversations. But for the new husband invited for the first time, it becomes a blur of names and jokes he doesn't quite get. He has to take the thing on its surface.

I love this analogy Skip. Permission to use this, please?
I probably will anyway, at some point, but it's polite to ask.

 

[Devor]

When it comes to the prose, I think BWFoster's "hypothesis" is pretty accurate. We can do our best to try and separate ourselves from the work and learn some techniques for trying to write with a strong voice. But as others have said, we already know what the words are supposed to mean. We can never read it for the first time.

But, I don't think this means that we can't judge the quality of our own stories. It's not like we're helpless against this fact. As you work at it your prose should get better, especially when you start to work with an editor. As T.Allen likes to say, writing clearly is pretty close to the same as thinking clearly. And experienced writers can get very consistent with their writing voice - a good voice can mean good prose. It's not like we're doomed to delusionally writing crap for our entire careers.

And your story concept adheres to a similar set of rules. If you work the creative muscle long enough, you'll know when your ideas are strong, compelling, or failing.

Don't get me wrong. Nothing's perfect. Nobody's perfect. We're never going to be objective about ourselves. But let's be real. Writing is work and a bundle of skills just like anything else. It's not magic. And there's no magical, philosophical boundary preventing us from doing well, or from knowing when we've done a good job of it.

A little self-doubt can be healthy. But if you thought it was good and it turns out to suck, that just means you've got that much more to learn.

 

[ThinkerX]

I have found that approaching some of my work 'cold' - that is stories and parts thereof I abandoned years (and sometimes decades) ago makes a difference. Every now and again, I'll blunder across such a piece, open it with a wince, and go...

'wow - this is a lot better than I remember!'

or

'Ugh...no wonder I stopped working on this.'

With stories that have sat in digital limbo that long, a bit of objective judgment on the authors part is possible.

It also helps that I have read a lot of books - fantasy, SF, thrillers, mysteries, and so on - probably more than most of the other posters here. It gives me a sort of collective sense as to what works - what will grip the reader - and what won't. Past few years, I have noticed that if the tale is going in a wrong or boring direction, my daily word count plummets. I have to stop and think every other sentence it seems. Sometimes this is, 'ok, this part of the plot is extra tricky.' But other times it means I took a wrong literary turn. (I do have a bit of a blind spot with worldbuilding, though).

 

[skip.knox]

I love this analogy Skip. Permission to use this, please?
I probably will anyway, at some point, but it's polite to ask.

Of course. All my analogies are available. I keep 'em next to my dialogies and monologies, but in front of the syllologies, which are too sylly for words.

 

[Penpilot]

BW, I think your hypothesis is on solid ground. It's similar to something I learned a while back. Being a new writer I learned a bunch of "rules" and took them to the extreme without understanding how to really apply them. One of the "rules" I took to the extreme was show not tell.

When you show too much it becomes vague... really vague. But when I read my stories, they made sense because I knew the context, which gave me solid footing in understanding what was happening. But the reader had no such context, so were left on a slippery slope.

This made me realize just because something makes sense to me, it doesn't mean it makes sense to the reader. I realized I had to give the reader enough information so they could understand things the way I do. This brings me to Steerpike's comment about being able to view your own work as a reader.

I remember a Writing Excuses episode where they talked about turning off the internal editor and how difficult it was for them when they started out. They said they couldn't just enjoy reading a book or watching a movie. They had to analysis it. They said it took them a while, but eventually they were able to just turn off the editor and just enjoy something as an audience member.

It can be tough thing to do, but it's not impossible. For me, I found that when I edited the crap out of something, there would be a point where I started to hate it, thus removing a lot of the emotion attachment, so I could see the story more clearly.

Editing the crap out of something usually consists of editing sessions morning, noon, and night. I found this to be a useful tool in sussing out issues.

The morning is where I'm most awake. I find that at this time I spot the logic errors more easily, but it's also the time where I feel the least emotional. At night, I'm tired and spotting logic errors is difficult, but this is also the time where I'm most emotional. Noon was somewhere in between these extremes.

What's my point? If a scene can stir an emotion from me in the morning, that's a sign I'm doing OK in that department. If it passes the logic test, same thing.

At night, if I spot a logic error, it tends to be a big one because even the sleepy me can spot it. If a scene can't stir an emotion at this time, there's a good chance it's emotionally flat. It's also at this time I think it's most easy for me to read like the audience because it's when I have the least desire to analyse.

If a scene passes these check points multiple times, then I have reasonable confidence that it's fine. And my judgement is often confirmed or corrected by my writing group. A lot of times they point out things I already suspected aren't working.

I'm not saying what works for me will work for you. What I'm saying is as you write and edit and write and edit some more, try not only to understand the story, but understand a bit about your writing self. IMHO that's helpful in developing a better critical eye towards your own work.

For me, I understand that the time of day and how tired I am affects how I perceive my writing, and I try to take advantage of that.

Hopefully some of this makes sense. It's a bit late where I am.

 

[cupiscent]

To a certain extent, I agree with the prevailing advice through this thread - that, as the author, you're never going to be able to look at your work with fresh eyes unclouded by all the things you thought you put on the page. It's hard to see exactly what you did put on the page. There are two things that I think are invaluable to help here: 1) distance, and 2) other people.

Whenever I finish a story, I stick it in a drawer, and go do other things for a while. I read a lot of fiction, and I read a lot about fiction. I write something new. I critique other people's work. And then, after as long as I can stand - at least a month, sometimes longer if I'm exhibiting amazing patience - I come back to my work and read it over, trying my hardest to see what's there. Then I start revising.

When I've done that at least once, sometimes more times, I will hand the story over to other people. I have about a dozen people I ask for feedback, which means I can usually get about half-a-dozen opinions on any one story. I think more than one reader is essential, because what's obvious to one person isn't at all to another. And my rule here is that I don't get to answer back or explain. The readers only get what's on the page. If they get the "wrong" idea, that's my fault. I need to make what's on the page clearer. (I used to freelance as an editor. I cannot count the number of times an author responded to my editorial notes with explanations of why they didn't have to change things. As an author, your only medium for explaining things to the reader is the story. Put it in the story.)

Having gone through this with a number of stories now, I think I'm getting better to start with. I have more of an understanding of how people who aren't me consume fiction. I have a better idea of what I need to put on the page to convey the story. But the acid test of whether I've been at all successful is still distance, and other readers.