What are you good at?

Hey!

What part of writing are you good at? What is the strongest for you?

I like how a lot of my stories come from odd moments in writing seminars, but I feel they best get across the points I am trying to discuss. Anyway, here's another for you:

Whilst critiquing our work, my lecturer suggested that we send our work to them so that it can be projected onto the board and we can all decide what we think. It is a daunting thing to go from a project you have written for solely yourself to then showing an entire class of writing students.

However, after telling myself it was for the best, I did just that. I sent my work across and got some feedback. There were a lot of things pointed out to me that needed clarification or just changing altogether. I wrote these down and went home after the lecture, surprisingly in a good mood knowing that I had feedback to take into account.

After a few weeks, we returned to our critiquing. The lecturer asked me again to display my work; hoping to see what I had changed or edited based on the given feedback.

Most of this time was positive, but one thing that stood out was a comment my lecturer made:

"Why did you take this part out? I thought it was the best bit."

To this comment, other students agreed.

I had taken the part out – even though I, myself, liked it. Why did I do it? To restructure around other feedback I had tried to work on.

❤️Types of criticism

This is why I believe that not only should we provide negative criticism for writers to take into account, but make sure to be positive! Tell people what you think IS working so that they don't remove it.

Leading back to my initial question: what do you do well in your writing? It is easy to be negative a lot of the time for the sake of individual writing improvement, but also cause hating is just easier sometimes. But let's take a moment to praise ourselves for once in a while.

As I have said in my other posts, anyone who is brave enough to write and let the world see it must have some merit to their work. I respect anyone who allows others to critique their work. It is a sign of wanting to improve and understanding that you write for yourself, but if you want to get published, there is an audience there too.

As a writer, you often pour your heart out onto a page without realising it. To receive feedback can be devastating, but I respect you for it. So, what do you do well in writing? What can you say is your personal strength?

That's all from me today,

Fin :)