5 Ways to Use Your Friends to Better Your Writing
I have recently discovered just how useful my friends and family are when it comes to writing. Whether it’s their opinion on my characters or their cheerleading skills, they have helped me every step of the way in my writing process. Here are five ways to take advantage of your loved ones without making them mad.
5. Survey them
I recently put a post on Facebook, Twitter and my blog asking followers what they thought of three names. Responses told me what feelings the names evoked and helped sculpt my characters.
4. Enlist their services
If they are your true friends, they’re interested in what you’re working on. Ask them to read over your work and tell you if it’s cohesive. Better yet, provide them with a short list of questions: Can you tell he’s angry even if he doesn’t say so? What would make a better story, ending A or ending B? Does this sentence make any sense?
3. Base characters from your friends’ quirks
From habitually over-watering their plants to never wearing two matching socks, your friends have some oddities to them that are surely among the greatest resources for character development.
2. Use their support
When you feel you’ve hit a roadblock or that your piece isn’t worthy of being published, confide in your loved ones. They’ve seen how much time and effort you’ve invested in your writing and they won’t let you give up.
1. Listen to their dialogue
Dialogue is the ultimate tool when forming characters. If you pay close attention to the way your friends speak, you will better understand how specific personalities communicate and, as a result, formulating your dialogue will be an easier task.
How do you draw on your friends to help you with your writing? Practical or inspirational? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Image courtesy of EJP Photo.
Great ideas all around. I do ask my husband to read my flash pieces now and then just to find out if the twist at the end is surprising or needs work, but that’s about it as far as using family and friends for critique. He isn’t a reader in general, so I think that’s what makes his opinion so valuable – if he enjoys the story, surely those who read regularly will.
I love using my family for dialogue practice. My dad has a distinct, slow, “backwoods southern” dialect and uses a lot of old sayings. I probably use him for that more than anyone else in the family.
I also insert a lot of my family’s quirks into my characters – my sister can look down and find a four-leaf clover, my cousin gives a pack of toilet paper as her gift for every household and baby shower she goes to – it’s things like that that really make a character stand out.
Thanks for a great post!
Exactly! It’s quirks like those that will really make your characters stand out. If your protagonist gives a pack of toilet paper for every gift — like your cousin — your character will stand out and have real, human-like idiosyncrasies that people can actually relate to.
Thanks for the feedback, Deanna!
Just a side note these same techniques at least some of them anyway, have helped me write better nonfiction as well.
I have a hard time getting my friends to sit down and read what I ask them too without them getting mad or completely blowing me off. But I do use them for inspiration and I try to use their dialogue in the course of my writing, sometimes it is just hard to be as witty as they are.
It’s tricky deciding which friends to ask — you don’t want to ask those that hate to read (they simply won’t read it, then you’ll both feel a little awkward about it.
Go after the ones you know love reading.
If you can’t muster the courage to ask one of your friends, consider looking into online communities, such as this one, or joining a writer’s group.
I, also, have had friends and family disappoint me by putting off or avoiding altogether the reading of my glorious writings. It has taken a while to weed out the helpful and willing ones from the ones you assume would be interested in helping and don’t. In my case, I found one (1) who takes the role seriously and gives thoughtful, incisive commentary. What a gift! Besides my muse/editor/wife, I only need one good one.
You’re right, all it takes is that one person that will give you honest input, and your writing will be headed down a better path. Like Christopher said, you can look into online forums for people who will read through your pieces and give you feedback, in exchange for some feedback on their pieces. Plus, reading through other work and critiquing it helps you see your own work more clearly. Best of luck to you!
This really answered my problem, thank you!