This is the third part of a five-part series. Here are Parts One and Two.

Overcoming The Outer Critics

Now, as you astute readers have no doubt already noticed, I haven't actually covered how to write quickly yet. Why is this?

Well, it's simply because I don't write very fast myself. As I mentioned in the footnote to my previous post, I tend to average 900 words of fiction in my first hour. In the wide fields of Writervale, where there are people coasting along at 2000 words an hour or more, this is, quite simply, rather slow. I can't teach you how to do something I can't.

_{See this? This is me. I'm the tarmac.}

What I can do, however, is explain how I managed a 180% increase in wordcount, because a year ago I was producing no more than 500 words in my first hour. Now, I just want to say that there is no Magical Writing Pill, Results Guaranteed. Every writer is different, which is good. Otherwise, every book would be the same, and no-one would ever bother to read anything. What I can do, however, is explain how I changed my writing mindset - in other words, how I cleared the cobwebs and clutter from my brain, beat out all the myths, and squeezed my gray matter into shape with sheer willpower.

...Okay, maybe that was a bit too dramatic. There was a real and palpable change, however, and it all started when I ditched the writer's group. You see, a large part of it is getting rid of the critics, both inside and out. Last post, I tackled the inner critic, and now, I'm going to talk about all the other ones.

"But Troy," you clamor immediately, gnashing your teeth and twisting your gargantuan pearls, "how else am I going to get feedback on my story? How am I going to know if people like it or not?"

Woah, woah. I'm not telling you to ditch all writer's groups. I myself happen to still be in a few, and they've helped me immeasurably. What I'm suggesting is that if you really are in a writer's group, you should step back, look very hard at yourself, and decide on two things.

Firstly, what do you want from writing? If all you want is to have fun and get your fantasies down on paper, then please ignore everything I am about to say. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to write for fun, and any killjoy who says otherwise should take his head and press it. In a scrapbook. With the daisies.

If, however, you are serious about improving your craft, and if you really do want to learn how to be a good writer, and if you have an eye to being published one day, and if you're really really crazy and might even want to do nothing but write for the rest of your working life...

Well, that brings us to question two, which is the same as question one but broader. What does everyone else in your writer's group want?

Let me give you an example. I, the hypothetical Roy Ang, want nothing but to share my Supernatural fanfiction with the world. I attend a writer's group and share my work, hoping for some feedback so I can get better reviews on FF.net.

However, everyone else in the group is crazy, and actually wants to make their living at it. They tear apart my work and throw it in the gutter, dusting their hands. Depressed, I return home, delete my FF.net account, and return to my incredibly lucrative day-job as a stock trader.

Now, I, the decidedly non-hypothetical Troy Tang, had a similar experience in a certain writer's group, only in reverse, and without the stock-trading. It was astonishing and slightly uncomfortable, but I soon realised that no-one else in the group was as serious as I was about the whole writing thing. They had day-jobs, or degrees, or families to deal with. Real and palpable responsibilities. Writing was just a way for them to let off steam or indulge their hobby, and they were happy if it never left the group.

I wanted more, however. I wanted to make my living at this one day. I wanted to be a full-time fictioneer, an actual author. I already had one professional sale of short fiction, so why couldn't I do it again?

Which is why, when the critiques started coming in, I was rather confused as to what exactly to do.

You see, we writers have this extremely strange idea in our heads. We believe that if we write something good - which ofttimes we do - everyone will know it. We believe that one well-turned phrase, or a single wham line, or even that perfect twist, will make everyone stand up and shower us with applause. Hence, we attend writer's groups, in part because we want to impress people in Real Life! Imagine!

I'm not going to lie, I really wanted to wow them. I was the only guy there with an actual sale. I thought I had one foot on the podium already.

Unfortunately, what I didn't realise was that to them, my so-called sale was about as useful as a bag of soggy chips. I was just another guy, with a story. So they did what they usually did, and come second meeting I received a decidedly gentle smackdown over chips and cookies, full of confused smiles and polite comments.

It wasn't their fault. It was mine. You see, I'd been looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. I'd walked into the corner store and asked for a heavy-duty power drill. I'd ordered chow mein from McDonalds'. I'd searched for a haystack in a needle. I had, in a word, goofed.

So, well, I left. Best decision I ever made. It certainly freed up my Tuesdays.

If you're looking for professional feedback in a group full of people who have no desire to be professional, then you should probably adjust your expectations.

Writing is a funny thing. Everyone's convinced he's good at it, even if he isn't. When the pedal comes to the metaphorical metal, everyone's a critic. If you can find a group like I have now, where everyone happens to be accommodating, friendly, and like-mindedly driven, then please, put your roots down and cling to it like the Ark. I'm currently in two online writer's groups where everyone loves writing as much as I do, and has more-or-less similar goals to mine. I know I'm clinging.

Even so, there's only so much that advice can do for you. When things come down to it, the only voice that can possibly matter is your own.

Consider the range of possible responses. "I think this was great." "I liked this phrase." Or: "I feel this could have been turned better." "I think you could have made this bit flow more." "I'd like to see more of this guy." "Can you put an apostrophe here?" "This sucks, frankly."

All perfectly valid...

But what on Earth do they have to do with improving your writing?

Consider your writer's group, and then consider your future audience. If you treated your audience (who, after all, will presumably be paying for your work, and should therefore have more say) the same way you treat your writer's group, then you'd probably solicit detailed criticism. You'd send nice little letters, asking for their thoughts on the prose, on the characters, on that one reveal in Chapter Seven, promising to go back and think about it...

And then you wouldn't get anything done, because one guy will tell you that you're a genius, two other guys will say that your heroine is awful, five girls will say that they wanted more time before the reveal, but that they really really love your heroine, and this one snot-stained letter will come back, saying that you're objectively awful and should probably kill yourself.

It's not so much that we can't please everybody. It's that most of the time, we can't even make people agree about what to be pleased on.

So why are you trying?

Like I said in my last post, you have no power over your audience. This is the truth that will set you free. Even an acquisitions editor, possessed of the means to buy and publish your story, will never be anything more than just another reader. Taste is taste is taste. There is no arbiter, no god possessed of Absolute Taste, who can separate the wheat from the chaff and consign the chaff to unquenchable fire.

There is, however, one reader out there who is waiting for your story, who has read everything you've read and watched everything you've watched and loved exactly what you loved about it all. He does exist. You have to believe in him.

But even if you don't ever reach the Perfect Reader, would you rather write for the group who will never agree, or that one person who doesn't need to? Would you rather write for the masses, or yourself?

If someone tells you that she doesn't like a certain part of your story, are you going to think about it, agree, and change it? Or are you going to smile politely, say that you'll think about it, and then go home and do nothing?

In the end, those two options are all we ever have, but the choice must be your own. The critics will go on to other stuff. The other writers, well, they have their own stuff to do. Critics need food, don't they?

But if you fail to be true to yourself, if you compromise your vision and work to the whims of another, then you'll know it. And you'll live with it.

Choose wisely.

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If you've somehow reached this point, thanks so much for bearing with me. As you've no doubt gathered, my name's Troy Tang. I'm a professionally-published writer of science fiction and fantasy, and I joined Steemit in the hopes of bringing my stories to you fine souls - and also literary musings like these. If you liked it, please stay tuned for the next installment. Thank you very much!

_{*Snail image sourced from https://www.wearefullcircle.co.uk/acts/snail-racing/}