Thank You, Book Club

I've run many drafts of Seeking Blue, the novel I've worked on for about ten years and finished in March, through my writers critique group for the past seven years. They've been invaluable to me, providing not only unwavering support and encouragement, but also keen insights and eyes for detail for everything from grammar to plot, character development and setting, themes and structure. I've dissected my novel all the way down to the sentence level, and had my writing buddies do the same.

But it's been done chapter by chapter, scene by scene, one to three chapters at a time. Even once it was done, no one had read Seeking Blue from beginning to end. With a finished draft already submitted to agents (8 rejections so far) I needed a different kind of critique. I needed readers.

So I took a big step and had Tanya's book club read it. I could not ignore this opportunity.

"Readers" are different from writers, most notably in that they don't parse through every word with tweezers. And while that kind of thing is absolutely necessary to making a story shine, readers look at a book differently. They welcome original conflicts and the characters that populate them, and they seek to be entertained. If the story doesn't speak to them, they may not even finish it. Plus, they view it as a whole, not a collection of individual parts.

I distributed Seeking Blue to the group and I accompanied it with some guidelines. I wanted big picture stuff, like the believability and quality of the character arcs, pacing, plot, point of view, setting and dialogue, all within the framework of the complete manuscript, along with any smaller details on which they felt necessary to comment. But more than anything, I sought honesty. If they liked it, great. If not, a bit less great, but I needed to know why.

I know them all to some degreee, and consider a few of them very close friends. Despite their pledges of honesty, I was worried that they might subconsciously hold back from any scathing and purposeful commentary because it's hard to separate an author from his work, especially an author they already knew. I reiterated my requests at the beginning of the meeting.

They didn't disappoint.

While they all enjoyed the book in general, the two-hour discussion was more than the praise-fest I had feared. From each unique perspective, Lydia, Tanya (who, as my wife, I should mention, has always been unconditionally supportive), Kerri, Kellie, Roxanne, Bettina, Kelly, Victoria and Jesa bounced back and forth with cogent arguments, intelligent critique, and specific notations on certain parts of the story that moved them, or needed clarification, or that simply didn't fit. They were not shy in describing situations they thought needed more explanation, or didn't feel realistic or plausible. They discussed Jack, Noah and Elisa—characters I created—as if they were real people; they discussed the situations in which these characters found themselves as if they had actually happened in real life. They debated the relative merits of each protagonist, all the way down to such minutiae as the appropriateness of their names. They questioned whether scenes needed to be omitted, added, or amended. They pondered motivations and realism and the need for jargon. They suggested improvements. They didn't always agree. They engaged all my specific questions. In short, they helped me figure out how to make Seeking Blue better in ways I hadn't yet thought of.

Many of them expressed their thanks to me for allowing them to read my work, even though I was the one who was most appreciative that they even finished it, given their busy lives, and spent their time and energy to give me feedback. I was proud of my accomplishment and happy with their critique. And I will certainly make some changes based on what they told me.

While the ladies were gathering their things, Kelly told me how cool it was to be able to ask the author direct questions.

I was the author. Pretty cool.

Once almost everyone had filed out, Jesa said something that will resonate for a long time. "I know how hard you've worked and I know it's not published yet, and whether or not it ever gets published doesn't matter." I didn't know where she was going. "Always remember that for a couple of hours, your characters were real people doing real things, showing real emotion. Tonight, your story came to life. You should be proud of that."

Indeed, I am. And for all you provided me on Thursday night, Book Club Ladies, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.