On Sharing Your Writing

We don’t have to share our work in order to be a writer, through and through, but at some point in our writing journey, we’ll at least think about it. Sharing has its pitfalls, sure, but it also has many rewards, not the least of which is letting your family in on just what it is you’re doing when you set your timer and disappear for a couple of hours. Sharing should be a considered act. It’s as much of the creative process as the writing itself.

Timing Your Share

For some writers, sharing our work too early can kill our babies. Especially, when we’re in the conceptual stage, the story dreaming, before we’ve put our story thoughts on paper, sharing our ideas can be a fragile thing. If the person you share with starts asking too many questions, or shooting logic bullets at your story concept, it can burst your thought bubble mid-stream. All those fragments of plot and flashes of character *poof* without any ink on the page. Share story thoughts with caution.

Once we have something on paper, our story is a little harder to kill, but still vulnerable. When to share your work is a part of your individual process. Maybe I’m motivated if I let my critique group in on my new story in the first chapter or first short story draft. Maybe you need to have the story essentially complete before sharing with anyone. Unfortunately discovering what works for you is in the sharing. Try sharing each new story you write at different stages to discover what works for you. It took me a lot of hit and miss to discover what works for me.

Choosing Your Share Person

Who we share with is also an important consideration. Once we’ve nailed down the basics of our story concept, we might share with a spouse or a bestie if they’re inclined to humor us. Anyone who reads my blogs regularly knows I’m a huge fan of critique groups, the caveat being to pay attention to how far along in your story you need to be before you start sharing.

First readers are angels. Test a routine with your first reader—does sharing a few chapters at a time cause your story to wither on the vine or does it keep you in the wording trenches? Is it best to hand over your first full draft or does it need to be the third before your feelings are hardened enough to handle critique?

How Much to Share

This can be tricky. Writers are storytellers. Once we leap into sharing our story, some of us want to share our whole story. You’ve gotten brave. You’ve handed over the first three chapters to your share person as you start the fourth. But then questions are asked and you’re so excited about your baby that you tell your share person(s) where the story is headed, in detail. You outline the subplots, highlight your characters, and reveal how the story ends. Hubbub ensues.

Then you go home to write, but you have told your tale. Your story loses your attention. You’ve overshared and killed your story. Practice mystery. When your share person is intrigued with the chapters you’re doling out, resist telling them more, even if you have a full first draft waiting on your computer. Protect your enthusiasm for drafting and re-drafting the rest of the story. Another way to handle this, of course, is to hand over a full manuscript, but only if that works for your process. How do you know? Time and sharing by trial.

Sharing with the Wider World

We’ve written and re-written and polished and shared with our writing buddies and family and maybe our friends, now what? Some of us will never ask “now what?” and that doesn’t mean we’re not writers. We’re just choosing not to release our stories into the wild. We’re satisfied with our audience, thank you very much. Let me stress how that’s a very fine response. Let no one pressure you into more.

For others, releasing our words into the wild to inspire or motivate or cheer up or distract a complete stranger is a different kind of satisfaction. For members of FWA, the Royal Palm Literary Awards are a nice DMZ between critique group and the whole world. Release is still limited. You get feedback from people you don’t know on an objective set of criteria. If you have a competitive streak, consider contests. Otherwise, submit to magazines, start querying agents, or indie-publish. Sell your story at book and craft fairs, press copies into the hands of indie bookstore owners. The key to getting your story out there is to plan a public strategy and implement it. Your story won’t share itself.

Different Angles of Sharing

Did I say before that writers are storytellers? We are. We don’t have to limit our story to the words we wrote down. You can take your story to blogs and classrooms and auditoriums and nursing homes. Beyond reading from your book directly, you have much more you can share. You can discuss your themes, the choices of your characters, why you chose to write the story you wrote, the story behind writing the story, what motivated you as you wrote it, how your plot developed, how you went about your research, what you discovered about yourself and others by writing this particular story, and why you want to share this story with the world. Set no limits on yourself!

Please share your thoughts on, or your experiences with sharing your stories in the comments section below.

Join me on the first Friday of each month for exploration, discovery, and discussion of the writing life.