Poem: "Moral Traditions"

One thing to consider is how much practice you've had with each form. I started hardcore practice on poetry in junior high. I wrote a fair amount of fiction but didn't start producing serious volume until high school or college. So I know perfectly well that my fiction skills are behind my poetry skills, although the fiction is well into the professional range by now. One reason I do a lot of Torn World stories, despite the very low pay, is for sheer mass-practice.

>>Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your honesty. Now knowing that stories where the lesbian characters die are detested by lesbian readers stops me from making what could have been a dreadful mistake. Of course, it also takes away that added bit of motivation I thought the change would add to the piece.<<

Well, to understand what the "Dead Lesbian" cliche means for a writer you need to know the context. That is, lots of stories have one lesbian and wind up killing her off. Most people who aren't lesbians haven't identified this as a pattern which makes it an easy mistake to make. But when the only people like you in a story always seem to wind up dead, that gets maddening after a while.

So then a writer, knowing this trend, can work with it or around it. Does this character, who has to die, have to be a lesbian? If no, use some other orientation or just don't mention who they sleep with. Does this character, who has to be a lesbian, have to die? If no, have someone else open the monster door. If there is a lesbian character who has to die for compelling plot reasons, is she the only lesbian in the story? If yes, try adding another lesbian who will survive to the end. Knowing about the boobytrap, and why it's a boobytrap, can help avoid it without mangling a story. Identify what your tension attaches to and try to figure a way around the trap.

Conversely if you're interested in the idea of the Dead Lesbian as a motif, then you might explore it in fiction. Why does the lesbian always die? Is there a glitch in the flow of fate? A curse? A deity who has it in for dykes? Karma crush deaths caused by bigots reincarnating as lesbians who die horribly? Those all lead to different places, and they all make some kind of meta-comment on the trope.

>> I'm starting to think it isn't worth the effort. My time might be better spent drawing. There are only so many hours in a day and days in a week, and if my prose fiction is going nowhere, then maybe I shouldn't waste much time on it. <<

Now that's a decision that only you can make. I certainly do some of my steering based on what is popular or profitable -- I'll do more of things that sell well and generate buzz.

The tension concept there isn't bad. *ponder* Might it work if you set the story in context of a lesbian community? If it's not an everybody-dies kind of horror story, the presence of other lesbian characters would provide a buffer. But if you've only got two characters and they both die, yeah, they should be something other than lesbians (or any minority, really, tokendeath being a widespread trope).

Folks, this is my first-reader. My first-reader is good. If you enjoy my fiction, this would be part of why. He's more use than some professional editors I've worked with.

>> I treat my wife and my daughter as my first readers, although many, many, many people say that you should never do that. Over, and over, and over again, I've heard that family members cannot possibly give a writer an objective opinion, that their feelings toward the writer will affect their opinions of what's written. <<

Well, it depends on your friends and family. I started out with my parents as first-readers. They are both teachers. They read over my stories with the eye of an experienced grader. This did wonders for my basic writing skills. They also love literature (duh, look at my given name) and got me hooked on that. So, they're also qualified to comment on aesthetic aspects.

Then I had various friends join in. I still use friends as first-readers sometimes, especially when they've asked to see a particular story or if they have some relevant expertise.

Then I met my_partner_doug who is a deep reader and whose brother is an editor. He pretty much killed a chicken over the first few things I handed him. So both my technical skills and my artistic skills got honed further. Of all the folks I've worked with, he's done the most in terms of structural improvements -- working on my tendency to get scenes out of sequence. (I don't always receive them in chronological order.) By that point, too, I'd worked with a number of fan and professional editors. His comments started out on par with the average and quickly improved. Right now, I haven't worked with anyone of higher editorial skill, and plenty of folks I've worked with are below that. I've repeatedly had editors remark on how clean my manuscripts are. That's because I've done a lot of polishing at home, and the fiction has already been edited before it goes out.

Anyone whose family members are reasonably honest, and have relevant skills such as teaching, secretarial experience, linguistics, journalism, library work, other extensive reading/writing experience, etc. is perfectly justified in drawing on that expertise. Random people who just say "This is great!" or "This sucks," however, are not very useful. That does describe the kind of folks that many writers know.

>>Still, both my wife and daughter are smart, independent-minded, learned individuals who will tell me flat-out if something isn't working. <<

You are lucky!