Poem: "Moral Traditions"

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!