A writer I know recently asked for opinions about sharing writing in public or with the public. It’s wonderful that writers share work. It’s extraordinarily helpful to have feedback and to use that to encourage further work in revision or something new. Pure glory to have our work well-received.

My thoughts about sharing drafts begin with the goal, which for most writers is to improve our writing. I hope that’s the goal. We need an objective reader or listener to help us locate weakness and strength and to ensure the writing is accomplishing the work we hope it is accomplishing. Most of us hope for praise, but if that’s all a writer is looking for, the rest of what I have to say will not be helpful. 

What these was really about was sharing work in draft form, She was clear about that. She wasn’t talking about public readings sharing on a blog.

It is entirely my opinion, but having sat through formal readings of brand new work in need of work, work that was far longer than the time allowed, or that was deeply troubling either for the subject matter or for the careless manner it was shared—writers must have consideration for their audience. The writer is asking for help. 

[My favorite abusive reading story was during the old Haystack readings. My husband still talks about the time when, after his reading, an author invited a friend up to the podium to read something he’d written the night before. This took us more than a half hour past the end time for the reading, and was so dreadful and boring that I slipped a book out of my bag and began reading. A well-published writer sitting behind me read over my shoulder! Seriously. Everyone was too polite to just get up and leave, but that was what we all wanted to do.]

NEVER share brand new work. NEVER EVER. Wait to share work that has reached the point where you are stuck in revision or hope it’s close to done, not the first (or third) draft. The purpose of reading a writing draft is to advance the work, not receive praise for our courage sharing. 

• We owe it to our readers to share something we have sat with for awhile and already revised to whatever perfection we can achieve independently. Imposing a shoddy draft that might have been revised over another week (or twelve) is inconsiderate and a waste of everyone’s time.
• We owe it to ourselves to receive feedback that extends beyond the obvious stuff we’d have noticed on our own without input. We want help with what we can’t quite put our finger on, the missing detail, the leap that leaves the listener stranded, confusion or contradiction, the implication we failed to hint at (or the one we never intended). 

SHARING ALOUD: Read work aloud to an audience that you have read aloud before. At least read to the dog or a mirror and you might catch issues; locate places where you stumble are begging for rethink and revision. You will time yourself so that you know how long the piece takes to read. (You will need to read more slowly than is comfortable. Your listeners cannot flip back to reread a sentence if it went by too fast to be clear). Do the work you recognize needs doing before you ask for help.

When I was teaching writing and we shared in class, students sometimes wanted to explain or apologize for a piece. My standard response was “Shut up and read.” The joke was intended to take testing out of the message: We do not want to hear about how it’s terrible [begging for compliment?] or that you wrote it last night [never ever] or whatever. Just read.

The exception: Warn your audience if the material is explicit.

SHARING PAGES: If you are sharing your work in print, you should, again, read it aloud and meticulously correct typos and misspellings, stumblings and flaws you can fix on your own. Again, do the work you recognize needs doing. Offer the best you can. If your reader finds typos you might have caught on your own, they are likely to focus on them instead of the other issues you actually need help recognizing and addressing. That’s a waste all around. Allow your readers to be helpful by preparing the best version you know how to share at that time.

The best feedback comes from a reader who has no preconceptions about the work. That happens only in the first reading, and you only have one “first reading” from someone whose opinion you value. Make the best of that opportunity.

Finally, everyone occasionally violates these rules that I mostly learned at The Flight of the Mind from publisher Ruth Gundle. All of us should try harder to respect our audience and what they can offer. We need feedback. We ensure that such sharing is as productive as it can be by bringing the best we can to the table.