on Writers in the Storm:

To strengthen your story, look at each scene as a reader would.

We writers spend a lot of time looking at our work like, well, a writer. We study plot and structure, pace and tension, character and dialogue, but how often do we think about how the reader is going to react to our story?

One of my critique groups is a “critique as we write” group. Every week, we turn in two chapters of our first drafts or whatever draft we’re revising. It’s a great way to keep our writing momentum going since we have people waiting for pages, but it’s had a much better benefit than we realized when we started the group.

We get real-time feedback about what readers expect to happen next.

This has utterly changed the direction of two of my novels so far, and both for the better.

We don’t turn in our comments and line edits until after we’ve met, so our group discussion focuses on the big picture issues and what the author is trying to do with the story.

Which means, when I set up certain situations that really hook the reader, my critique partners tell me they’re excited about what’s going to happen next. If I didn’t plan for anything exciting, I know I need to figure out something and meet those expectations.

This pushes me to dig deeper and think outside the box, as well as take advantage of anything I might have accidentally done or inadvertently set up.