Checking Your Wing Mirrors

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Authors, wrangling entire fictional universes and speaking on behalf of the disparate denizens thereof, must be able to pretend to strengths (and sometimes, weaknesses) that they don’t really possess. We must speak with authority even when we don’t know what we’re talking about. And we must assemble a world that coheres, hiding its seams lest readers trip over them.

On the subject of blind spots, Charlie Jane Anders did a great think piece recently arguing that your personal blind spots hold a powerful key to better writing. Focus on identifying the gaps in your view, because that’s where treasures are hiding.

Writing as a team is a good system for minimizing blind spots. There being two of you doubles the chances of someone noticing an issue, but the benefit is even greater than a simple linear effect. Working together forces you to articulate ideas before they’ve become entrenched in prose. In the auxiliary writing cave, we speak often of “magical thinking,” and work to root it out. As new plot possibilities come up while we’re developing a story, we challenge them, prove them out. As the “official” plot grows, we talk it through in turns. That puts one of us on the spot to be able to string all the ideas together, meaning if the logic is flimsy in spots that’s where the stumbles will happen. Meanwhile, the other person listens and chimes in with corrections and questions where needed. It’s a very robust setup.

Talking things through is a great way to verify what you know and uncover unspoken assumptions, and it works even better when there’s someone to listen.