The best listener

I have writ­ten about the val­ue of the writer read­ing his/her work aloud to a class of stu­dents, to any group of peo­ple, or to one per­son, all of which I do as part of my writ­ing process. I sup­pose I could say the best listener—and a very insight­ful listener—is my wife, Lin­da. But in truth, the best lis­ten­er is me.

Last night I was read­ing a man­u­script to Lin­da, a man­u­script I have been work­ing on for three years. As I read, I real­ized there was a vital con­tra­dic­tion in the nar­ra­tive. Some­thing I heard. It was some­thing that had to be addressed, which by next morn­ing I did. 

The trick—if it is a trick—is that even as you read to someone—you have to lis­ten very hard. Lis­ten with a pen in your hand. Lis­ten to your intu­itive response. Every time you feel some­thing wrong, not right, awry, whatever—be ruth­less­ly honest—mark the text, so you can go back to it.

It is right here that being a good read­er-in a lit­er­ary sense, not per­for­mance sense—is vital. 

If you lis­ten to your own work it’s amaz­ing what you will hear.