On fearing the reader
Revision tactics, first readers, etc
Many writers have a person in their life they like to call their First Reader. Sometimes the first reader is a close friend or family member (for the marvelous Maryse Meijer, it’s her twin) but it seems a common first reader is a partner who is, more often than not, also a writer.
For many years I suspected the worst when a writer-friend told me that their writer-spouse served as their first reader. It sounded like aesthetic co-dependence, or a sad stab at gaining the other’s respect, or that their work needed to earn the spouse’s approval before it was allowed out in public, and too often it seemed this particular relationship skewed along the expected gender and age dynamics— a wiser older man teaching his younger female partner about his superior opinions.
I was in a long relationship with someone who didn’t read my writing much at all, and another with someone entirely committed to the universal veracity of his own taste. I never thought it wise to share my work with either of them before my agent (who makes a great first reader on her own) though at times I wondered if a story or a book might better enjoy a moment of domesticity before being sent away to earn its keep.
But either out of necessity or preference or self-reliance run amok, I came to think of myself as my first reader, and when the time came for that first read, I did what a lot of writers do—I read the new pages aloud. Recently, however, I found a tactic to intensify this practice.