A second opinion

Having worked as a professional writer since 1980, I have come to know just how important it is to get a second opinion on my work when it is at draft stage. I have one or two friends who are also writers and for years we have exchanged rough drafts for comments. Often the comments can take the form of questions, such as ‘Why not make more of this image?’ or, more pointedly, ‘Relevance?’ or ‘Meaning?’ We are now so familiar with each other’s critiques that if I see ‘No!’ in the margin, I will know exactly what it means.

Responding to and acting on such feedback is a valuable part of the writing process. I become so involved in what I’m writing that I sometimes miss something which an outside eye can readily spot. Often it then seems so obvious that I wonder why I didn’t see it myself.

It can be something quite small - the fact that I have repeated the word ‘and’ four times in a sentence, or that a sentence has become unwieldy and incoherent. At other times it can be something much more general - that the piece feels unfocused, or is missing some important information the reader needs.

As a Royal Literary Fellow, I am constantly encouraging students to read over their work carefully and to spend more time on editing, since in my own experience it is this process which is crucial to producing something coherent and engaging for a reader.

My first drafts often contain tenuous attempts at what I want to say, and much of what I write initially is edited out in the final revision. Often a piece will have to go through several revisions before it is finished.

I and the other RLF writing fellow in LEADS, Dilys Rose, are both available to offer writing advice to any student currently in the UK. We can help with general aspects of the work, such as coherence of argument, structure, audience awareness, but also with more particular things such as sentence structure, vocabulary, grammar and clarity of expression.

Our consultations are free and confidential, and currently involve an online meeting which is followed up by an e-mail response to the work with written comments. Further information and contact details can be found on the LEADS website.

Written by Brian McCabe, Royal Literary Fund Fellow