You’ve written a story. You’ve poured your heart into it. You’ve rewritten sentences, perfected metaphors, and shaped characters you care deeply about. You’re sure it’s good, hell, maybe it’s even great. Yeah, the big names will want this one. It’s probably worthy of The Atlantic or the New Yorker. This could even be the one that finally nails the Pushcart Prize.

Then the wind goes out of your sails when the first person to read your masterpiece points out how you spelled the name of your main character differently in two places in the opening paragraph. How could you have missed that? You must have read through the story a hundred times with all the rewrites. It’s embarrassing and aggravating.

And it’s one of the most fundamental truths in writing: it’s incredibly hard for us to see the flaws in our own work. Here’s why:

We’re Too Close to the Story

Writers live inside the world they’ve created. We know every motivation, backstory, and all the subplots. The backstory that isn’t on the page lives in our heads “rent free” as the kids say. We mentally fill in all of the things we know about the story as we read through it. Your brain fills in the gaps, smoothing over inconsistencies and connecting dots that were never actually drawn and not clear to other readers.

We’re Emotionally Invested

We writers form emotional bonds with our characters and often fall in love with select scenes and phrases. This emotional attachment can make us blind to, or cause us to push back against, needed changes. Cutting scenes and characters, also known as “Killing our darlings” as the saying goes, feels like a loss to us even though it usually makes a story stronger.

Sometimes we don’t really know the Story We’re Telling

We often begin writing with an idea but no clear theme. Or we have a theme but it gets lost in the logistics of plot development. The result is a story that meanders or contradicts itself. I also tend to see a lot of what I call “lopsided stories” where way too many words are spent on things that do not advance the plot or develop the character.

Hard Work Doesn’t Make It Good

We sometimes confuse “I worked hard on this” with “This is the best it can be.” But hard work doesn’t guarantee a polished end result. Rewriting, re-envisioning, and sometimes throwing everything out and rethinking it from the ground up, often lead to better storytelling.

Our Brains Want to Be Done

Writing is hard. Getting through that first draft is a triumph. So when we type “The End,” part of our brain wants it to be done. The desire to move on and submit makes us less critical of our work. We stop interrogating where the story doesn’t work.

So What Can You Do?

• Time: Step away from your draft. A few weeks or even months can give you enough distance to see it with fresh eyes. Sometimes when I go through my “false starts” that I haven’t touched in years, I am surprised at what I see. It often feels like someone else wrote the words I am seeing. (and I mean that in both in a good and bad way).  This is the ideal kind of distance you want from your work, where you have forgotten about the story entirely and are coming at it completely fresh. Unfortunately that isn’t always practical.
• Read your work out loud: A more immediate solution is reading your story out loud. In Steve Martin’s Masterclass he talked about how he reads his work to his cat. I will even record myself reading a story so I can play it back later and really listen. Hearing your story often reveals awkward pacing, unclear dialogue, or tonal shifts you might miss otherwise.
• Re-outline: After the first draft, take the time to outline what you actually wrote. It often differs from your plan and can reveal plot holes. One trick I have learned, especially if if I have “pantsered” a story is to force chapter breaks and title those breaks in the story as though they were chapter headings. I do this even though I am mainly writing short stories, which don’t usually have chapter titles. It really helps me to see the plot progression and where I have sections that repeat information previously covered. It also really helps me to see where I can cut.
• Get feedback from others: Other people have a fresh set of eyes and the advantage of knowing nothing about the story. No preconceived notions, no biases (other than these people are likely your friends so they might be softer on you than you need). Issues we tend to read past will stand out to them like a neon sign.  

Recognizing that we have literary blind spots is the first step toward better writing. Every great story was once a messy draft, written by someone who couldn’t see the flaws, until they eventually found a way to work through them, often by giving a story time and/or getting feedback from others.

-James