What Being a First Reader Taught Me About My Own Writing

By: JD Devine

    I’ve been volunteering as a first reader for a professional magazine, and it has helped my writing in ways I didn't see coming.

    While reading submissions, I started noticing stories with the same issues a former professor had pointed out in my writing. They had choppy, fragmented sentences throughout. I did not enjoy reading them at all.

    It really clicked when I had to explain what I didn't like about one of them, and my professor’s feedback came to mind. It is one thing to hear feedback and know it is good feedback. It is another thing to feel yourself losing patience with someone else’s writing for the same reason.

    I’ve also learned how much structure and style can get in the way of a story. I’ve read stories with great premises that were still hard to get through because of how they were written. Reading so many submissions has shown me what makes a story work and what doesn’t.

    Now I look at my own writing in a new way. Instead of getting stuck on one scene or one sentence, I try to look at the bigger picture of my story and ask whether a reader would want to keep going.

    I didn’t take this volunteer position thinking it would teach me about my own writing. I thought I would just be reading stories. But some of the best lessons I’ve had come from stories I end up giving a low rating. 

     I still catch that choppy rhythm in my drafts sometimes. The difference is that now I catch it myself, because I know what it feels like to be on the other side of it.

https://jddevine.com/