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Ignore the fix, find the problem
Find the Problem
Jennifer Egan triangulates from a suggestion to the problem the person is trying to solve, then finds her own solution if she agrees it is a problem. She doesn't always agree. In the end, gut and imagination answer the question, and she mostly wants to know how people react.
Start With What Works
Her writers group starts every critique with what is working. It sounds Pollyanna-ish, but what is working is the roadmap for fixing what isn't, and it is hard to hear anything positive after negative comments.
Trusting Other Readers
She trusts almost anyone's reaction more than her own judgment of her work, because she is completely compromised. If the mailman offered to read it, she would hand it over. That doesn't mean following every directive, since people don't even agree with each other.
Why can't writers see their own drafts clearly?
Knowing what you meant makes it hard to see what is on the page. In a 1990 Stanford experiment by Elizabeth Newton, people tapped out well-known songs on a table and predicted that listeners would name about half of them. Listeners guessed only about 2.5 percent, because the tappers could hear the tune in their heads. Researchers call the gap the curse of knowledge. A separate line of work, the IKEA effect from Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely in 2012, found that people also overvalue things they have made themselves.
Where did starting with what works come from?
The habit is closely tied to choreographer Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process, which she developed with her dance company in the 1990s. Its first step has responders say what they found meaningful or compelling in the work. Only later do they ask neutral questions and, if the artist agrees, offer opinions. The process has since been adopted by theaters, writing groups, and design studios.
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