Let’s continue with our Campfire Stories saga. Last week I talked about how reading my story out loud helped me with editing it. I read it to myself and to my husband. It may seem kind of strange to read to yourself, but it helped me catch a lot—and I mean like a lot—of grammar and spelling errors. Plus, it helped me with refining the flow of my story and preparing for reading it in front of bunch of strangers.

When I was reading to my husband, he gave a lot of critiques. And as he did, I realized something. A lot of his suggestions sounded similar to thoughts I had when originally writing my story. I know that sounds like I’m saying: Tell me something I don’t know. But more than anything, it was validating. It told me that I should be trusting my gut as a writer.

The Importance of Trusting Your Gut

When you’ve been writing for a while, at some point you develop a sixth sense for story development. It’s hard to describe, but there will be moments when you feel something isn’t quite right….

It can be the use of a specific word…

The actions of a character…

The direction of the plot…

You’ll have a sense that something is off. As a writer, I think it’s important to listen to that feeling and appreciate it for what it is—your experience as a writer coming to the forefront and saying that’s wrong and you need to address it.

For example, my husband let me know that I had to find different ways to describe the main character’s house other than being “surrounded by dirt.” He also informed me I described my character sweating way too often. But how else were readers going to know that this story takes place in a seasonal desert?

Of course, my husband was right. (As he always is.)

To some extent, I knew these were issues even before I read the story to him. But I ignored them, thinking the story would read just fine if I didn’t address them. Shocking news…it didn’t. Thanks to my husband and my gut, I ended up fixing them. No longer was the land simply made of dirt. And no longer did my main character have a perspiration problem.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have someone—be it a spouse, partner, or friend—who can give you feedback on your story (and maybe even validate changes you were thinking of making). But sometimes as a writer, all you have to go off of is your gut. Trust yourself. Trust your experience. Trust your skill.