What To Do When Your Partner Won’t Read Your Work

“I’m about to kill him. I do not find him remotely sexy right now and I can’t believe I’m going to have to ask him again…”
     My friend’s voice trails off, full of hurt and anger. I’m standing in my kitchen, talking on the phone with her while I make dinner and she’s telling me that her husband keeps stalling and finding excuses for not reading the novel she finished for NaNoWriMo.
     As I blink my eyes over the onion I’m chopping, I remember when I went through this with an ex. Same thing: I’d finished my first NaNoWriMo novel and my ex asked to read it but weeks went by, then months while the crisp stack of printed pages sat on his desk, gathering dust. Like my friend, I eventually asked him about it and like my friend’s husband, he put me off, shamefaced. My ex asked me to read his work all the time, so when he wouldn’t read mine, and then the months stretched on, I got so frustrated, then angry, then sad that I decided that if he hadn’t started reading it by the end of that week, I would break things off with him. It might sound harsh but at the time, it was the last straw. As it turned out, he surprised me the very day I made that decision by telling me he had finished the manuscript and had taken the time to give me written comments. We went out to breakfast that weekend and he gave me very thoughtful notes, which I applied to my next draft. For me though, it changed something. I had given him feedback on his work for years and the way it had been so hard for him to return the favor left me shaken.
     Which is why, a decade later, now happily married to a man who eagerly reads my work, I’m surprised to hear my next words to my friend. “I think he’s just scared he’s going to let you down.”
     “Scared? Please,” my friend snorts. “It’s disrespectful.”
     “It feels like that,” I agree. “But I don’t think that’s where he’s coming from.”
     And I didn’t. When you really adore someone, the way I know my friend’s husband adores her, the stakes feel incredibly high. “What if he reads it and he can’t tell you it’s the best thing ever? What if he’s scared that he will learn that the one thing you care the most about, besides him, you aren’t great at?”
     My friend is a great writer and there’s no way that would actually happen, but fear, we all know, isn’t logical. Sometimes it’s easier to stall, to hem and haw, than to face that fear of letting someone down, their writerly face beaming in expectation. Sometimes, reading your partner’s novel is waaaay more than just reading your partner’s novel.
     Another big fear for a significant other poised to read their writer’s work is that they will look stupid in their partner’s eyes. Maybe they don’t know how to express their feedback, to find the right words to explain what works and what doesn’t; or they fear the novel will go right over their heads and they will be exposed as shallow or not up to their partner’s literary level. The point is, there are lots of reasons your partner might be avoiding reading your work, and almost all of them have nothing to do with disrespect or a lack of caring. Which is what I told my friend.
     “Huh. That makes sense, actually,” she said slowly. “Yeah.” Her voice softened. “I’m going to tell him if he reads it, he doesn’t have to say anything. I just want him to know me through my writing.”
     My friend’s husband was a bookworm but he wasn’t schooled in how to give helpful literary feedback. When he was given the option just to read her work, without needing to say anything, he quickly read the novel. He has also since proved very helpful when it comes to trouble-shooting plot hiccups, something he couldn’t do before actually reading the story.
     So, for all of you who would like to have a loved one read your work, but would prefer to skip the step where you lose all respect for them while they stall, procrastinate, and try to avoid all references to writing, books, and reading, I’ve put together some tips. These tips aren’t for you. They are for you to pass on to your loved one, to help them in the emotionally-fraught task of reading your work:
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Hi! So you are going to read your loved one’s writing? Take a nice, deep breath, relax your shoulders. It doesn’t have to be a horrible experience. Follow these steps and be prepared to dazzle your writer with your thoughtful, engaged feedback.

          1. Before you do ANY reading or writing, ask your writer, ‘What sort of response or feedback are you looking for?’ Sometimes, the first mistake we make is failing to ascertain that in reality, all that is wanted is a cheerleader who knows the basic outline of the writer’s work. On the other end of the spectrum, your writer might be looking for a line-edit of their work, going over every sentence as if preparing the manuscript for publication. You can’t give someone what they want if you don’t know what that is. And if you don’t feel comfortable digging into the depths of editing, make sure your writer accepts that this is beyond your comfort level. If this is something you can and want to do, excellent! This post is probably not written for you but please feel free to share it around with others who could use it. 

          2. If your writer just wants some support and cheerleading, read through their work, making notes or highlighting any turns of phrase, ideas, images—anything that strikes you as especially cool.  Once you’ve read through the entire piece like this, make a list of the things you’ve highlighted.  Bonus if you can say something about why you liked each thing. Example: “You really captured the way teenagers skulk around,” or, “I loved the way you kept going back to the image of the setting sun, because in a piece about growing old, that was a good metaphor.” 
     When you share your feedback with your writer, mentioning specific details that stood out to you as good will let them know that you took the time to think about their writing.

          3. If your writer wants a more ‘constructive criticism’ level of feedback, plan to go through the piece twice. The first time, you will do the same as in the above example, but also noting things that: a. confused you and b.caused you to lose interest or get distracted. Be a little bit careful not to criticize artistic choices (choices that you might not agree with because they aren’t to your taste but other than that, there isn’t anything wrong with them), as in, “I thought the story would be cooler if the villain had a gun instead of a whip,” but offer ways to strengthen the story: “Since the story is a classic detective noir, every time the villain pulled out their whip, I was distracted, wondering why they wouldn’t just use a gun.” The first example just swaps your aesthetic preference for theirs, while the second example isn’t aesthetic; it explains that the whip distracted you from staying grounded in the story. It allows the writer to weigh their artistic choice themself, deciding whether including the whip is worth the risk of distracting their readers.
     Once you’ve gone through the piece once, read it again, seeing if anything that confused or bugged you the first time makes more sense upon closer reading. Make any adjustments to your notes. 
​     Finally, make a list or write a brief letter, starting with the things you liked the most, putting the more critical comments in the middle, and finishing with a positive thought (the good old shit sandwich). If the positive thought feels tricky or cheesy, write something like, “Your approach to the noir detective novel is unique, and I’m looking forward to seeing where you take it,” or, “Writing about growing old is something that not everyone can do. Thank you for going to places that made me think.” Just put yourself in their shoes and end with praise and recognition for their hard work and for being brave enough to be vulnerable.
 
     And that’s it. That’s really all there is to it. I know that for both the writer and the writer’s loved one, this can be a vulnerable process, so here are a couple final thoughts:
 
     For the Writer: If you give someone your writing, also give them ample time to read it and to think about what they’d like to say about it. Don’t disrespect your own writing effort or your loved one’s time by shoving your writing at them expecting a fast turnaround.
 
     For the Loved One: If you’ve been given something to read, set yourself a deadline and tell your writer when you will have it back to them. Be realistic. Trying to be nice but then putting someone off only causes problems (See the first paragraph of this post). And be honest. If you truly don’t think you can give your writer feedback, tell them why. “I’m not comfortable being a critic. I’d rather be your cheerleader. Come to me whenever you feel like you need a reminder that you’re awesome,” is something that works, as long as you aren’t actually critiquing other writers. In that case, there is a different discussion to be had. Don’t like your writer’s work? What don’t you like about it? Not your genre? Do you cringe when you read all the grammatical mistakes? Do you just zone out because you hate homework and this feels like homework? Try to get past these things if you can, but if you can’t be honest.
 
     For Both of You: It takes guts to share your writing and it takes guts to critique someone’s writing. Neither should be taken for granted. It is said that by sharing adventurous experiences, dopamine is released in the brain, increasing feelings of happiness and love. By following these tips, you can improve your relationship—all without jumping out of a plane, shooting down rapids, or hiking up a steep mountain, although I would suggest springing for a good breakfast at your favorite place. And just think, the other patrons will see you, heads together over a manuscript, notes in hand and think you guys are the luckiest couple in the world.