Perfect Clarity

By Keith Fisher



In my day job, or the job I do when I’m not writing, I’m a Digital Preservation Specialist. It’s a glorified way of saying I digitize old records. Anyway, most of the time, I operate a machine that scans microfilm. It captures each frame at 200 images per minute. If my parameters aren’t set right in the beginning, there are many problems that can arise. For instance, if you don’t take time to set the focus, clarity on the whole roll can suffer.

There are times when I find a photographer’s camera has drifted off and the focus goes out of whack in the middle of the roll, but generally if I get the focus right, before I start scanning, the rest of the roll will be clear.



Writing is like that. If I establish my characters, and set up the scenes in the beginning, I can sit back and let my characters tell the story. As a reader, I hate to get halfway into a book and find the characters doing something they just wouldn’t do.


But the big problem I have in my writing, is when I make assumptions that the reader has a working knowledge of situations my characters are involved in. For example, I have a character in one of my books who plays pool for money. The first time I took it to critique group, I had to explain some of the finer points of playing pool. The Ladies in my group needed to have it explained, so I had to rewrite it, and that brought clarity to my story.


I’ve also noticed, as LDS fiction writers, we make many references in our books that only LDS people understand. It’s true we are writing for the LDS market, but I think we can benefit from taking the time to analyze our writing form other’s point of view. That, if you haven’t already realized, is one of the greatest advantages to belonging to a critique group.


My critique group helps me with their experience. I can bounce ideas off them, each member has different expertise. With their help, I can set my parameters, and write my book to the ending. Like the film rolls I scan, everything will have perfect clarity.



Good luck with your writing—see you next week.

Learning how to write

By Keith Fisher

Are you part of a critique group? Several months ago I wrote about my dreams for a group that would meet once a week and help each other write correctly. After the LDStorymakers conference, I became part of one that exceeds my dreams. It’s great to get together with other writers who understand, but I discovered an added benefit I hadn’t planned on.

We patterned our group after the example we saw at the conference. The group that J. Scott Savage affectionately calls “The Ladies of Wednesday Night”. When we meet, we bring a copy of what we’re working on for each member. We mark each other’s manuscripts as the author reads it, then we discuss why we marked it.

I was editing today and discovered several places that needed changing. I knew this because members of my group have drilled it into my head. I went ahead and made the changes in my manuscript. Then I began to pore over the marked suggestions from the group, and found I had already changed most of the mistakes.

It’s obvious my group is helping me. I hear their voices when I’m writing, and I fix the bad sentence before it appears on my blog. I’m learning how to write, but more importantly, I have a group of friends who care about each other. When one of us is going through a problem, everyone is there to help.

Have you found a group yet? In our group, we have two published authors who lend experience. We have a beginner, but you’d never know it because of talent. Two of us are on the verge of greatness, and then there is me. In honor of President Hinckley and his ‘B’s, I listed a few of my own below.

Be humble—accept the fact you might be wrong. Be helpful—make helpful suggestions. Be open-minded—not everyone writes the way you do. Be quiet—don’t try to re-write their book the way you would write it. Be yourself—remember you are the only one who decides how your book is written. If you don’t agree with a suggestion, you don’t have to follow it. However, keep the first ‘B’ in mind.

Good luck in your writing—see you next week