Like the proverbial lightning strike, you get THE idea, the one that will fix the story/script/play. It's a triviality, really, but it repairs this little problem or that little issue in your writing and it's something that will carry through the entire thing.
The next morning you mention it to a friend - one of those honest friends who doesn't mix metaphors or sugar coat anything - feeling a little uncertain of the brilliant strike from the previous night.
"Really?" your friend states, looking a tad skeptical. "[Blank.] That's your idea?"
"Yes. Don't you like it?"
"It's fine."
It's okay if you think it's a bad idea, but when someone else agrees with you... "Well, don't you think it fixes the problem?"
"I suppose."
"It's like [insert name of novel here], where [character] [does something wonderfully witty] and it just adds that other little something to carry through the manuscript."
"Like subtext?"
"Okay, like subtext."
"Nah, won't fix it."
Writers have to have rhinoceros skin. We want the truth and we have to learn how to accept it, even when we don't exactly agree with it. We respect that someone else has an opinion, even an educated opinion, and we can learn to look at it objectively. We take from it the possibility that we are wrong, that they see something we couldn't, that their insight is bona fide.
We then turn it in our hands as if it's a strange little antique gadget we haven't quite figured out how to open and we study it, look for the seams, see if there's a crack, look for a hinge that may swing in another direction.
That's what we must learn as writers. We must not only accept a non-biased critique from another, but we must learn how to critique honestly, unbiased and professionally for other writers. We must do it in a fashion that disregards whether we like the genre or not and look at the writing itself as it exists within its parameters. We must disregard personal likes and dislikes in favor of objectivity.
How did my friend's opinion fare? Well, it's made me think on it for quite some time and I am not yet decided whether my lightning strike was all show, just bloody painful, had true electricity, was CGI, or has something worthwhile keeping. I have decided that whether I keep it or not, the concept behind it was the value. My story needed something else, and that is something I will need to craft.
