On What We Can't See in Our Writing

We're wrapping up another round of Enhance Your Storytelling, and this time, we approached the material a little differently. Instead of starting with technique — here's how to build tension, here's how to plant a detail — we started as readers. Before learning to write these moments, writers spent time simply noticing them. What pulled them in. What created distance. What made a scene land.

That shift produced something I didn't fully expect.

As writers got better at identifying craft — at noticing how another writer builds tension, plants a detail, or shapes a reader's experience — something else became clear. Almost without exception, writers found it far easier to spot these things in someone else's work than in their own.

Why is that?

Proximity.

When you've written something — especially something close to you, like memoir — you've lived with it. You know the backstory, the years of context, the version of events you've turned over in your mind so many times it feels obvious. So obvious, in fact, that it's easy to forget the reader doesn't have any of that. You know what you meant. You can't always tell whether it's actually on the page.

The same thing happens in fiction. You're holding the whole story in your mind — what your character is feeling, what a moment means, where the story is headed. That can create two very different problems. Sometimes you assume you've conveyed more than you actually have, because it's so vivid to you that it feels obvious on the page too. Other times you do the opposite — you overexplain, layering in more than the reader needs, just to be sure it lands.

Either way, the issue isn't a lack of skill. It's proximity. You're too close to see the story the way a reader would.

This is where feedback becomes essential — not as a verdict, but as a window.

Receiving feedback lets you measure your story against your intentions. Did the moment land the way you hoped? Did the reader feel what you wanted them to feel, notice what you wanted them to notice? Often, the answer reveals a blind spot — something so familiar to you that you stopped seeing it, or something you assumed was clear that simply wasn't there yet.

But giving feedback matters just as much — maybe more than people expect.

When you read someone else's work and start naming what's happening — this detail is doing a lot of work, this line created distance, I leaned in right here — you're sharpening the same skill you need for your own writing. You're practicing the act of noticing. And the more you notice in other people's stories, the more those tools become available to you when you return to your own.

This is part of why the Write Things Community has worked so well. Each week, writers alternate between sharing their own work and responding to others'. Both halves matter. The writers who give thoughtful, specific feedback often find their own writing sharpens as a result — not because someone told them what to fix, but because the practice of reading closely becomes a habit they bring back to their own pages.

Of course, sometimes you want feedback and it's eleven at night. Your group doesn't meet until next week, and you have a scene in front of you right now.

That's why I created Trevor Assistant — an AI feedback tool built around the way I teach. It gives you feedback on your writing whenever you need it, helping you see what's landing and where the gaps might be. It also offers unit-specific feedback for anyone working through Enhance Your Storytelling, so you can practice what you're learning in real time.

Both Trevor Assistant and full access to Enhance Your Storytelling are included when you join the Write Things Community — alongside the private feedback group, coaching calls, and writing hours we've talked about.

And if you join now, your access begins now. You don't wait for the season to start. Your private feedback group begins in July, but everything else — the course, Trevor Assistant, the writing hours, the calls — is available to you immediately.

Join the Write Things Community → Click Here

Wishing you and your stories all the best,
Trevor Martens
Founder, I Help You Write Things

P.S. The offer still stands — join today, and if you participate fully in your private feedback group this season, your $800 comes back as credit toward more time in the community.