Why We Shouldn't Ignore Our Weaknesses

I love dance, but I am not a good dancer.

I do all the moves pictured on the left every night in my basement. Seriously.

In elementary school, I enrolled in every week-long summer dance camp I could, the ones taught by high  school students in gymnasiums that claimed to be combination of hip-hop, jazz, modern, and contemporary, all at the same time. The first age appropriate song I performed to was "Waiting for Tonight" by Jennifer Lopez, and a couple years later, I made my debut as a co-choreographer with a piece to "Space Cowboys" by N*SYNC. I did not gain any technique from these experiences, but they were fun, and a huge part of why I decided to look for a studio.

The first studio I joined is one of the most respected ones in my city, and I joined a hip-hop class like any suburban girl would. And I loved it. The class was small, my teacher was awesome, it was fun, and I was half decent at it. Problem was, the class was so small that the studio had to cancel it, though they encouraged me to sign up for the intermediate class when the next term started. So, I signed up.

I was so intimidated during the first intermediate class that it became my last. My classmates were real dancers, who were older, taller, skinner; who dressed like dancers and wore their hair in ponytails; who picked up choreography like that; who could perform moves I only saw in So You Think You Can Dance.

I wasn't an intermediate dancer, so I quit. My friend, who actually is a wonderful dancer, was part of a different studio, and from her recitals and competitions, I knew their choreography was easier than what I'd tried to do. I joined their hip-hop/jazz class, and took it for two years. The class was really a jazz class--with the occasional booty shake--yet I learned little technique beyond pointing my toes. But, that was what I signed up for, and though it always took me awhile to pick up choreography, hitting the moves was rarely the problem.

When I watched the DVD of my performance back, I realized why I didn't struggle with the steps in class. Unless we were doing a move that required the use of our arm, we were told to put our hands behind our back, because we'd look messy if we didn't. The problem with that is there were moves where we needed to use our arms, and mine looked more like spaghetti than anything else. They were weak, flimsy, awkward, and everything else a dancer shouldn't be. In class, we never worked on strengthening our arms, because they were hidden most of the time, anyway.

You can't put your hands behind your back when you write.

My weakness as dancer was my arms, and one of my weaknesses as a writer (definitely not my only, and the easiest one to fit into this analogy) is setting. When my hands were behind my back, that didn't matter. When setting isn't important to a scene, it doesn't matter.

But, when I had to use my hands? My weakness showed, and it was so obvious that it ruined my entire performance. When I get to a point where I have to mention setting? Well, in revisions for my current project, I realized my paraplegic character left the hospital much sooner than he should have, which of course affected the time-line of the entire novel.

It's easy to ignore our weaknesses, to put our hands behind our back and hope no one notices. But, if there's one element of writing we should focus on (especially in revisions), it should be the one we least want to confront, the one we're worst at.

It's important we stay in the intermediate class, even when we're intimidated by it, because we won't grow as writers if we stay in a class where we're comfortable, and our flaws are hidden behind our backs.

What are your weaknesses as a writer? Are you working on them? How so?