Watch out for over-editing.
I’ve read a couple of books that I thought were over-edited. One had the feel of something the publisher might have asked for 10,000 words cut out of to suit the usual less than 100,000 words. It had big gaps in the plot & character growth as if chunks of the story had been taken out. Another one had the blandness of something worked over with every rule in the book in mind. There was nothing ‘wrong’ with the writing if you looked at it technically, but it had no pizzazz. I remember feeling that perhaps it lost its individuality in the push for perfection. In our efforts to make our writing the best it can be, we run the risk of losing the rawness or freshness of our original vision. After years of working on something, it’s easy to lose that spark under a pile of prunings. I know,…
The Best Beta Readers are the Most Critical
When you ask someone to read your work, I suggest that you take the attitude that their criticisms will help you to make your book better. You should look forward to their criticism and understand that the harsher they seem, the better your book will be when you have fixed the problems. It’s better to have the criticism before it’s published than afterwards when it’s too late to fix it. This is why the best beta readers are the most critical and I always tell mine to be very critical and not to feel that they will hurt my feelings. Here are my suggestions for the kind of things you can ask them to look at. If you lose interest, please stop reading & I’ll send you a revised edition later. Tell me where I lost you. In general, does the story/plot work? Is there anywhere where it wanders or…
Wanna read a positive rejection – sob, sigh!
My agent just got the following response from Allen & Unwin I read the sample chapter over lunch. It’s clear that Tahlia has a good handle on action and pace, and I’m tempted to ask for the whole manuscript. But as we’ve got a number of similar titles in the pipeline, I think it’s best at this stage for me to decline, as I don’t feel confident, in such a crowded fantasy market, that we could successfully publish this novel in addition to the others. I’m sorry! I’m sure you will find a good home for it and wish you and Tahlia well. That’s the nicest rejection I’ve ever had. What do you think?
On dealing positively with feedback
Here’s the process I used to work positively with and apply my latest feedback.
What REALLY helps writers? Truth?
There is clearly a lot of support for writers within the writing community on the web, but if all we give each other is support, without real help, then not only are we not helping, we could also be hindering them as well. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be encouraging and supportive, no, no, no. These things are the very basis of our helping each other. What I’m saying is that support isn’t enough and that without real feedback on our work it could lead a writer to think that they are ready to publish when they’re not. I have been to blogsites where a writer has something up for you to look at. I read it and find flaws, but I don’t feel I can say so because all the other comments are glowing. I want to support the writer. I can see some good ideas there, but… in…