First readers

   

Yesterday I finally finished* the first draft of my novel and printed it out, planning to sit down, pencil in hand, and mark it up.... and I now find myself reluctant to read it. But that's another topic. (Any insights into it welcome, though.)

When I do read it, I'll answer the questions I'd like someone else to answer, subjectively and honestly:

• Where did you want more?
• Where did you want less?
• What did you really like?
• What DIDN'T you like?
• What made you laugh? cry?
• What confused you?
• Bored you?
• What did I explain that I didn't NEED to explain?
• Did you want more background information/backstory?

Those last two questions maybe only other people CAN answer....I really struggle a lot with them always.

These next questions I wouldn't ask anyone else, but I will also be reading for where I could:

• make the writing better, sharper, more vivid

• increase the intensity and drama of scenes (or eliminate them all together!)

• speak more in my own voice -- I really like it when OTHER writers do this, and find myself sometimes not doing it enough

• shift (or not shift) the POV...I tend to go inside the main character's head too much --often, it's more interesting to the reader -- at least, this reader, and after all, I have to love this before anyone else can! -- to stay OUTSIDE

 

I'll scribble the answers in the margin quickly, without pausing to think. Thinking can come later! These first reactions are most valuable when they come from the gut.

When MY eyes start to skip over something, I will cross it out.

What do YOU want your first readers to tell you? I say it in the plural because one of the many things that surprised me at the end of the book VERITY was how many first readers she had.

 ____________________
*I thought it was finished, but there were lots of little things that I wanted to add -- I was surprised by how many and by how quickly I wrote them. I guess it was easier than usual because they'd been niggling at me for awhile.

Questions about the editing process

     



As an author who submits to editors and a professional editor myself, I have questions for people on both sides of the editing process.

My first question is mainly  for editors but thoughts from others aare more than welcome: what do you do when you write an editorial letter and the author argues and refuses to make the changes?

Not that editors are always right, and I don't claim to be!

Authors: what do you do when an editor makes a suggestion that is just plain wrong? And what happens? How do you work it out?

And what do you do when an editor, instead of suggesting, just goes ahead and writes new material? (This happened to me recently with a publisher when *I* was the author and I will leave how furious and frustrated I was to your imaginations.)

When is it time to give up on a ms.?

An agent told me recently that when she looks over her list, the mss. that ended up selling the best are the ones that took longest to place. What's the most number of times you or your agent have sent something out before it sold or you gave up on it?I love those stories of mss. that got rejected over and over, and then went on to become famous books -- here's a list of 14 books that became famous that were rejected over and over by publishers. Some I'd heard of, some I hadn't.....but I find it encouraging, especially the comments that must have seemed idiotic to the authors, like:
"Does anyone drown? [to the author of KON TIKI] Then it can't be very interesting."

But sometimes when a ms. doesn't sell, maybe it SHOULDN'T. Dear Genius has lots of stories about mss. that didn't quite work -- by people who then went on to write other things that worked brilliantly. For example:
"....I don't mean to sound cross, but I felt so hopeful when you left my place last weekend, and was a little depressed by the ms. when I read it (several times) this week...I wish I could be more constructive but until you do more on this it is pretty hard for me to be. I will say this: I think your first "chapter" can't be called "The Tiger," and you can't just say in two lines that this Frances was in bed and she couldn't sleep...."

Yes, it was the first Frances book -- published many rewrites later as Bedtime for Frances.

There is really no way for an author to know how it will turn out or which (worth working on or not) is true of a particular ms....what I have concluded about my own work is that it just depends on how interested I am in the story and TIME usually clarifies that. If, years after I first wrote something, I reread it, see the flaws, and want to fix them, I do. If I read it over, and think: "This is really GOOD! Someone ought to take it!" I keep sending it out, but with a different pitch. And if I read it over and wince, I file it or throw it away, thankful that it was never published.

And on an unrelated note: if anyone read the blog earlier today and saw the post about the "1 weird old tip" -- I was going to develop that into a real post by adding something about curiosity and fiction, but forgot that I had set it up so Blogger would publish it automatically. Sorry about that.

I think that post is a good example of something that wasn't worth working on further!

Interpreting editorial letters

As an author, I get editorial letters; as an editor, I write them.
How do you handle them when you're the author? How do you want the author to handle them if you're the editor?

As the author, I usually ask for clarification if I don't understand something. If an editor suggests a change, I feel that I have to do something -- that I can't just leave whatever it was as it is. But even if the editor has made a suggestion, I usually feel that I can solve the problem my own way. If I really like the editor's solution, I'll use it; if I don't, I'll think of my own. I always do something.

But I've heard of authors who just leave things as they are!

As an editor, do you think the author has to fix what you've commented on, or is that optional? And what about how the author fixes it? Are you annoyed if she doesn't do what you suggest, but solves the problem her own way? And what would you do if an author (this happens to me as an editor sometimes) interpreted everything you said as praise and didn't want to change anything?

Not to be sexist, but this does happen to me more with male authors: I'll send a letter saying what I liked, and then suggesting changes, and the author responds,

"Oh, you liked it! Great!"

When I'm the editor, I'm in a different situation from most people reading these pages, I think -- I'm being paid by the author to get the ms. into publishable condition. So what I do in that case ("that case" being when I've sent a long letter and the author responds only to the praise) is get blunter -- painfully blunt, sometimes.

So you'd think I'd be good at reading editorial letters, but not always! When I'm the author, letters from an editor I don't know can be really hard to interpret, and I've gotten it wrong more than once. So, anything anyone has to say would be helpful....

Lastly, I'm talking here about books that are under contract. Alvina's post (was it called Rejection Letters 101) on submissions was hugely helpful. It's easy to misinterpret those letters, too.

The comments from hell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COCmaZA3d08&feature=player_embedded

I couldn't help comparing this set of "notes" on a ms. with Alvina's careful,thoughtful approach!

I've received comments that weren't helpful (not from you, Alvina) but never anything like this.