First off, I’d like to announce that I submitted my manuscript! Woohoo! I’m not scheduled to start panicking about it for a few weeks, so in the meantime I can try to accomplish something else—like shoveling out my wreck of a bedroom. My six-year-old daughter gets scared at night sometimes and will come lie down on a blanket on the floor next to my bed. The other night she came in, but was still scared—thought it looked like there were scary things in my room. I can’t blame her. The place was rather a house of horrors, especially if you have a junk phobia. But I worked in there for a while yesterday, and in some spots, I actually—are you ready for this?—found the floor.
Anyway, onward to today’s blog topic. I got a message the other day from a daughter of a friend. She’s finished the first draft of a book and is seeking advice on editing and publication. I thought, hey, this would make a great blog topic! Then yesterday, I was reading Julie Wright’s post on the Writing on the Wall blog and found that Julie was discussing that EXACT topic. Whoa. I now feel this cosmic connection with the universe—the same connection that ensures that, if my husband has Mexican food for lunch, I will, on that very day, make Mexican food for dinner.
So here’s my advice for aspiring authors: go to the Writing on the Wall blog and read Julie’s post, where she quotes advice from author Phyllis Towzey. Then come back here and I’ll add a few thoughts of my own.
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Okay. Now that you’re back, here are a couple of other things to consider. In addition to seeking outside feedback, make sure you’re thoroughly educating yourself on fiction technique so you can evaluate your own work. Back when I first started writing, I don’t remember thinking about fiction technique. I’d always loved reading novels, so I could write one . . . right? It wasn’t until I had a partial manuscript that was going off in too many different directions that I picked up my first fiction technique book and started to realize how much technique goes in to writing a novel. Anyone who has heard me teach is probably bored that I keep beating the same drum, but I feel I owe so much to writing guru Jack Bickham, so I’ll say it again here—his The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them) is priceless. Same for his Scene and Structure. And there are countless other books out there on fiction technique.
I’ll now echo both Julie Wright and Phyllis Towzey in emphasizing that outside feedback is VITAL. Different authors seek it at different points in their work—some work with critique groups and get feedback along the way. Others wait until a manuscript is complete and send it out to test readers; some do both. You find what works for you, but it’s vital that someone besides YOU has given you feedback on your manuscript before you submit it. No matter how careful of a writer you are, you’ll miss things, or things will come across differently than you intended. You need outside eyeballs to take a look at your work. Your test readers don’t have to be other writers—just readers willing to be honest with you. And I recommend seeking test readers who enjoy the kind of book you write. If you give your sci fi novel to someone who only reads romance, or vice versa, he/she might have a hard time telling you what is or isn’t working in the book. In this blog post I listed the questions I sent out to my test readers with my last manuscript. Some of them apply more to mystery/suspense fiction than other genres, but it will give you an idea of questions you can ask test readers to help them spot what is/is not working in your book.
Revision is vital to producing a polished manuscript. Be willing to look at your work over and over and fix what isn’t working and improve what could be better. Don’t be afraid to cut things out if they aren’t benefiting the overall novel. For instance, you might have a wonderfully well-written scene, but it’s redundant and slows the pacing—don’t be afraid to delete it. If you can’t stand deleting big chunks of your work, cut and past them into a “rejects” file. That way, the words are still there if you decide you want them.
If your novel is aimed at the LDS market, then you don’t need a literary agent to sell it for you. The LDS market is too small for agents, and authors deal directly with publishers. Here is a list of LDS publishers provided by LDS Storymakers. Make sure to research publishers before submitting. Detemine which publishers would be the best fit for your book. Look up the publishers’ websites. What books are they publishing? How many books? What is their distribution like—i.e., do you see their books for sale in the major LDS bookstore chains (Deseret Book and Seagull Book)? If you live near an LDS bookstore, go look at books similar to yours and see who published them. If you don’t live near an LDS bookstore, you can find publisher information listed with books on Amazon.com. When you’ve determined where you want to submit your book, make sure you follow the submission guidelines (available on publishers’ websites). And brace yourself for rejection—rejection is, unfortunately, a normal and expected part of being a writer. Persistence is vital for success. Even if your book is marvelous, it might not be what that publisher is looking for, so try submitting it somewhere else. And try again. And try again. If you get feedback from publishers (which means they REALLY paid attention to your book--most rejections are just form letters), think about it hard and see if you can use it to improve your book. Don't give up!
And have fun!
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