The Curse of Over Editing
Over the past year I’ve been working on a fallen angel trilogy. Like most of you, I’ve submitted to contests and critique partners and made significant changes based on feedback. Since I’m a relatively new writer, distinguishing between differing opinions became difficult. Sometimes I’d receive a perfect score and an extremely low score in the same contest. Confused but determined, I continued with edits.
Finally, I felt ready to submit and pitched to Mary Louise Schwartz from The Belfrey Literary Agency at RWA national conference. She requested a full and when I returned home I immediately got to work running over the manuscript one more time. This was it. I had revised those opening chapters over thirty times. They had to be perfect, right?
I packaged and sent the full manuscript. Not even four days passed before she called me. She stated my story was fantastic, one of the best she read this year, but she hated my first three chapters.
What? No, it can’t be the polished, perfect chapters! She stated she could sell the second half of my book, but I’d have to rewrite the first few chapters. She thought I had completely lost my voice and it felt like five different people wrote them.
After a week of struggling I made the edits and eventually signed with her. When I attended a local chapter meeting many writers asked me the same question. Why would she keep reading if she didn’t like the opening chapters? I asked Mary Louise and this was her response;
“The story plot was really good and while the first few chapters didn't work I could see real potential in your writing and wanted to read a bit more and then surprise it opened up and like a different person writing it was so good. Sometimes beginnings are difficult for newbies and overworked.”
By the way, when I edited the first three chapters and resubmitted to her, they were the original chapters before all the rewrites.
I believe that contests and critique partners are valuable tools in the writing journey. But in my case, I didn’t stick to my original voice and my manuscript was hurt by that.
How have contests and critique partners helped or hurt you on the writing journey? Have you found a method that works for you when reviewing critiques? If so, what is it?
6 comments:
Tamera,
Okay, I'm jealous...FOUR days? Your book must be great. Here's to a quick sale.
When I was developing my pitch for nationals, I attended two in person pitch sessions, ran it by my two writer BFF's (WBFF's)and through my on line writers group focusing on the golden heart.
After the last session - two weeks before conference, I was back to square one. I had all the parts, but NO clue on how to put it all together. And I had too many voices in my head.
I cut those to two. My mentor and another published author who said I had a great hook. With those two voices, I put together cards read the pitch to my beta reader who made some suggestions and I was DONE.
I can't let too many voices in my head. They compete with my imaginary ones... (grin.)
I had a similar experience to you, Tamara. And since taking the Book Factory class, I've decided that I'm going to just have one or two critique partners whose writing I really respect, and trying to trust my own voice.
I used to, as I shared on Lynn's post, edit non-stop, and never feel finished. But I was editing my voice away, and editing all the uniqueness out of my writing. Not a good idea, I've realized.
I'm going to write about my own journey on Sunday, after reading both yours and Lynn's.
I made an executive decision last month that I'm not going to take any advice from a contest judge unless I've heard it in another place as well. I want to make every attempt to preserve my voice.
okay, this was great advice. We strive to perfect our writing, but you are right ... it's so easy to lose our voice due to all the feedback.
I'm with Rebecca on the critique partners too. We have to learn to trust ourselves even though we are newbies.
Lynn, I'll be honest I got lucky. I went through a lot putting my pitch together but I think it was something she was looking for. Right place ... right time.
Rebecca, I look forward to reading your post tomorrow. I probably won't be able to reply until Monday since I'll read it from my cell. I'll be traveling and unable to access internet from my computer.
Steena, I'm so glad you found the post helpful. I do want to comment that I am not anti-contests. But I'm happy I don't have to enter them anymore. *grin* I just need to interpret contest comments better and to know when to say "no."
Tammie
Tamera, I've heard other people say the same thing. And I'm sure it happened with me on my first manuscript! I'll have to go back and look it over.
A few contest judges, and I'm sure I'm guilty, have a tendency to think they 'know' better. We really need to learn to trust ourselves.
Tamara--I'm so excited for you on this journey. And thanks for posting your story about the agent. I think there is a place for listening to what other people have to say, but like you stated, you have to learn when to say "this is me. This is my voice."
Critiques and critique partners are a great way of brainstorming parts of your stories. Sometimes somebody will mention that idea that really clicks with what you are trying to do.
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