Terry here, with this week’s question: Tell us, the best edit or manuscript advice you received, and the worst?
First let’s talk about editing. People either love it or hate. I happen to like it better than writing first draft. At least you have something to work with. And it always needs work.
I know people who edit their own work, and I admire them. But I have to have other people take a look at what I consider my final product. Even though I know it isn’t “final,” it means I’ve done everything I can by myself and I need an outside eye. If you give your story to beta readers or a writer’s group, advice abounds on what to do with your precious manuscript. Some of it is useful, some not so much.
Here are some of the “nudges” I’ve received—all on the same manuscript.
You need more backstory.
You need less backstory.
The backstory needs to be woven into the book more.
You should tell more of the backstory up front.
I don’t like the main character, but I like the plot (this from an acquiring editor that turned it down).
I love the main character but I don’t like the plot (this from a different acquiring editor that turned it down).
Here are some other pieces of advice I’ve received, not necessarily all on the same book, thank goodness:
You need to start the story later.
Cut the first six chapters.
You need one more twist.
Write one more final chapter.
Too many characters introduced too quickly.
Choose your details more wisely.
And then there are the specific “notes” that gently tell you that something in your plot makes no sense because (you name it). And it's always true.
After I have work critiqued, I have to let the advice sit for a few days. That’s because I’ve found that my first response is often skewed by my bias in favor of what I’ve written. How can I possibly cut my golden words? What I wanted to hear was how wonderful the piece was, not what’s wrong with it. But trust me, no matter how wonderful it is, there’s always something wrong with it.
When I’ve let a critique mellow, the trick is to sift through the advice for the following:
1) Does the suggestion serve the story I want to tell—in other words, does it ring true to me?
2) Is the advice coming from someone I trust? This is equally important to number one. I belong to two writers groups. I’ve learned to trust particular advice from particular members. One member always focuses on descriptions. Another, character development. One is a non-fiction writer who has an uncanny ability to zero in on exactly what is not quite working—anything from a scene that doesn’t quite get to the point, to a character who doesn’t belong. Another seems to have an unerring sense of the intricacies of plot. I’ve learned to listen to them.
3) I’ve learned to pay special attention to any critical comment that I immediately reject. Why? Because my knee-jerk response often means I knew there was something wrong and I didn’t want to face it. And/or I know fixing it is going to require rethinking, and maybe a lot of rewriting.
With all that in mind, I’ll answer the original question.
Oddly, there are no “worst” pieces of advice I can cite. That doesn’t mean I haven’t rejected some advice, but I always knew it was given with the best of intentions, so I didn’t think it was “bad,” just not useful for me. However, there is one humorous bit of editing I’ve received that I’ll relate. My publisher is in England, and all my manuscripts have “Texas” phrases in them. Invariably the editor will change something from “Texan” talk to “British” talk. I have to remind them that I’m writing Texas characters and the way they speak is not the way the English speak. My favorite example in my last manuscript was when a character asked another one, “Do you want to come to my place?” The editor changed it to “Do you want to come to mine?” Nope. That’s British terminology.
As for best advice, there are a few gems I’ve gotten over the years that have stuck with me:
One doesn’t happen so much anymore, but it was vital for me to learn as a new writer: If one reader loves the character and but doesn’t like the plot and another likes the plot but not the character, there is something basically wrong with the manuscript—usually that the action doesn’t derive from the what a character wants or needs. Character and plot are inextricably intertwined. Character moves plot…and whatever happens in the story has to move the character.
Another was advice I got from my former agent, Janet Reid. It has become a vital part of my process. On each book I wrote, she said, “You’re not done.” She meant that the book needed one more twist, or a chapter that brought everything to a close. The first time I heard it from her, I stormed around grumbling for two days. “She’s wrong! The manuscript is great the way it is. It is done ….” And then, “Oh, wait.” Every, single, time, the book became better for that advice. It meant stretching my imagination. It meant really thinking about what I wanted the book to be. Janet is no longer with us, but her advice lives on.
When I was at Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference, I had a chat with an editor who talked to me about “a sense of place.” She didn’t mean only the description of where a scene was taking place, but how the character fit into that scene. What was the character experiencing in that particular place. What did it mean to him or her? Was it uncomfortable for some reason? Comforting? Baffling? The point was that the devil is in the details—the particular details that are important to that particular character. If you want an example of that, ask any three people the first thing they noticed when they walked into a room. People notice very different things. One person may notice that the room was cold, another that there was a familiar face, another that there was a painting they admired. My series protagonist, Samuel Craddock, has an art collection. It stands to reason that when he enters a home for the first time, one of the first things he notices is the kinds of art they have on the walls—if they have any. You have to know your character enough to be able to tell the reader something about them simply by the way they react to their surroundings.
I mentioned my writer’s groups earlier, and recently one specific piece of advice I got completely changed the trajectory of a book I’d been working on for years. I had struggled with not feeling like I had a good handle on my main character. Several readers said they didn’t like her. The woman in my writer’s group asked, “What do you respect about your main character?” It was like someone hit me over the head. I thought about it for a while, and thought, “Nothing. And that has to change.” It didn’t require a huge amount of rewriting, but it did require subtle shifts that worked.
Edits can be really valuable. You have to learn to separate the ones you want from the ones you need. Is there bad advice? Probably. But I what I remember is the best advice.
