BY ELIZABETH GILLILAND
We creative types tend to be a bit temperamental when it comes to our work, and for good reason. We’ve put months, years, sweat, blood, tears, and endless buckets of caffeine and chocolate into our projects. They are, in short, our babies. Our beautiful, double-spaced, 12-point-font babies.
But lo and behold, sooner or later, some jerk editor/proofreader/critiquer is going to come along and give you the dreaded feedback. And no matter how much we as authors may say we want you to rip our work to shreds—however much we may know we need it to make our writing better—secretly, deep down inside we’re hoping to hear, “It’s perfect! Nothing needs to be changed! Not only are you the best writer of your time, but you are also a remarkable human being and . . . dare I say? . . . incredibly good-looking.”
. . . Or maybe that’s just me.
No matter how much we know we should want and need and crave critiques, we all still have that kneejerk reaction—the screw you! I’m a genius! You don’t understand my masterpiece! moment.
But after the steam hissing out our ears clears, we can usually acknowledge that, yes, there was a huge, gaping plot hole there with the space time continuum, and yes, I was perhaps wish-fulfilling a little too much with that character who looks exactly like me and falls in love with an Australian movie star named Grugh Schmackman, and no, I probably shouldn’t have spent an entire chapter describing his abs.
Some of these changes are no brainers. Some of these are problems we probably realized before we sent the manuscript out but were sort of hoping that no one else would notice, blinded as they were by our sparkling, witty prose.
Occasionally, however, you may receive a critique that completely comes out of left field. That churns your stomach even after you’ve allowed it ample time to digest. That may change the original vision you had for your story. That may, in fact, turn your baby completely upside-down on its head.
Poor baby. 🙁
The nice part of having an editor/proofreader/critiquer go over your work is that they’re outside of the story, with a clear, un-emotional view of things, and sometimes from that distance, they’re better able to make judgment calls. Thus, there are times when these critiques can send you into an entirely new direction and give you a better story than what you started out with.
For instance, I’ve recently been working on a book that was my shiny, pretty baby, complete with a hefty subplot that took up approximately 30% of the page count. I sent it off to critique partners who suggested I trim back the subplot and focus more on the main character. I did, a little, but thought that subplot was important enough to keep it in, maybe taking up only 25% now. I sent it off to my agent, and she suggested I trim back on the subplot even more. It got down to about 15%, which I thought was good enough, but no such luck. She wanted more. More! More! She was Edward Scissorhands-ing my beautiful baby.
I admit, there was a moment of panic. This subplot (although sub by name and therefore, in theory, less important) was the reason I’d started writing the novel in the first place. Cutting it back meant taking out some of my favorite moments, and I honestly didn’t know how to fill the void that would be left without it in my book.
But, trusting my agent as the superhero that she is, I went ahead with the revisions and took the subplot down to probably about 5%. And you know what? She was right. Not only is the book way more focused, but I learned about 1000 times more about my main character because I no longer had the cushion of that 30% to hide behind. It was a hard critique, but one that ultimately made the story much, much better.
HOWEVER—and I probably shouldn’t be admitting this as an editor—but we don’t always know everything. Yes, we are on the outside looking in and that can sometimes make us less biased, but no matter how much we love and champion your book, we are also outsiders. Voyeurs peering in through your window—albeit, invited voyeurs, which makes it only slightly less creepy. All of which means sometimes, we give advice that might be fine in theory but just doesn’t work in practice for your book.
At the moment, I’m working with a very talented author on her soon to be published book. A change was suggested early on in the process that wasn’t a bad idea, per say, but that she realized as she began trying to implement it that it just didn’t work. That it was making her baby less of her baby and more of Frankenstein’s monster. And she made the courageous decision to step up and say, Hey, that isn’t working for me. We have to figure out a different way.
So I guess if you take any advice away from this highly contradictory blog post, it would be that sometimes you have to change your baby. Sometimes that will require severe, heavy alterations that require a lot of work. Major reconstructive surgery, if you will.
But at the same time, trust yourself and your instincts. Think through all the possibilities, even give it a good old college try if you’re not sure if something will work . . . and if it doesn’t, you don’t have to do it. You DO NOT have to do it.
But don’t be afraid of changing because you’re afraid of the effort or because you’re so set in your ways that you refuse to give your writing the opportunity to be better. Because that would be a shame for everyone involved.
And when in doubt, chocolate is always a great sounding board. 🙂 Happy writing!
Editor, ghost writer, and story coach Elizabeth Gilliland writes and edits from her home in Utah. Her latest project, Conjectrix, the sequel to Vivatera by Candace J. Thomas, was released in the April 2014. Her next project, Accidental Apprentice by Anika Arrington, is slated for release in the fall of 2014.
Elizabeth’s short story “Mouse and Cat” appeared in A Dash of Madness: a Thriller Anthology publishined in July 2013.