Writing Update: Getting Feedback
While writing is primarily a solitary endeavor, preparing work for publication is not.
I’ve written (literally) millions of words in the past 3 years, and the result is 6 completed manuscripts, a short stories collection, and a poetry collection, all in various stages of revision. There are several partially drafted novels on my hard drive as well. But it isn’t the writing itself that’s making me better. Certainly, practice does improve our craft as writers, but the largest leaps in my skill and confidence have come from the feedback I’ve received from others.
I can’t even tell you how many craft books I’ve read, or how many hours of writing/editing/publishing content I’ve consumed. I subscribe to nearly a dozen writing podcasts and never miss an episode. I have attended classes and webinars. I’ve joined local and online writing groups. And, as I mentioned above, I’ve written a lot. But I honestly do not believe anything has helped me grow more than receiving feedback from other writers, editors, and readers.
When we’re so close to our own projects for so long, it becomes difficult (if not impossible) to see the shortcomings, flaws, and inconsistencies. Nobody writes a perfect first draft. Most third and fourth drafts aren’t ready for publication. We all have little quirks and areas of weakness in our ability or execution, and the sooner we can recognize that, the sooner we can improve! I’ll be doing an entire post dedicated to why feedback is essential, but that’s not the purpose of this post. This one is about where I’m specifically at with things.
I’m at an impasse.
I’ve been querying WSD since February of this year, and it’s now September. I know this process is a long one for most people (I’m talking, years), and most people don’t land an agent on their first manuscript. Many writers query far more agents than I have, and they may never receive the amount of positive feedback from agents that I’ve gotten. So while I obviously would have loved a fairy tale querying story where I got multiple offers within my first month, I went in knowing full well that was highly unlikely, and I’m beyond grateful for the successes I’ve had so far. It’s no small thing to get 7 full requests and an R&R on my first manuscript with less than 50 queries sent out.
I still have 2 fulls out (one of those is the R&R) and 3 queries awaiting response. I haven’t sent any new ones since July. It’s still possible one of these agents will offer, but I’m trying to decide what I want to do if they don’t.
The way I see it is, I have a few options:
Research more agents and keep querying this manuscript as-is.
Revise my book again and hold off on querying until I make more changes. If I did that, I’d have to consider what kind of feedback I want to seek. I could…
Send my manuscript to an editor for a developmental edit.
Send my manuscript for a professional manuscript critique.
Find more beta readers; I probably wouldn’t do this one since I’ve already had several beta readers provide feedback. I think it’s time for a professional to look it over if I’m going to do any more revisions on this project.
Put WSD away for now and focus on querying another manuscript altogether.
I do have another project fully drafted and pretty much ready to query. I’m doing a round of revisions on book 1 of TMC right now and am about half way finished, but none of what I’m doing is structural. However, it’s the very first novel I finished, and my writing has greatly improved since then, so it’s a lot of line-level edits for clarity, concision, and consistency. Also, polishing up my prose so it reflects my current ability and voice a bit more. I made a lot of revisions after my developmental edit back in the day, and I actually did send this one out to a professional freelance editor for line/copy edits back then, so it won’t take much to get it query-ready.
The problem is, I shelved it because I think it’ll be harder to pitch as a debut author. It’s the first book in an intended series, and although I’ve written it to be able to stand alone, I deeply (deeply) envision it as a series. Plus, it’s science fantasy dystopian, which puts it into a niche genre spot that tends to have less agents even willing to give it a chance. My decision to not query this manuscript as my debut novel was a strategic one, and all those reasons still stand. It’ll be a hard sell. But I genuinely believe in it, and believe it will be published one day, so why not now?
I obviously haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. I love both stories, and would be thrilled to have either of them as my debut. For now, I’m going to finish this revision on TMC book 1 and wait to hear back on the queries and fulls I have out on WSD. Once the revisions are done, I’ll have to decide if I’m going to keep querying WSD, or switch gears and give TMC book 1 a chance in the query trenches.
While I’m finishing those revisions, I do have the first 50 pages of TMC book 1 out to an editor for critique. I’m hoping that feedback will give me at least a little more insight into the right direction for me to take at this time. This same editor did a critique of WSD’s first 10 pages, and her feedback was invaluable. I can see some areas where I’m still able to improve, and some changes I can make to strengthen things if I decide to stick with WSD. I’m hoping for similar with this 50-page critique of TMC book 1. Maybe once I have that back later in September, the path forward will be clearer.
Either way, I’m grateful for the feedback I’m receiving on my work, and that it’s highlighting areas where I can make improvements and continue growing. I appreciate the comments and notes about my strengths as well, of course. It’s just that I’m always wanting to learn and grow, and these external insights have helped more than just about anything else. Here’s to hoping I know exactly what I want to do by the end of this month!
Wish me luck!
