I have had several people email about the progress of my novel, The Seers: Dark Inheritance. Several agents have expressed interest, and I have had two manuscript requests, one of which was rejected. However, I have decided to put the query process on hold. Most of the rejections I have received have been based solely on my query letter and are usually generic form letters. However, as strange as it sounds, the rejection I recently received of my manuscript was the best rejection I could have gotten.
Being new at this and having never dealt with the publishing industry (other than my time as a reporter), I had some concerns with my story but no one to ask. All I knew was that friends, family and students who had read my ms said they enjoyed it. As a writer, I felt like it was ready, but it wasn’t. Everything I had worried about before–the length, the complicated plot line, the hook, and the beginning–were listed as criticisms in the rejection. I won’t deny that the rejection was painful, as I am sure they always are, but I have never been a quitter, and I have always tried to be open and receptive to criticism. The best part is that the agent complimented my writing skills and deemed that my story has merit. At least I know that I can write, so it’s not my skills that are lacking. I just need to tweak what I wrote (which is a huge understatement). Therefore, I plan to take the agent’s advice and make drastic revisions to my manuscript.
So far, I have developed a new outline, eliminated some of the plot line, trimmed the text, and brainstormed for a better hook. This weekend, I also wrote the rough draft of a new first chapter that takes the reader straight to the heart of the conflict, rather than droning on while it gradually builds. While I have a huge task ahead of me, I am determined to persevere. Luckily, I have an entire summer ahead of me to make the revisions, but I still have to wait a couple of weeks to get into the “nitty gritty” due to brain mush syndrome that every teacher experiences the last two weeks of school! But I am ever thankful for Bill Contardi’s useful assessments of my work and will work that much harder myself to achieve my dreams. So if my book reviews are a bit more sporadic in the next month or two, rest assured that I am working toward my goal of becoming a published author who will further encourage teens that reading is a valuable past-time.
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I clicked over here from Alyson Noel’s blog and found your update interesting. Considering that you’ve only had non-writers read what you’ve written (or so it sounds) you’ve gotten pretty far! Have you thought about finding critique partners, though? There are lots of ways to find them – meetings and conferences addressing your area of writing, writers’ forums, etc. I found two of mine through blogging; in both instances we became blog friends and eventually one of us mentioned to the other, “I have these chapters I’d like an opinion on. Want to trade work?” I found my third partner through the Will Write for Wine forums – again, we got along great online and it slowly moved toward trading critiques.
A sign that someone is probably not the right critique partner for you is if they find few if any changes. I know I once had a good friend of mine read some chapters that I knew were flawed, yet her critique was full of compliments. I knew it wasn’t a fair assessment so I thanked her and found someone else. Friends and relatives are often the least objective readers because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, and they often don’t know enough about craft to make informed suggestions.
Hope you don’t mind me mentioning all this – for all I know, you’ve already done this. I’d just hate to see someone not get published because they’re not having the right people read what they’ve written!