All the mistakes I made getting a book published – a series. Part 1: the manuscript
The Manuscript
So, I wrote a novel. I’d written novels before, none of them quite hitting right. This one felt different, it felt like a pacier, more interesting beast. I think I finished the first draft within three months and by that time I was convinced – I wanted to be a Published Author. I wanted to see my book on a shelf, I wanted warm wine at a book launch and the chance to perfect a really good author’s signature signing books whilst drinking that wine and wearing my best boots. I wanted it NOW.
My mistake: I sent my book out to agents far too early.
Honestly, I cringe at this. Those first agents, they were right to reject my submission. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? If you’ve done the miraculous, if you’ve actually finished a novel and it has a beginning a middle and end, then this first flush of enthusiasm drowns out caution. I wasn’t getting any younger – I needed to get on with this publishing lark. There was no time to waste.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Here is what you should do instead.
Great. You’ve finished the book. Not everyone does this, some continue to fiddle with their story for far too long, afraid to stamp ‘The End’ on it and work out what happens next. You are not those people. You have a manuscript. Well done. Now put it in a drawer and leave it there for at least a month, more if you can stand it. Why? The next time you read it, after those months have passed, you will read it more as a reader and not as the author. I guarantee that straight away you will spot things that don’t work, lots of aspects that you missed in that mad chaos of actually writing the thing.
In particular look for:
· Characters and their character arcs
The best stories connect with us because we care about the character and there are real stakes for them, emotional as well as physical. I always think about what my character superficially wants (for example, she wants to sleep better) but also what she needs (to be less emotionally cut off from the world). The character may not even realise they need those things but those needs are actually what power the story and give it some emotional heft.
Plot is great. I write commercial fiction so twists and turns and all that jazz is important to me. But it is the character we often remember long after we’ve forgotten what that smart plot twist was.
· Pacing
This is vital. Very often, writers have a cracking opening and this momentum pushes the story into being but then in the middle it all gets a bit flabby before events pick up at the end for the finale. Beware a flabby middle! Consider each chapter. What is its purpose? If it isn’t moving the story along a bit or revealing something about character (however small) then, for me, it gets cut. Brutal, I know. It gets cut even if it is some of the best writing I have ever done. Gone. Pacing is key. That doesn’t mean a dizzying series of events have to happen all the time though – no, pacing is about the balance of those big showy scenes and the quieter ones.
· The end
Very often, most of the thought has gone into the beginning because you know that this is what an agent will ask to see. It is likely you have polished those first three chapters until they shine. They are beautiful diamonds, glinting with all of the promise of your story-telling prowess. And then that story must come to an end. That ending is the last thing your reader will read before they go off and review or recommend your book so the taste it leaves in their mouth is vital. There has to be a sense of satisfying conclusion to the work. Now this doesn’t mean that it has to have a happy ending but it does mean that loose ends have to be tied up, those twists and turns have to be explained properly and have to make sense and, for me, there has to be some sort of emotional weight to it too. Great, the hero finds the legendary lost shoelace of the God TripMeUp and saves the world but what readers will care more about is whether he also saved his dodgy relationship with his father in the process. Emotion.
Finally, get someone else to read your book before you send it out. Don’t pick a member of your family or a close friend – they will just say how amazing it is you’ve written a book and ask if it is going to be made into a film. No. Pick someone who is prepared to give you the hard news: the stuff that needs work. Value those people.
These books explain the various theories and psychology behind really good stories better than I ever could:
· Screenwriting Tricks for Authors (and Screenwriters!): STEALING HOLLYWOOD: Story Structure Secrets for Writing Your BEST Book by Alexandra Sokoloff
· Save The Cat by Blake Snyder
· Into The Woods by John Yorke
· The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr