Informed persons tell me literary agents and editors have learned to dread the first week of December. Why?
Many NaNoWriMo (November is National Novel Writing Month) newbies, flush with the endorphin high of finishing large blocks of text, immediately send out queries for those miraculous manuscripts. Or the entire manuscript, depending on the market and whether the author has read its guidelines.
Often whole manuscripts are sent without editing. Some authors don’t know *how* to edit. The latter part of this post is for them.
Some authors are certain their words are golden, perfect, and need no refining touches.
Most of those untouched novels will get bounced at the query stage. They can make up a substantial portion of the queries annually received by some agencies.
Christian literary agent Steve Laube hosts an explanation of the very basics of what an agency hopes to see, or to avoid.
Some literary agencies will receive over 20,000 queries in a year. 10,000 is not uncommon. An average agency reader (agent, assistant, intern, or admin) may spend thirty seconds skimming a query letter. A minute or less to read the first five pages. They’re looking for reasons to reject, because their time is always balanced more in favor of existing clients. That still adds up to a huge time sink. Read agents’ social media posts. You’ll see how thrilled they are when they see something really special.
Because it is special to have written a book in a small amount of time. To have written a book, period. But writing is just the first stage of work. 99% of the time, a rough draft isn’t even ready to be critiqued or queried, much less published. Especially when it’s from a new writer.
Unguided editing* is not easy for most writers, even housebroken ones. Some of us are masochistic enough to sink into the process, wailing and bitching all the way, because we know the payoff will be a better manuscript. And there is something seductive in ripping through a story in one brutal pass, balancing our first inspiration with readability. Or in multiple revision stages carefully polishing the manuscript toward a close approximation of ‘good’.
Poet John Davis Jr. offers some thoughts on what to edit, what to keep, and how to tell the difference. Prose and poetry are not too far apart, in this way.
* Getting a publisher and professional editor on board is no less difficult, but at least you can compromise on an editing roadmap.
Obsessive editing is as dangerous a time-waster as obsessive worldbuilding. I’m guilty of both. I grind down and add on to a story until sometimes it’s not the same story, and I’ll look up and realize it’s been fifteen years since I started the damn thing. (I am getting better, really.)
To provide slightly saner ways to approach editing in the real world, here are links to three great posts from published authors.
Holly Lisle is a force to be reckoned with in fantasy fiction, but she’s equally known for her writing how-to articles. This is a solid one on her approach to editing.
Becky Black is a M/M romance author with a lot of acclaimed novels under her belt. She has her own take on editing.
Veronica Roth is the author of the DIVERGENT series. Her how-to approach to three-day editing is worth learning.
Not only do these approaches help authors edit a manuscript’s mechanical details like grammar, sentence structure, and spelling, they can reveal flaws and fixes to fundamental plot points. They can help an author build effective query hooks and loglines. They can teach tips to use in plotting the next novel.
They can help keep a query or a manuscript out of the rejected pile.