Who comes first the Writer or the Editor?

Writing a book to get to the position of hoping it is a manuscript, the final draft. Is one thing. Re-reading it is the hardest task. Your effort plain to see. Is it good enough? Will an agent like it or bin it? Would a reader laugh out loud? How clumsy and unpolished is it?

These are the hardest questions. They question your very purpose, your faith in what you are doing, your ambition, your reason. At first, I hated re-reading I was always unsure and often made changes I had to undo because I was reacting too quickly before acknowledging the import and purpose of that text to the narrative. I have got better at re-reading and editing. It isn’t such a chore and the polishing of the script. Removing typos, clumsy phrasing, repeated words or phrases, syntax and spelling corrections all make the reading easier. I can see some of my errors now and have got better at removing elements that do not add anything. The redundant words on the page that delay the reader’s understanding or dilute it.

I remember listening to another writer who said they hated drafting their manuscript, that was the hardest and least inspiring part of being a writer – for me it’s the opposite. She enjoyed the editing, the refining and moulding of the story to find its meaning. I view the editing as a necessary task but one I am more comfortable with now. I also now regret some of the earlier submissions I made and I am more confident (without grounds so far) of what I now offer in a submission.

Part of the dilemma is when should you stop editing? If the manuscript is picked up by an agent and a publisher they will edit from a far more authoritative position and with practised professionalism, probably viewing authors as ‘bloody amateurs’.

I think for me part of the problem is that writing is like playing a piece of your own music. It is always interpreted, changed and varied. It isn’t a fixed article like a photograph, it is an evolving understanding of its possibilities, the techniques required and improved to play better or to express it differently. I can see that ownership and understanding of my writing improving with each edit but when to stop? So what comes first the Writing or the Editing?

Carry On, carrying On

After another rejection from an agent I was a little more hopeful for – she had been the agent for a writer I had referenced in my pitch letter – I have had to do a little soul searching. All the advice says expect rejection and keep going until someone recognises what you offer and wants to represent you.

However, the reality of rejection is not pleasant. The self-doubt and sense of inadequacy. It’s like one of those childhood moments when some other children you thought might be friends because you are in the same class, turn their back on you. Not fitting in, not being part of the clique, a sense of difference. This is the super strength of every writer for having the gall to actually believe they can write a book and then do so. You ‘put your head above the parapet’ when you submit work and welcome the world’s volley of ‘slingshots and arrows’. The sort of situation that most people spend much of their life avoiding rather than inviting.

I have now submitted to about fifty literary agencies since October and I am still working my way through the lists. I have re-edited the manuscript fully, three times and added a final chapter ending that I realised was missing after using the passage as the opening for the next volume but recognised it belonged to the timeline and story I thought I had completed. I am not in complete despair though. I have a logical genie sitting on my shoulder telling me: ‘This was to be expected and it may well be their loss not yours. If it’s not right for them, it’s not right for you’.

There are many more agents to submit to and I have more story to tell. My focus, and that of the genie, is don’t worry about it and carry on with what you started these are little bumps in the road not terminating disasters. The more you do the more you can do. Carry on carrying on.

Rejection

The unavoidable aspect of submitting (10,000 words/first 3 chapters/50 pages and the variations therein of different literary agents and whether they want a synopsis to be one page/full synopsis/chapter by chapter and how much personal information they want, if any) is the, so far, inevitable rejection, short polite and unhelpful.

It sees to be that the agents are more interested in marketing and trend. No definitive evidence for this opinion but looking at the books being promoted by Bloomsbury or Waterstones there is a preponderance of women writers and modern settings exploring daily experiences. I sit at the other end of the spectrum from this trend and the ‘romantasy’ trend both aimed principally at female readers. Another trend, heavily promoted and typically ‘ghost written’, is the celebrity autobiographies after that cookbooks and other self-help volumes on any and every topic!

It feels like an uphill struggle on a rarely travelled path – trying to reach the agent who can see the potential and audience for my writing. I have picked an unfamiliar niche with the Romano-British setting at the time the Roman Empire abandons Brittania and withdraws what little resources and administration still remains leaving the British to fend for themselves against the increasing incursions from the Scotties of Hibernia (Ireland) on South West and Welsh coasts, the Picts and other warring tribes in the North and from the near continent in the East and South East.

It’s a fascinating period with increasing archaeological evidence that it wasn’t a ‘dark age’ but that life continued arguably with little difference to the day to day lives of the majority of people in the same way that changes of Government make little if any marginal difference to most people today. I’m telling the story of how Brittania responded to the challenges before the ‘English’ (Brythonic Celtic for’ foreigner’ or ‘stranger’) arrived and then the impact they had and what has become identified as

‘The Age of Arthur’ during their expansion and colonisation of much of Britain.

It’s a good read!