I need a stern talking to and some solid advice

[GoldfishParade]

Hello writers, I could really do with your advice on how to proceed.

I'm working with my agent on polishing up my first novel. I really trust his eye, he's a complete pro and is really well respected in the industry. However, my confidence has taken a total battering.

He started by doing a structural edit, so I went away and rewrote the story slightly for a more satisfying denouement and added pace. I think the novel was vastly improved by his suggestions.

Then he wanted to move on to a line edit (he's really hands on). It took him quite a while to get back to me, which I totally get, what with lockdown and everything - although it did unsettle me. He sent me a first chunk that he had line edited, and we agreed I'd go back over that chunk.

Last week I sent back my new and improved version of that - except he seems underwhelmed by what I turned in. That was quite upsetting, as I felt pretty happy with it.

Now we've agreed that I will go back over the entire MS polishing it up some more and get it back to him next week.

A few things are happening here, I think. First of all, because I'm so nervous about it, I feel like I'm actually making it WORSE in parts. For example with this first chunk, I changed the first paragraph and it wasn't as good as the original.

The other thing is that to be completely honest, I think I had it easy. What happened was that I wrote the novel, started approaching agents with it, and got three offers quickly. I know this makes me sound really ungrateful, because others have experienced a much harder slog of it. But I think this actually turned out to be a bad thing, in the long run. It gave me a false impression of smoothness.

Now I feel like the novel is shit. I feel like an imposter, and I don't know how to edit myself. I'm sick of the story, I feel frustrated about it, and I feel like it's not going to sell and I'll have self-sabotaged my opportunity. If I'm sounding melodramatic - that's because I am. I'm being pathetic. I just hadn't realised that editing would be much harder than writing.

I also think I have been lazy in my editing up until now. Yes, I've edited it. But I haven't been as wholehearted about it as I could have been - for whatever reason.

Tomorrow I'm printing the entire thing out, and will have to go through it with a red pen. I need to get some distance from it and try and look at it as if it weren't my own. But how do I do that? Can anybody share their experience of editing? I've heard the old 'put it away in a drawer and come back to it with fresh eyes' thing, but that's not going to help here. It was put away for a good few months during lockdown.

I really need to edit the shit out of this - this week. Can anyone reassure me that it's normal to feel this way? I feel like I'm a crap writer who wrote a shit book, if he's having to do this much work with me. Other times, I think I'm being ridiculous. Is it normal to feel like an imposter? Unworthy somehow? I always had confidence in my writing before this.

The sad thing is I have the first draft of my second book almost finished, and the style is so much more polished. I wish I could inject that into this first one, but for some reason... I can't.

Any thoughts would be welcome xxx

If you got 3 offers of representation that easily, there much be something pretty good about your novel. Even if this representation comes to nothing, then you can hold your head up and know you can write very well.

If you got three offers straight away, that's a great sign!

I wasn't aware that agents did line editing. Development editing, sure, but not line - that would come later, after the agent has found you a publishing deal and your book is being published.

Have you ever been edited before? I can imagine it can come as a shock. (I'm an editor. I work a lot with indie authors.)

Do you feel your agent improved your text?

You might want to buy a copy of Self-editing for Fiction Writers - that's helpful.

Also take a look at Emma Darwin's That Itch of Writing blog - she has fabulous blogs for authors covering all aspects of writing and editing.

Change the font before you print it to look completely unfamiliar.

Now I feel like the novel is shit. I feel like an imposter, and I don't know how to edit myself. I'm sick of the story, I feel frustrated about it, and I feel like it's not going to sell and I'll have self-sabotaged my opportunity. If I'm sounding melodramatic - that's because I am. I'm being pathetic. I just hadn't realised that editing would be much harder than writing.

You're not being pathetic or melodramatic. This would absolutely piss me off too! I'm another poster who had no idea agents did line editing.

But let me just say you're not an imposter. I battle against this constantly (if you'd like evidence of that check out my novel in a week thread where people told me I couldn't write
😁). This is something you'll probably struggle with constantly, even with a glowing 5 star review average on a book and a fat bank balance. The important thing is to recognise it, realise you're not alone, and constantly remind yourself of how far you have come.

I want you to grab a notebook (or a folder on your laptop) and start a Kick Ass File. Call it whatever you want. Then take a note of those dates where THREE agents were interested and put it in there to get it started, paste the emails or just note the dates. And you're going to keep adding to it whenever you achieve something. A positive review. A gushing facebook message from a reader. A new personal best rank on Amazon or whatever. I have a screenshot of one of my books outselling Twilight on the Midnight Sun release weekend, and a picture of my face above Neil Gaiman on the Amazon bestselling authors chart 😁 book covers, pasted reviews, best word count days etc. You’re starting something that you can look over whenever you start feeling like an imposter, and remind yourself that you CAN do this, and you DESERVE every bit of success that’s coming to you.

I feel like it's not going to sell and I'll have self-sabotaged my opportunity.

Disclaimer: Most of this forum disagrees with me on this but I’m beyond the point of caring, sticking with this attitude is how I stay as productive as I am and I know many, many successful authors who think this way (though a lot don’t admit it publicly). If your book doesn’t sell, you analyse what went wrong, fix it, and write another book. If you’ve sabotaged this opportunity then you look for the next opportunity. I genuinely believe the average earnings for published authors is so pitiful because too many people are caught up in the “my book is a special snowflake that must be perfectly polished art” mindset. You are telling stories for money. Simple as that. People like to pretend otherwise and that's fine, but often those same people are the ones bitchin' that their book isn't selling. Go figure.

Did you hold on to your first primary school drawing and slave over it for a year, constantly erasing and re-doing it again and again until it was “perfect”? No, because you’d end up with a big grey splodgy mess, unable to see where the good lines are. You do the next drawing. And the next one. Learning every time. Practicing every time. Rinse and repeat. So why are people so stuck on the snooty attitude that writing is any different than drawing or painting or composing music? Every other form of creativity needs to be practiced. Rewriting the same bunch of words six different ways is not practice, it's probably just killing your voice and making a mess (as you pointed out in your post).

I’m absolutely not trying to tell you to give up on this book, merely trying to get the point across that you are creating something out of thin air spinning non-existent straw into gold and there will ALWAYS be more thin air and more non-existent straw. So take the pressure off. It doesn't have to be "perfect". This isn’t your last book and it’s not your last opportunity either.

And if it makes you feel any better, the books I've thought were my worst actually sold the best.

I also think I have been lazy in my editing up until now. Yes, I've edited it. But I haven't been as wholehearted about it as I could have been - for whatever reason.

Perhaps not the best person to give advice because I don’t edit, other than for typos (so basically a proofread), but I can recommend the Margie Lawson EDITS system which is eye opening. I’d never do this on a whole book because it’s sickeningly intense, but it’s great to do on a chapter or two and is helping me to write better the first time around. It involves using highlighter colours to section off your writing so you can better analyse it.

E = Emotion -- Pink – Visceral Responses only

D = Dialogue Blue What’s said out loud

I = Internalizations Yellow Thoughts, Narrative, Exposition

T = Tension/Conflict Orange is tracked in the margins

S = Setting/Description – Green -- setting, character description

(Excuse the fucked up formatting, I copied and pasted that from her lecture).

The lecture packet can be found on her website for £17 (Margie Lawson Academy). She advises some pre-requisites before taking it (I highly recommend those too, she was a psychologist who helps authors write better character actions and visceral responses) but if you’re already writing at a level where you’re getting three agents interested then maybe you could just jump right in with that one.

Hope some of that helps! 😊

+1 to everything themental said.

Wow this thread is really helpful for me too, I’m anxiously waiting for revisions from my agent and getting very nervous. Try not to panic Goldfish it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and to have those responses you must be really good at what you do. themental thank you for your advice, I will be following all of it!

Dear everybody,
Thank you so much for all your advice, and especially @themental. I read your novel in a week thread, and found it fascinating. I also really loved the extract you posted from your book. I've bookmarked your thread and will be going back to read it again, as it's something that could interest me. You have a very personable way about you - thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response.

I managed to turn a corner. I suddenly saw exactly what my agent had been trying to tell me. Once I got started with my editing, I was able to get into the zone and it all started coming quite naturally. Clearly I just had a bit of an ego wobble, thank you for seeing me through that!

There are a few agents who are very hands on, and do line editing as a way of being able to present publishers with an 'almost finished product', thereby hopefully increasing your chances of selling it.

I'll keep you updated on what happens next! I had no idea that writing the book would be the easy part. I have spent longer editing this book than I did writing it, but as I work through these edits, I realise that I am still a 'writer in training'. This has been an insanely useful learning experience for me, I'm almost seeing it as a kind of apprenticeship. For my next book, I plan on trying to self-edit a little more as I go, to avoid having to get the chainsaw out like this at the end.